a holiday in gyeong ju

deery-lou.

last friday when i arrived at taekwondo there were only two other students there. no sign of the class before or the instructors. the two kids were playing soccer in the dojang so i sat back and watched. the music teacher who shares a space with the taekwondo school came in and motioned for me to follow her. she brought us into her class where a bunch of little girls were sitting around a table eating watermelon. she offered me some but i declined. she kept speaking to me in korean but i had no clue as to what she was saying. all i could understand was kwanjangnim. eventually she made a phone call to the kwanjangnim and then the two students lead me outside. apparently the class was training outside by the stage for saturday's performance. so there i stood in my taekwondo uniform watching them in the middle of an apartment complex. i definitely got alot of stares to say the least. at one point in the evening i was surrounded by a bunch of children asking me all sorts of questions. "you like pizza?", "how old are you?", "what's your name?", "how are you?", etc. there was one boy who kept running around pointing to everyone saying "he's crazy". apparently the word "crazy" is the one english word that all children know. i suggested that we play hide and seek but none of them listened. they'd much rather stand around me asking their questions. it kind of felt like being a circus freak. i think this lasted about 10 minutes or so. it felt like forever. finally one of the kids from my class told me that the sabomnim wanting to talk to me. he told me that there wasn't going to be any class tonight afterall because of the practice. he told me to come by tomorrow to watch but i told him i'd be in busan. on my way home i checked the time. it was 9:40. the time when my class usually ends. they had me stand around the whole class time. one would have thought they'd have told me there was no class once i got there. oh, well thats korean logic [kl] for you.

we left our apartment around 6:30am on saturday. we needed to young by 8:20 to catch the train to busan. the 5 hour trip was pretty uneventful. there were no ajummas to feed us. we did cause a bit of a problem by being in the wrong seats. koreans don't really like change. in busan we took a bus to the beach. we were going to meet some friends of young's there. the beach was pretty nice. nothing spectacular. it reminded me of daytona beach sans the wire fences that go into the water. not really sure why there are there. again mark it up to kl. we walked along the beach for awhile until young's friends showed up. her friends took us to yongkung temple. a temple that's nestled among the rocks near the sea. so far its been the most amazing temple i've seen yet. i really liked it because it was centered around the zodiac. they had all the animals represtented as you walked down the path. the day was quite windy to say the least. it was so nice to breathe in the fresh sea air. it kind of felt like walking around the beaches in sf. i saw about a million different buddhas: big ones, small ones, stone ones, stuffed ones ect. everywhere you looked there were tiny shrines with little buddhas. after leaving the temple we went off to get some food. everyone wanted sashimi. not really i big fish eater i was hoping there might be something else like shellfish that i could eat. NOPE! it became ethan's fear factor dinner. we had all these various side dishes to start off with and let me just say i DID try everything. here are some of the things we had:

1. boiled shrimp with the heads still on
2. peas still in there shell
3. bean sprouts
4. seaweed
5. some kind of pink thing that looked like cut up tongue and was moving
6. live octopus
7. sea squirt
8. snail
9. sea cucumber that looked slimey but was crunchy like grisselle
10. sea scallops
11. jellied acorn
12. shredded cabbage
13. eel

after the sidedishes were done they brought out a giant and i mean giant plate of raaw fish. anyone who knows me can imagine how i felt. i must say though that i did eat my fair share. to be honest it was all quite good not to fishy either. although there was this one kind of fish that was a little crunchy. i only had one piece of that. when we finished the giant plate of fish was finished the waitress brought out fish head soup. there's nothing like have a bowl of soup with a fish head in it. the soup was very spicy and a bit fishy for me. i only had a little. overall the meal was quite excellent and i think i'm actually starting to enjoy raw fish. i mean afterall i did eat sea cucumber, a pink tongue, and a sea squirt [whatever that is]. we also had this plum liquor that was very good. at 10:30 we caught the bus to gyeong ju which was standing room only. let's just say i got very close to the old lady behind us. at the toll booth there were too many people in the bus so we had to drop some off make a u-turn and go back through and pick them up. crazy. thankfully horace was kind enough to share his i-pod with me. otherwise i think i would have gone crazy. we arrived in gyeong ju around mid-night caught a cab and went to sa rang chae, the korean guest house we were staying at. when we arrived there was a little fire going in the center courtyard. we got some tea and chilled out. the room horace and i stayed in was quite tiny. it bascially had a table and bunk beds. we had to use the communal bathroom and shower. there was definitely alot of sandals on and off this weekend.

sleeping in on sunday was definitley out of the question. the paper doors and window of our room was not sound proof. we spent most of the day in the downtown vicinity checking out the sights. gyeong ju is the place that has a lot of ancient ruins. all dated back to the silla dynasty. its definitely cool to see. here are some of the things i saw on sunday:

1. daereungwon tomb park
2. hwangnam-daechong [twin tombs]
3. king michu's tomb
4. cheonmachong, where you can see inside the tomb
5. drawing of a flying horse [shows high status]
6. many artifacts
7. anapji pond
8. seokbinggo ice storage
9. cheomseongdae observatory [its the oldest observatory]
10. some people shooting bows and arrows
11. a horse drawn wagon
12. a tandem bike
13. blow-up bunnies
14. bulguksa temple
15. cheongungyo and baekungyo bridge
16. haetalgyo bridge
17. seokgatap pagoda
18. dabotap pagoda
19. daewoonjeon hall
20. geukrakjeon hall
21. someone playing a flute
22. sarira stupa
23. seokguram grotto
24. many, many buddhas
25. three-storied stone pagoda
26. tons of people

we had to rush through the seokguram grotto because by the time we got to the top it was 5:45 pm and the shuttle bus left at 6:20. there was a line to see the buddha that was encased in glass. and once you go through its over in seconds. its definitely worth seeing and i'm glad we did. its was amazing to see it built into the side of the mountain. from there we basically had to run down the mountain. which wouldn't have been too bad had i worn sneakers. i don't even have to tell you guys what i was wearing. i'm sure you all know. when we reached the shuttle bus it was completely full. some people were still trying to squeeze one. three girls got out and somehow six more people fit on. i'll let you all do the math on that. so we made it. YEAH!!! i actually stood in the doorway of the bus. thats how packed it was. the shuttle bus ended up taking us downtown where we walked back to the guesthouse. which is like a maze because there are all these alley ways. kind of like chinatown in sf. young asked some kid which way and he pointed us in the right direction. that night we got some beers and hung out in the courtyard with some other guests. we meant this french couple who we spend most of the night talking too. it was quite relaxing especially after the busy day of sightseeing.

monday we spent the day hiking mt. nangsam. and yes i had my big shoes on which was quite interesting especially since there were lots of steep rock steps to climb. all the koreans i passed along the way were laughing. honestly i can't really blame them. i would have laughed too seeing some white dude try to climb in platforms. during our hike we saw more tombs and lots of different buddhas. we climbed to the where the temple was which was amazing. i seem to be using that word alot but oh well. the view of the valley from their was breathe taking. very peaceful and serene. along our journey some korean girls wanted their picture taken with horace and i. i felt like such a celebrity. after our climb we grabbed some lunch which was so good. we had noodles, tofu and kimchi, and a seafood pancake. one of the best meals i've had. the tofu and kimchi was excellent. we then caught a bus back to the downtown area and headed back to sa rang chae. on our way home we stopped and got some traditional gyeong ju bread which was like a thin preztel shell filled with beans. very tastey. we spent the next couple of hours hanging out in the courtyard talking to the french couple, sander [an austrailia boy of 3], his mom, and the owner. sander was so cute. he wanted to make a salad with the leaves he found. around 5:30 we said our goodbyes and headed off for the bus station. our bus left gyeong ju around 6:30 and arrived in seoul a little before 11. the trip on the bus was pretty uneventful. we did stop once where i got a corndog. so good. it had pieces of potato in the breading. yummy. then it was time to jump on the subway and head home. it was a pretty great weekend. i feel like i only saw a portion of gyeong ju and busan. i'd definitely go back. and if i go back to gyeong ju would stay at sa rang chae again. it was definitely a relaxing place to be. that pretty much says it all. i'm sure i missed a few things. its hard trying to remember everything one did and also hope not to bore others with the details. anyway i look forward to visiting there again and seeing what new things i can find. until then…

be well…