Buddhist Temples

I have had a lovely weekend. The fun started on Saturday night when 2 of the girls had a house party to celebrate my and another girl's birthday. Yay for extended birthday celebrations!!

On Sunday, an English friend and I hiked up Gyeyang Mountain....nothing out of the ordinary in itself, but it offered some fun stories.

Story 1: Point and Click...No Problem (?)

Upon arriving at the top of Gyeyang, I asked (rather, mimed to) a Korean man to take our photograph. After much hand motioning and shuffling about due to the position of the sun, we were in place. He then squinted at the camera for a bit, thought he took the picture, but didn't. I ran up and back. We stood there for a bit, then repeated above. We began to get a bit of a kick out of this (you all know how subdued my laugh is). This, combined with my jogging back and forth and the chuckling of his buddies, began to attract quite a crowd of bemused onlookers. They stood back, grinned, and constantly urged us to stand closer together. This particularly amused me. "No, no! Chingu, chingu (friend, friend)!" My friend managed to snap a picture of the drama. You can even see the lady on the right motioning us closer together:
Funny! In any case, he did eventually manage to shoot us with my camera:


Story 2: More Mental Respite

After picking our way down what was more of a dusty landslide than a path (oops...my fault), we came to the bottom, where we happened upon a park and a Buddhist temple. The men standing outside were gracious and motioned that we were welcome to look around, which we did, although we did not go inside. I despise looking/acting/feeling like an obnoxious/uneducated tourist, particularly when I am the only westerner around, but my desire for photos of this enchanting place was too great, and we both snapped away. There were few people around, and I reasoned that next time I return, I won't be taking pictures.

Here is my first shot:

When I first arrived in Korea, I was unaware that the symbol you see above is Buddhist. I was continually caught off-guard, thinking, "Why are there swastikas everywhere?"

This little hut housed a giant bell right beside the temple:
The golden paint doesn't really show up in these photos, but it really is golden and shiny, not just yellow. The temple walls were paneled with squares about a foot in length and height detailed like so:
Hundreds of years ago, the Korean language used Chinese symbols for writing instead of the hangul alphabet that is used today. Thus, Chinese symbols often adorn the old temples:
More ornamentation:


This charming fellow and his buddy kept watch over the main doorway upstairs:

And now we come to my all-time favourite photo of the day. The doors were covered with tiny wooden painted flowers, which made it look solid. But when we walked up close, we saw that the spaces in-between the flowers were little windows. We pressed our faces up to the tiny spaces (can anyone say children at a candy shop?), and what we saw was breathtaking: a room walled floor to ceiling with tiny golden statues (I assume Buddhas? I don't know). In the centre there were large golden statues surrounded by plates of fruit and sacks of rice (offerings I'm guessing). Then along came a monk to light some candles, and I managed to take this photo:

Marvelous, no?

After we had finished gawking and being awe-inspired, we continued back along the base of the mountain, toward where we had begun our ascent...and came upon another temple!
The monk we saw in the courtyard was so friendly, even though he didn't speak English. This time we asked (again, mimed) if we could enter, and were graciously welcomed inside (those glass doors on the first level). We left our shoes, coats, and of course, cameras at the entry and walked down a small hallway. We then entered the room with the Buddhas. This room was smaller than the first temple's Buddha room, but it was still really cool. We sat on mats, and I got to see 3 people enter to say their prayers.

It was beautiful, and a wonderful way to start off my week. Best of all, it's really close-by, so I can visit whenever I want.

St. Francis of Assisi

This image accompanied an e-birthday card from a friend. As he said, and I agree, it is likely we can all appreciate the words of the Peace Prayer of St. Francis, whether or not we be religious. If you would like to read about the saint, you may do so here. Here is an excerpt from the prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is discord, harmony;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, truth;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

Picnic

Well I'm bored out of my tree at the moment, and although I can think of many things I could be doing (such as cleaning this paper-strewn apartment)...I can't think of any that I want to do (isn't that always the way?). Thus, writing to you, dear unseen reader, whether you like it or not, will be my entertainment for a few moments.

Soooo...I will tell you what we did on Sunday. We went for an exceedingly loooooong subway ride to Seoul Land, an amusement park. Since the metro is where we spent most of the day, here are some pics:


Our goal was simply to have a picnic and sit in the sun, play guitar (listen to guitar for me), play frisbee, etc. As you can see from the above pic, it was warm and sunny...until we reached our destination. Doh. We did end up having our picnic though, despite some gooseflesh:
The food was amazing...provided by one of the teacher's students as a gift...all Korean and delicious! However, we got the funniest looks! We couldn't figure it out. This WAS a picnic table (not like we were sitting on the pirate ship ride eating or something)...but every single Korean that passed us stared and stared! It was pretty funny. Do Koreans not do picnics? Or perhaps just not in February? Maybe it was a combo of the above with the fact that we were all westerners and eating Korean food. Who knows. It was good anyway.

If I do anything interesting this weekend, I'll let you know. :D

Oh Canada...

My home and snowy land!

For those of you not in Canada at the moment, I thought you would enjoy these pictures of my family enjoying the crazy weather back home! Who says canoes are only for summer?? This is in their back yard. Thanks to Mom and Dad for sending along the pics!

A 28-Year-Old Wave Hello

Even if it says Feb 19th on the blog, it's February 20th here...2 am to be exact...that means 2 hours into my birthday! YAY! This is how I look right now...enjoying my birthday already!
Technology is amazing eh? Have a happy, happy day folks!! OXOX

Happy Lunar New Year!

I forgot to mention that this is a long weekend...Lunar New Year! (Also called Chinese New Year back home). Everyone and their dog jumped into their cars and sat in traffic jams for at least 2 days to go visit their grandparents in the country. It's made driving on main highways impossible, particularly near Seoul, but made my city a bit of a ghost town. Everything shut down, which is really strange here where nothing normally closes early (some restaurants stay open all night) and the lights stay on nearly all the time. This morning I was wandering about in search of an open restaurant or food store of any kind and bumped into a fellow westerner doing the same...we were pretty much the only people on the sidewalk. Neither of us had much in our apartments by the way of food, being so accustomed as we are to eating out around here. Funny!

Oh, and this is the year of the Golden Pig (or Golden Boar if you want to sound a bit more refined). As soon as you arrive in Korea, you notice hundreds of these exceedingly tacky golden plastic piggy banks for sale on every street corner: (Disclaimer: I borrowed this image from the Internet somewheres...it's not mine)
Apparently this year of the Golden Pig comes about only once every six centuries and is thought to bring about good luck and prosperity.

So, Happy New Year from Asia!

My Saturday.

My Saturday started off with me planning to be on the subway at 11am and me waking up at 11:15am. Oops.

It was my first time taking the subway myself, and thanks to some great directions from a friend, I didn't get lost...which is a good thing, because it took much longer than I had anticipated and I was 40 minutes late meeting the cute couple you see pictured below...friends from New Brunswick, yay!
We met up in Insadong, which is a charming section of Seoul that has many tiny shops selling traditional Korean goods and knick knacks. Below we have a couple of pictures of people making dok...a pasta-like substance made from compressed rice. Dok is used for many dishes here and I really like it. On it's own it's thick and chewy and doesn't have a lot of flavour. However, sugary sauces or coatings are added to make various desserts and spicy sauces and other ingredients are added to make other dishes (like the dokpokki I posted about awhile ago). I nearly choked on it once though, because it's so thick. Here's a man doing what I'd imagine to be stage one of making dok. He had just finished pounding rice with that giant hammer you see on the left:
And here is another vendor making and selling sweet dok:
After gabbing for hours at Starbucks (I know, I know, not so traditionally Korean, eh?), and browsing the various shops we happened upon these fellows playing the happiest, bompy-bomp music ever. I think they were Russian:
And here I am with a chestnut vendor (in Canada we sing about eating them, in Korea they actually eat them). You can buy them already cooked or raw. They are so good...quite potato-like. She was shy about getting her picture taken, but I convinced her by being in the picture myself:

Then we got on the subway and parted ways. A lovely visit!

After returning home for a bit more sleep, I went to Bar Nana (a very cool, trendy nightclub) in Itaewon with some girlfriends. I did not take any of the following pictures, as I didn't have my camera on me. Thanks to the chickie who emailed them to me! Bar Nana was having a fundraiser for a skateboard park in Uganda. From their website:

The Uganda Skateboard Union is setting out to combat idleness and boredom among the youth of Uganda by providing a new, positive, and fun outlet for them. This outlet is skateboarding.

First up we had this Rastafarian DJ who pumped out some groovy tunes. I loved his hair:
For awhile he accompanied this dude who could really sing:
Some of the girlies I came with did back-up bongos from across the room:

Next up we had a band called "We Need Surgery:"
Good times:
Chilling:

A great Saturday!

Bukhansan National Park

Sunday afternoon found me and some lovely friends in Bukhansan National Park in Seoul. Yes, in Seoul. Korea has tons of mountains, both inside and outside the cities. It was a grand experience, as is just about any expedition involving nature. I didn't mind the many other hikers, but here's a hint folks: if you can't do without the jabber and blabber of a radio station for a few hours while you take a walk in the woods, that's your business. Take your headphones for heaven's sake! Don't subject the rest of us to your aural clutter. Oh, and it's highly unlikely that you will meet up with a bear...so please leave your bear bell at home. Thank you. Luckily I didn't have to hike behind any of the aforementioned noisemakers...I would've gone nuts for sure and been able to think only of biffing the charming bells and tiny radios off of the next boulder. As it was, I thoroughly enjoyed the hike and the company.

I digress. Here's a glimpse of the mountain we are about to climb:
Apparently National Parks here do not have the same regulations about restaurants/shops as they do back home. Here you see the trail actually going through a little maze of eateries:
Koreans are very fond of the makeshift dining room:
Anyone need any snacks to take along for the hike?
And here we have two yet-to-be-discovered Sears catalog models:
These totem-like wooden statues had chinese characters on the bases that you can't really make out in this picture. Aforementioned Sears model suggested they read,"Death to all who enter."
The crew. Aren't they cute!
Anyone want to hazard a guess as to which way we should take?
Found this way-cool wall along the way:
After scrambling up a slippery, scary rock-face, we were treated to some amazing views. In the background you can see the wall that is pictured above:

Snack time. Here I am pictured with a fellow Maritimer. I guess we not only populate Western Canada, but also the foreign teacher community in Korea!
We didn't get to see any of the Buddhist temples that were on the peaks (we'd had enough of risking our skin on the boulders). But close to the bottom, we did find one little temple. I love these statues...they seem so serene:
The inside:
And can you get any more adorable than this sweet little chap selling hot tea near the base?
Did we work up enough of an appetite to get some grubs-to-go? We thought not...
...and opted instead for this restaurant before departing...
...where we had "Korean Pizza." Korean pizza is kind of like a gooey pancake with a strange mix of vegetables and squid on top. Mine did not have squid on it (after hiking I didn't feel like being adventurous and eating tentacles). It was pretty good. In Korea, it seems to be about a 50/50 split between restaurants where you sit at tables, and those where you sit on the floor:Later that night, I got some kimbap from the little restaurant downstairs. It is delicious! It looks like sushi, but no raw fish is involved. Mine had veggies, ham, crab, and mayonnaise in the middle. Yum!