Bulguksa Temple

The other major site we saw in Gyeongju was Bulguksa Temple, one of the most famous temples in South Korea. I gotta be honest; I'm not into temples. The architecture is nice, but other than that I have no interest, being irreligious and unspiritual as I am. There were quite a lot of people at the temple, though. It's quite the hot spot, especially for Buddhists.
I didn't go into any of the buildings, but I looked in. I almost went into one, but when I saw that people were just bowing to Buddha in there, I decided against it. I also almost got knocked off the landing, too, because you had to go up a flight of stairs to get inside, and the landing in front, where you remove your shoes, is quite narrow. Pushing people around in crowds is not considered rude in this country, so it was quite dangerous for me to linger there to try and put my stupid shoes back on.

According to the admission ticket (4000 won, about four dollars), the Bulguksa temple we erected in the 15th year of King BeopHeung of Sinra some 15 centuries ago, and later rebuilt by Prime Minister DaeSong on a much larger scale. In the 16th century, Daeungjon, Geukrakjeon, and Jahamun (people I've never heard of) were saved from war fire by the Rev. Damhwa (another person I've never heard of) and his disciples. The restoration for the other burnt wooden buildings was competed in December 1972 after three years of construction.

Here are some pictures of the temple, which is comprised of several pagodas, columns, and other decorative structures on a walled in compound:

This seems to be the main building. Kate says the stairs are in her history book.




This is also in Kate's history book. I'm not in the history book, though. Yet.


You can see the narrow landing on this pagoda. Now imagine a staircase twice as high and add thirty people to the platform, with me tottering on the edge, one foot barely in a shoe, one shoe in my hand.


You can see Buddha carved into the column. What you can't see are hundreds of other images carved into it, some quite detailed.


Top of a column.

The ceiling was quite intricate, and here are a nice fish and a gong hanging from above. Kate said the fish is a drum. Neato.

Gyeongju

Gyeongju is said to be the museum without walls. There are a lot of things to do there for tourists and natives. My secondary boss, Ming-gyu (I'm guessing on the spelling, here), brought me and one of the other teachers, as well as my boss' daughter Kate and her friend Tana there last Sunday. Going on field trips with Ming-gyu is a funny experience because he's a very scatter brained and strange guy. He takes the most direct route to wherever we go, but takes the nonscenic scenic route on the way back, and it takes twice as long. He also does things like point to something and then walk in the other direction, which confuses us.

At Gyeongju, we went to an expo park to enjoy the cherry blossoms, which are fast on their way out. I was getting worried about not getting any pictures of them, since I noticed that most of the blossoms in Ulsan are gone. We went along a walk beside a lake. There were a lot of people. Ming-gyu bought a bag of these things that Koreans like to snack on. They're like saucer-size flat rice cakes. They're mostly air, and mostly tasteless, but not too bad.

Here are the beautiful cherry blossoms, the pride of Asia. Ming-gyu made a deal with Kate that for every blossom she caught falling from a tree, he would give her 100 won, about a dime. I don't think she caught very many, though. It's kind of hard.




The lake we were walking by had all these swan boats floating around. Too bad we didn't go on one. The problem with going on field trips with Ming-gyu is that neither he nor the kids have the attention span to actually stay and enjoy the places we see.



The path we walked on opened up into this big courtyard, where Korean kids were practicing bad driving on little four-wheelers. Ming-gyu said this is exactly what driving in China is like. Although the pictures makes it look like there weren't very many cars, it was quite crowded and scary trying to cross through this area. I almost got hit a couple times.





This is me in front of a fountain they had spouting out of the lake. It reminded me of the Pitzer fountain. There's one like it in one of the ponds at Ulsan Grand Park.





We also went to the Korea National Museum in Gyeongju. This model of a village was the only thing I felt worthy of a picture. The rest of it was typical anthropological stuff--weapons, pottery, and jewelry mostly. The museum cost only a buck to get in, and it was worth every won.


I didn't think to take a picture of it, but I feel the need to mention my lunch. We stopped at a typical Korean restaurant, and I ordered something called "Dragon and Phoenix Soup." Ming-gyu explained part of the Korean name as vegetables and rice, but that describes all Korean dishes. I was curious to see what kind of soup alleged to contain not one but two mythical creatures, so I ordered it. IT WAS A PILE OF LEAVES. A large pile. I think Ming-gyu knew what it was, but I don't think that he realized that Americans think of vegetables as more hearty vegetables like carrots, broccoli, and green beans, as opposed to lettuce, cabbage, and grape leaves (and other stuff I didn't recognize).

I was so pissed. Not only was there no meat of any sort, which was not necessary but expected, but it wasn't even soup. I eventually got some soup (with leaves in it) because Ming-gyu requested it, but I was sorely disappointed with my meal. You're supposed to take a leaf and add rice and parts of the perfunctory side dishes onto it, and wrap it up into a ball to eat. Leaves, even with stuff in them, are not very filling. Neither is leaf soup. I had to eat again when I got home.