Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Masks, Summits, and Industrial Staples
We went on an awesome hike this weekend in Bukhansan Park. You might remember that a few weeks ago we hiked in the same park. This place is huge...tons of trails and summits...a great playground for us!
This particular hike led us through the forest, along lantern lined paths (see picture below), and then to a final rocky and steep section which required use of the iron rails that were provided to pull yourself up (very fun!). The view from the top was amazing...a 360 degrees, top of the world feeling.
After our trek out, all four of us were STARVING, as we definitely did not pack enough food to energize the entire trip. We decided to stop at a little road-side restaurant (they have them leading up to all of the mountains here...very smart!) and grab a bite to eat. Sam saw one that served a chicken/potato/veggie soup with rice that we love, so we headed in and took our seat. This soup is cool because it cooks on a burner on the table in front of you. It smelled delicious, looked delicious, tasted delicious, so we heartily dug in. A few minutes later, David stopped chewing, got a weird look on his face, and pulled a large industrial staple out of his mouth. The prongs were not folded over...they stuck straight out like a little death trap. We have no idea how that thing got into our soup...craziness. Luckily he felt it before swallowing! After that, we were more cautious with each bite, but still enjoyed the delicious Korean cooking.
Here are a few pictures from the day:
This is on the subway. The spring season brings with it dust that blows over from the Gobi dessert in China/Mongolia. Supposedly horrible for the lungs. Saturday was a high risk day, so we had every intention of wearing our masks (like the locals), but it was just too hot for hiking!
Some of the trails were lined with these little lanterns...as we neared a temple or a hermitage. We're not sure why they're up, but they're everywhere, and definitely add a nice, festive feeling (we think it might be for Buddha's birthday, but don't quote us on that!).
This is nearing the end of our hike...right before the super steep part to the summit. The rock formations were unreal...looked like they had just been stacked into huge piles.
Here are the helpful rails...difficult to do with a heavy backpack on, but really fun!
A few from the peak in one direction.
Seoul is behind us, but again is a little hazy (we think because of the Gobi dessert dust)
Here's Sam with the view in another direction from the peak...that was the rock peak that was beside ours (we'll do that one next time ;0). Cool rocks, eh!
This picture was taken by a funny little drunk man. That's his finger in the top, left corner. It was hilarious because at first he was pointing the camera at himself and trying to look backwards through the view-place (can't think of the technical term). He was pretty shaky and wobbly and unsteady, and I was afraid he was going to drop the camera. But hey, the picture turned out pretty good anyways!
Most mountains have a temple at the bottom of them. This one was all decked out with the lanterns...very pretty colors!
Here's another one of the decorated temple buildings.
This particular hike led us through the forest, along lantern lined paths (see picture below), and then to a final rocky and steep section which required use of the iron rails that were provided to pull yourself up (very fun!). The view from the top was amazing...a 360 degrees, top of the world feeling.
After our trek out, all four of us were STARVING, as we definitely did not pack enough food to energize the entire trip. We decided to stop at a little road-side restaurant (they have them leading up to all of the mountains here...very smart!) and grab a bite to eat. Sam saw one that served a chicken/potato/veggie soup with rice that we love, so we headed in and took our seat. This soup is cool because it cooks on a burner on the table in front of you. It smelled delicious, looked delicious, tasted delicious, so we heartily dug in. A few minutes later, David stopped chewing, got a weird look on his face, and pulled a large industrial staple out of his mouth. The prongs were not folded over...they stuck straight out like a little death trap. We have no idea how that thing got into our soup...craziness. Luckily he felt it before swallowing! After that, we were more cautious with each bite, but still enjoyed the delicious Korean cooking.
Here are a few pictures from the day:
This is on the subway. The spring season brings with it dust that blows over from the Gobi dessert in China/Mongolia. Supposedly horrible for the lungs. Saturday was a high risk day, so we had every intention of wearing our masks (like the locals), but it was just too hot for hiking!
Some of the trails were lined with these little lanterns...as we neared a temple or a hermitage. We're not sure why they're up, but they're everywhere, and definitely add a nice, festive feeling (we think it might be for Buddha's birthday, but don't quote us on that!).
This is nearing the end of our hike...right before the super steep part to the summit. The rock formations were unreal...looked like they had just been stacked into huge piles.
Here are the helpful rails...difficult to do with a heavy backpack on, but really fun!
A few from the peak in one direction.
Seoul is behind us, but again is a little hazy (we think because of the Gobi dessert dust)
Here's Sam with the view in another direction from the peak...that was the rock peak that was beside ours (we'll do that one next time ;0). Cool rocks, eh!
This picture was taken by a funny little drunk man. That's his finger in the top, left corner. It was hilarious because at first he was pointing the camera at himself and trying to look backwards through the view-place (can't think of the technical term). He was pretty shaky and wobbly and unsteady, and I was afraid he was going to drop the camera. But hey, the picture turned out pretty good anyways!
Most mountains have a temple at the bottom of them. This one was all decked out with the lanterns...very pretty colors!
Here's another one of the decorated temple buildings.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Paddle Boating & Gelato
This past weekend we had the opportunity to spend some time at Yeouido Park. Yeouido Park is on an island in the middle of the Han River...a big island...with lots of the city on it, too. We met up with David and Jerra and decided to explore the park area a little. It was an extremely crowded day! Because it was so nice outside, EVERYONE wanted to be at Yeouido Park...bike riders, roller bladers, soccer players, walkers, runner, S-boarders (see picture below)...and paddle-boaters!
That's right...we were fortunate enough to stumble across a place that rented swan, whale, and ugly duckling paddle boats. Of course, I wanted the ugly duckling one, but when our turn came up, we were shown to one of the beautiful (and life-like) swans :0)
Here's the thing: paddle boats are cool, but if you just paddle around like normal people, they lose their coolness after 4.5 minutes. So, we decided to turn our swan into a bumper paddle boat...much more risky and enjoyable! The funny thing is that none of the other paddle-boaters knew the "bumper" thing was our planned idea. Every time we "accidentally" rammed into someone, we'd bow our heads and say "sorry, sorry, sorry", give an apologetic smile, and then paddle away. Good times. After awhile we decided to push our paddle boating experience even more to the limit and exit the buoyed area into the unknowns of the Han River. Don't worry, we didn't get very far before our Christian consciences made us turn around :0)
After our paddle boating, we walked around some more, and then headed to find some dinner and dessert...Italian gelato, anyone? That's right, we found an excellent gelato store in one of the buildings on the island...a little spendy, but tasty delicious!
Enjoy the pictures!
David, Jerra, and Sam in front of a humongous Korean flag.
We found some beautiful blossoms during our park exploration time.
Here I am learning how to s-board from one of the superstar s-boarding kids. He rolled by and Jerra yelled out, "Can we try?". Surprisingly, he understood us, and let us each have a turn. He was even a trooper and let us use his shoulders as support so we didn't fall...nice kid (oh, and s-boarding is harder then it looks...you would have needed the support shoulders too!).
One of the beautiful and well-planned gardens we saw.
Here's the view from inside our paddle-boat. Jerra and I had a free-ride, while the guys did all the hard paddle work. Target spotted, straight ahead!
This picture was taken after we "accidentally" crossed the buoyed area into un-charted waters.
Just wanted you to see how crowded it was that day!
That's right...we were fortunate enough to stumble across a place that rented swan, whale, and ugly duckling paddle boats. Of course, I wanted the ugly duckling one, but when our turn came up, we were shown to one of the beautiful (and life-like) swans :0)
Here's the thing: paddle boats are cool, but if you just paddle around like normal people, they lose their coolness after 4.5 minutes. So, we decided to turn our swan into a bumper paddle boat...much more risky and enjoyable! The funny thing is that none of the other paddle-boaters knew the "bumper" thing was our planned idea. Every time we "accidentally" rammed into someone, we'd bow our heads and say "sorry, sorry, sorry", give an apologetic smile, and then paddle away. Good times. After awhile we decided to push our paddle boating experience even more to the limit and exit the buoyed area into the unknowns of the Han River. Don't worry, we didn't get very far before our Christian consciences made us turn around :0)
After our paddle boating, we walked around some more, and then headed to find some dinner and dessert...Italian gelato, anyone? That's right, we found an excellent gelato store in one of the buildings on the island...a little spendy, but tasty delicious!
Enjoy the pictures!
David, Jerra, and Sam in front of a humongous Korean flag.
We found some beautiful blossoms during our park exploration time.
Here I am learning how to s-board from one of the superstar s-boarding kids. He rolled by and Jerra yelled out, "Can we try?". Surprisingly, he understood us, and let us each have a turn. He was even a trooper and let us use his shoulders as support so we didn't fall...nice kid (oh, and s-boarding is harder then it looks...you would have needed the support shoulders too!).
One of the beautiful and well-planned gardens we saw.
Here's the view from inside our paddle-boat. Jerra and I had a free-ride, while the guys did all the hard paddle work. Target spotted, straight ahead!
This picture was taken after we "accidentally" crossed the buoyed area into un-charted waters.
Just wanted you to see how crowded it was that day!Sunday, April 08, 2007
Bomunsa Temple
This weekend Sam and I joined our friends, David and Jerra, for a trip to Bomunsa Temple. The cool thing was that this temple was located on an island off of the north-west coast of South Korea, which means that we got to take a short ferry ride over to our destination.
Funny thing about Korea...it seems like everyone loves seagulls! Most people on our boat had bought a bag of shrimp chips with the sole purpose of feeding them to the "flying rats", as I so fondly refer to them. Our boat was surrounded by swirling and squawking in something that resembled a very scary scene from the movie "Birds". After about 2 minutes, I got used to the fact that the birds were there. That's when Mr. Man about 2 feet from where I was standing decided to snatch one of the birds out of the sky. Seriously, the bird came in for a shrimp chip and found himself clutched in the hands of a man who was far too interested in this feathery friend. The bird freaked out, pooped everywhere, bit the man (who didn't let go), and then proceeded to bite his own wing (I have no idea what that was about...a scheme to make Mr. Man release him?) Very bizarre. I remember growing up with warnings like, "don't touch the seagull, it's dirty...chase those birds away...don't feed them, they're scavengers", etc. Obviously, people do not feel the same way here!
Back to the temple: it was a neat place to visit. We took a bus from the ferry terminal to the temple site and then spent a couple hours exploring the grounds there. There was a Buddhist carving up on the mountain that we read was an important spiritual place for Buddhists. A monk and some women were chanting and doing their prayer beads in front of it. We also saw some cool buildings and a neat stone dragon, and got reprimanded by a monk for sitting on the ground (I guess it's not allowed...we had no idea and felt pretty bad...oops!). We managed to make it back to the ferry in time for one of the last runs back to the mainland, and then headed to Ilsan, where David and Jerra were gracious enough to put us up for the night so we didn't have to trek back to Osan. All in all, a great Saturday!
Mr. Man with his captured bird...crazy!
Here's Sam and I on the ferry ride...this doesn't give the best picture of how thick the birds were...seriously, mentally add 20 more birds to this picture and that's what it felt like.
Sam in front of the temple bell pavillion. This is actually a pretty popular pose here. We see lots of kids doing it...I think it makes Sam look dashing and distinguishe!
This is the Buddhist carving at the top of the mountain. Oh, and another popular pose :0)
These are our friends, David and Jerra. This is the rock path that led to the Buddhist image.
We hadn't seen a cool stone dragon like this one at any of the other temples so far. Pretty neat.
This rock was in front of one of the worship rooms. I think that people must bring small Buddha statues and leave them here as an offering. There was a rock ledge behind this circle rock that had tons more on it.
Funny thing about Korea...it seems like everyone loves seagulls! Most people on our boat had bought a bag of shrimp chips with the sole purpose of feeding them to the "flying rats", as I so fondly refer to them. Our boat was surrounded by swirling and squawking in something that resembled a very scary scene from the movie "Birds". After about 2 minutes, I got used to the fact that the birds were there. That's when Mr. Man about 2 feet from where I was standing decided to snatch one of the birds out of the sky. Seriously, the bird came in for a shrimp chip and found himself clutched in the hands of a man who was far too interested in this feathery friend. The bird freaked out, pooped everywhere, bit the man (who didn't let go), and then proceeded to bite his own wing (I have no idea what that was about...a scheme to make Mr. Man release him?) Very bizarre. I remember growing up with warnings like, "don't touch the seagull, it's dirty...chase those birds away...don't feed them, they're scavengers", etc. Obviously, people do not feel the same way here!
Back to the temple: it was a neat place to visit. We took a bus from the ferry terminal to the temple site and then spent a couple hours exploring the grounds there. There was a Buddhist carving up on the mountain that we read was an important spiritual place for Buddhists. A monk and some women were chanting and doing their prayer beads in front of it. We also saw some cool buildings and a neat stone dragon, and got reprimanded by a monk for sitting on the ground (I guess it's not allowed...we had no idea and felt pretty bad...oops!). We managed to make it back to the ferry in time for one of the last runs back to the mainland, and then headed to Ilsan, where David and Jerra were gracious enough to put us up for the night so we didn't have to trek back to Osan. All in all, a great Saturday!
Mr. Man with his captured bird...crazy!
Here's Sam and I on the ferry ride...this doesn't give the best picture of how thick the birds were...seriously, mentally add 20 more birds to this picture and that's what it felt like.
Sam in front of the temple bell pavillion. This is actually a pretty popular pose here. We see lots of kids doing it...I think it makes Sam look dashing and distinguishe!
This is the Buddhist carving at the top of the mountain. Oh, and another popular pose :0)
These are our friends, David and Jerra. This is the rock path that led to the Buddhist image.
We hadn't seen a cool stone dragon like this one at any of the other temples so far. Pretty neat.
This rock was in front of one of the worship rooms. I think that people must bring small Buddha statues and leave them here as an offering. There was a rock ledge behind this circle rock that had tons more on it.The Blossoms are Here!!
Spring is definitely a beautiful season in South Korea. The blossoms are just starting to come out in full force, and they are breath-taking. We've seen a few different types of blossoms in Osan and Seoul. Here are some pictures I took today as Sam and I walked from church to Costco. We didn't need groceries, just wanted the $1 icecream deal, and figured that an hour of walking in the sun wasn't too bad of a trade-off for the delicious treat :0) Enjoy the pictures.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Changdeokgung
This Saturday Lailani (the new teacher at our school), Sam, and I headed into Seoul for a tour of Changdeok Palace. This palace is different then the others in that it can only be visited on a tour. We signed up for the English speaking tour, since we figured we'd learn the most that way!
The palace was beautiful. Originally built in the early 1400's, burnt down by the Japanese (just like everything else) in the late 1500's, and rebuilt in the early 1600's. The palace was built as an "alternative home" in case the main palace that the royal family lived in was destroyed...which it was...thank you Japan! It was interesting, because we were told that members of the Joseon dynasty family actually lived in parts of this palace until 1989. Crazy, eh!
The grounds were beautiful, as you'll be able to see from the pictures.
This is me in front of the main gate enterance.
This is Sam and I in front of Injeongjeon Hall. This building was a throne room, used for official ceremonies. You can see that the road leading up to the building is tiered. The top tier (where we're standing) was the road for royalty. The right side was for civil officials, and the left side was for military officials.
This building served as the Queen's day chambers (men and women were kept separate during the day because of the Confucian influence at the time), and the royal couple's night chambers (they were allowed to be together at night so that the Korean race did not simply die out). The Chinese symbols above the entrance say "Chamber for Creating Great Things" (or something close to that). As you've probably figured out, the "great thing" they were trying to create was an heir for the throne. No pressure, though!
As you can see from the blossoms behind us, spring has semi-sprung! Some of the trees are just starting to get their blossoms...beautiful, beautiful!
This is Sam standing in the "Secret Garden"...named that because only the royal family was allowed to come to this area...giving it a feeling of mystery for the rest of us common folk. It was supposed to be a place of peace and relaxation. In June this pond is supposedly full of lotus blossoms, which will be worth a trip back to see.
And here we are in front of the pavillion that looks out onto the lotus blossom pond.
The palace was beautiful. Originally built in the early 1400's, burnt down by the Japanese (just like everything else) in the late 1500's, and rebuilt in the early 1600's. The palace was built as an "alternative home" in case the main palace that the royal family lived in was destroyed...which it was...thank you Japan! It was interesting, because we were told that members of the Joseon dynasty family actually lived in parts of this palace until 1989. Crazy, eh!
The grounds were beautiful, as you'll be able to see from the pictures.
This is me in front of the main gate enterance.
This is Sam and I in front of Injeongjeon Hall. This building was a throne room, used for official ceremonies. You can see that the road leading up to the building is tiered. The top tier (where we're standing) was the road for royalty. The right side was for civil officials, and the left side was for military officials.
This building served as the Queen's day chambers (men and women were kept separate during the day because of the Confucian influence at the time), and the royal couple's night chambers (they were allowed to be together at night so that the Korean race did not simply die out). The Chinese symbols above the entrance say "Chamber for Creating Great Things" (or something close to that). As you've probably figured out, the "great thing" they were trying to create was an heir for the throne. No pressure, though!
As you can see from the blossoms behind us, spring has semi-sprung! Some of the trees are just starting to get their blossoms...beautiful, beautiful!
This is Sam standing in the "Secret Garden"...named that because only the royal family was allowed to come to this area...giving it a feeling of mystery for the rest of us common folk. It was supposed to be a place of peace and relaxation. In June this pond is supposedly full of lotus blossoms, which will be worth a trip back to see.
And here we are in front of the pavillion that looks out onto the lotus blossom pond.
