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.

COEX Aquarium

The COEX Aquarium was another place we saw in Seoul, and another difficult place to find, because it's stuck at the bottom of a mall. And this is not just a shopping mall. It's also a mall with massive complexes and walkways outside. The shopping mall is underground. So we walked around above ground for a few minutes, looking at confusing maps, then finally found the right entrance to go under, and walk like a mile through the place to get to the aquarium.

It takes only about an hour to get through, which is good, since we got there an hour before closing. Seoul Tower took up most of the day, unfortunately. We also thought that the place closed at nine, but apparently my guidebook is outdated in that aspect, and it really closes at eight. Booo-urns.



So basically, you just walk through and look at a bunch of tanks with fish. Since the website has an English version, I was kind of under the impression that the display signs would be in English, too, but no. So we didn't learn anything. Some of the signs had the names of the fish in English, but not all.

There is also Amazon Land in there, which involves bats, monkeys, turtles, lizards (no snakes, though), and more nonfish. Other nonfish we saw include playful sea otters (one was pregnant) and a beaver.



It's hard to see the monkeys, but they're there.



It's hard to see the alligator, but he's there.



Sharks. I also enjoy the reflection of the exit sign in the glass.



Don't mind me, I'm just sleeping with the little sharks.


At the end, there's this. I think it's for kids, but whatever. Tooth in the eye.

Seoul, the Hotel, and Seoul Tower

I went to Seoul last weekend. Seoul is about 200 miles away, which means a bus ride of 4 or 4 1/2 hours, or a 5-6 hour train ride, depending on the train. The KTX, the superfast train, doesn't run from Ulsan to Seoul, I guess.

I went with this boy I met, who is in the Air Force, stationed an hour outside Seoul. His mother has a timeshare with Marriott, and gets massive amounts of hotel points, so we were able to stay at the five-star Seoul Renaissance Hotel for free. That was cool. The hotel is very much like a western style hotel, except I think the rooms are smaller than you would expect for such an expensive place.

The hotel was actually fairly a point of interest on the trip, because of the subtle differences. For example, we weren't sure if, it being a western style hotel, the maids expected a tip. We tried leaving one the first night, but she didn't take it, so I guess not. And the fitness center provides workout suitswith the hotel logo on them for everyone who goes there. Haha.

The pool was a strange experience, too, sort of. It was pretty shallow. It was 1.3m at the shallow end, and 1.5m at the deep end, which allows me to stand flat footed, and still keep my nose above water. The pool was also filled to the brim, as with competition pools. There was no hot tub. There was a sauna, but you have to pay for it. Because of the gender segregated sauna, and possibly also for other cultural reasons, men and women have to enter the pool area through separate entrances. Guests have to sign in to the pool and/or sauna, and they get a key that goes to two lockers in a locker room. The first is for shoes, which you have to take off right away in the sign-in lobby, and the second locker is for clothing and personal items.

Once outside the hotel, I found Seoul to be quite large. We were in the southeastern part of the city, and just to get to the center of Seoul takes about 45 minutes of subway rides from there. There are so many cars and taxis that even the surface streets are four and five lanes wide (on each side). There are also many, many tiny streets, one or two lanes wide, with lots of businesses all along them, and people thronging through, walking in the middle of the road. And lots of skyscrapers.

We went to Seoul Tower, which is nothing but a tourist attraction. We took the subway to Seoul Station, which is near the tower, had Pizza Hut for lunch (the lemonade was carbonated), and then ended up wandering around for over an hour, trying to find the path that went up to the tower, which is on a big hill. When we eventually got on a bus and took it to the main entrance, I was so tired, I was surprised I was able to make it up to the tower. It took like a half hour to climb up the windy road. At the top, we got some ice cream. There is a big courtyard, where a jazz band was playing, and people were sitting and walking around. There is also a "Teddy Bear Museum," which is actually a teddy bear gift shop. Not sure what the connection is. Plus food stands abound.

This is me about a half hour before we finally found the trail up there. See how far away it is? The little guy I'm holding is Flat Stanley. Pictures with Flat Stanley are for a project I'm helping my young 4th cousin back in Indiana with.




The top of Seoul tower is the proper observation deck. The windows all name large cities and how far away they are from the tower, and each city is on the window that faces in its direction. There's nothing to do at the top floor except look. There are coin-operated binoculars, but I didn't bother to use them.

This is me looking like me from the observation deck.



The second floor from the top has a gift shop, a cafe, and the bathrooms, which they actually talk about in the brochure as being wicked awesome. The bathrooms have the same windows as in the observation deck, so you can still see the city from there. I'm told that the men's room has clear urinals against the window, so you can pee into the city. Very funny. The sinks are translucent blue bowls. Pretty cool, I guess. I wasn't allowed to put toilet paper in the toilet, though. It had to go in the trash can in the stall. The bathroom didn't smell like pee, though, so I guess I don't mind doing that.

The third floor down has a restaurant, which we didn't go to , because it was like three in the afternoon. You can get a ticket with a dinner option to eat there. Below the restaurant is just an elevator shaft, basically. At the bottom, inside, are a cafe, some video projections, a lot of chairs, and I think a couple arcade games. For the kiddies.

We took a tram down the mountain afterward, which would have been really cool, except they pretended the tram was a phone booth and we were all drunk college students.