Korean Pop Music (K-Pop)

I know you all are just dying to know what sort of music is popular in Korea. Well, let me tell you, they sure love Justin Timberlake and Beyonce. However, home brewed Korean pop music is similar but definitely more bubble gum like.

The song that I will forever remember of my Fall in Korea will be this song:

The name of the group is called Big Bang, the name is in Konglish, which means the Korean letters spell out what it sounds like in English. So Big Bang looks like 빅뱅. The name of the song is called "Lies." The group is a bunch Korean high school students who are definitely NOT in their school uniforms.

For the first 3 months this song was EVERYWHERE! You'd walk by a music store and this song was playing, you'd walk by a Cell phone store, this song was playing, walk by a bakery, this song was playing, it didn't matter where you were at this song would be playing!

So this song has now been replaced by a group of High School girls called "The Wonder Girls" (원더걸) <-Konglish. The name of their song is called "Tell Me" (텔미) which is also in Konglish.

What is becoming rather popular is the parody videos of the cheesy "Tell Me" video. I rather like the High School guys dancing to this song. Enjoy!

Nov. 17 - Golgulsa (골굴사) Temple Stay

Now for what you all have been waiting for, my entry about the Buddhist temple stay!

Korea offers you many opportunities to try your hand at Buddhist life. If you are interested at all in the experience, which honestly, I would recommend even though in all honesty, I would probably not do this again. Not because the experience was bad, it's just that I'm not cut out for waking up at 4 am every morning and I mean EVERY morning. So if you are in Korea give it a try! More information can be found at the Temple Stay website.

The website is very informative, it will tell you if the Temple has people who speaks English and what their main focus is on. I chose Golgul Temple because they spoke English and it was near Gyongju. The other girls joined me primarily because this band of monks are known as the Marital Arts Monks. Golgul Temple is the Headquarters for Sunmudo in Korea.

Here's a little video clip of the Head Buddhist Monk and a couple of Monks doings some moves in the background.

After you watch it for a while, it looks like Yoga Martial Arts and it's just amazing how they can go from one position to another.

Yet, I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. First, we had to GET to the temple. Since there was 6 of us, there was no way we could all fit into one taxi, so we had to take 2 taxis. One group had a map and other one didn't. Unfortunately for the group with the map (my group) we had some miscommunication and ended up going to the wrong Buddhist site! So we were freaking out considering we had no way of contacting the other group and didn't know if they were at the right place or not, plus we were LATE to check-in. So after I called my Korean Buddy, Ji-Hye, and got the phone number to the place and also had her explain to the taxi driver that we wanted to go to the Temple. When we arrived, we were told that the first group had arrived about 20 minutes of so before us, so we were really comforted by that, 'cuz I was really worried about them.

Once we arrived, we were given this orange vests that we were told to wear everywhere. Here's a group picture of us in our lovely vests with a couple of Buddhists and monks. This was right before dinner around 6 pm and see how DARK it was!

We were given our room keys and we told to come back up that horrible steep hill in about 20 minutes to have dinner. We changed into our workout clothes and headed to dinner.

I gotta say the Budda dog was just too cute and I don't know how she did it, but I don't have a single picture of her looking in the direction of the camera, she's always looking away. She also attended 4:30 prayers and wasn't all that helpful with her LOUD snoring.

Anyway, we had dinner, which was basically rice, soup and vegetables, Hanna was loving it. ;o) We then made our way to the Sunmudo Training building, where we watched a video about Sunmudo and then did some more meditations and then stretching and then the actual training.

There was a lot of other people there who apparently were there to train in just Sunmudo. Our instructor was actually from France and his Korean was actually better than his English. LOL He seemed a bit frustrated that we weren't picking up on some of the "simple" movements. Let me tell you, I am really not use to being in a squat type position for very long and making your left arm move in one direction while getting your right arm to go in a totally opposite direction isn't as easy as it sounds. Afterward, we were treated to watching some highly advanced students practice their pretty awesome moves. One of the guys was from America, I don't know where the other guy was from, he was definitely a "Westerner."

Here's a picture of the little shrine area, where the head monk gave his speeches and also where we focused on during our meditations.

It was around 9 pm at this point and we were warned not to be late to 4:30 am prayer or you will have to do 3,000 bows. Yes, 3,000!! Bows aren't just the ones where you bend at the waist either, it's the kind where you start on your knees and get up and bow and then get back down on your knees to start the cycle again.

He even advised us to wake up around 3:30 am because it takes about 20 minutes to walk up the hill to the meditation center. O_O So we made our way back to our nice and warm rooms, but found out to our frustrations that we couldn't really fall asleep, knowing that we had to wake up so early. I think I finally fell asleep around 12:30.

So we grudgingly got up and make our way to the temple area in the pitch darkness and freezing cold, determined not to do the 3,000 bows.   We came in and sat in the back near the dog seating area. Men sit on the right and women sit on the left side of the room.  Then after 20 minutes of chanting (approx. 27 bows), we did about 40 minutes of sitting meditation with a loudly snoring dog sitting right behind us.

After waking up our hand chakras, our solar plexus chakra, and our third eye chakras, we got up and did a walking meditation. We walked in the darkness around 5 chakra hill (picture below) and then down to the stone pagota at the bottom of the 2nd hill.

Just so you guys don't think I'm such a whiny baby about all this walking, here is a picture of one of the hills that we had to walk up. Yes, it is that steep! I have no doubts that these monks have like amazing calf muscles!

So after we got to the bottom, we were told to head back to the dinning hall for our instructions on how to eat a traditional Buddhist meal. Basically get get this meal kit, which gives you 4 bowls. One Bowl is for the rice, one is for the soup, one for your sides, and one for the cleaning water. First step is to get water in the big bowl and you rinse that bowl, then you pour the water into your soup bowl and rinse the bowl, until you finally get to the last bowl, where it just stays. You aren't allowed to leave ANY food. So if you picked up something you don't like to eat or too much rice, too bad, you have to eat it ALL. Then you are suppose to be really conscious of your eating. So you can put the rice and veggies in your mouth but then you have to wait until you've completely chewed and swallowed your food before you getting and other spoonful. Nice concept, but we ended up being VERY last folks finished and everyone else was already GONE.

I think they were cheating, they weren't chewing completely before swallowing.  Then there is a specific way in which you cleaned the bowls, this again using that water you had first rinsed your bowls with and then using a piece of kimchi you are to wipe the bowls up and then eat that too. My rice was rather sticky so I had some problems getting all of it on there, and I couldn't quite figure out how to use the kimchi to clean up the bowls without getting the kimchi pepper all in the water or all over the bowl. Go figure.

They said we have basically 1.5 hours of free time and to be back up the mountain for tea with the head monk. The girls headed back to the room to sleep, but I stayed and took some pictures. There was no way that I was going to go down the hill only to spend 20 minutes walking back UP the hill again. So I got some pictures of the top of the mountain and of the special Buddha carving that the temple is also famous for.

So after snapping some photos and some video, I headed back down for tea. We had tea with one of the advanced Sunmudo fighters, until the head monk arrived.

Then we sat around drinking tea and asking some questions. It's sort of unfortunate that I'm in the presence of a great thinker and fighter but I'm unable to really come up with any questions to really ask him. I need to get a question to ask people, like "What do you think is the meaning of life?" So instead we asked about how many Monks are there at Golgulsa (5 monks, 2 monks in training, rest are fighters). Where did Sunmudo come from? From India, originally part of Buddhism but was lost along the way during history but has been "found" again. Why do you have to wake up at 4:30 am? 4 am is the best time in the day for meditation. In bigger temples, they actually have 3 am prayers to take advantage of the 4 am time period.

After our little tea time, we could go on a trip which cost 5,000 Won, go horseback riding, or tour the temple area. Seeing how I had 20,000 Won and wasn't sure how much the bus ride back into Gyeonju was, plus perhaps dinner, and the bus ticket back, I chose not to go on the trip. Instead, Angela (who was in the same boat as me) and I decided to go take pictures and then head back to the room for a nap. Hanna and Heini went horseback riding. Tea and Kukka went on the trip to the other temples.

Apparently, they went to the beach because I found this odd picture in the photos that we were sharing with each other. ;o) Anyway, it was so cold that it was so nice to be able to lie down on the really hot floor and just sleep. We left the door unlocked for Heini to come in, which she did shortly after us as she was FREEZING from horseback riding. So after a nice warm snooze we came back up the mountain for lunch. I'm not really sure why I have this disgusted look on my face, but here is the rest of us having our lunch before we left.

They invited us to stay for the 3 pm Sunmudo show, but we were all so sleepy and tired that we just wanted to head back to Daegu to sleep.

Again, I gotta say I really am very glad I did this temple stay, but I'm really not cut out for the 4 am thing. The experience certainly was something I am glad that I got to do and I could see how living such a simple life makes you think about everything and where you can actually think about each movement, something as simple as eating. I already think about everything and really have to wonder just how much or how little my life would change if I lived their simple life and thought even more. It's a little bit of a scary concept to me, for I think I would lose myself in the silence of thought.

More pictures here.

Gyong-ju (경주) Trip - Nov. 16, 2007

I know several of you are just dying for an update, so I figured I'd give you guys at least one entry. It took me forever to rename the photo files but it's done now. Just gotta write up the entry now to go with the pretty pictures. :o)

Now that I'm about 2 weeks off, let's see what I can do.

So on Friday, after Korean Language class, Hanna, Heini and I made our way to Gyeonju. We hopped the bus, which you have to admit 3,700 Won (~$3.70) is pretty cheap to drive an hour via bus. Shoot my taxi ride from one side of Daegu back to campus cost me 30,000 Won (~$30)!

So we made our way to the Traditional Korean Bed and Breakfast for the night. We stayed at a cute little place called Sa Rang Chae (사랑채). I most definitely recommend the place to everyone, unless you have a fear of cute friendly dogs, which to us, they really made the place. They were sooo cute!

We check in and the little one, followed us to make sure that our room was to our satisfaction. For after the little room inspection, he went away and never came by our room again. LOL

So after unpacking, we headed out to get something to eat. Heini was wanting some Samgibsa, which is basically BBQ Pork Belly. We walked along the strip and didn't see any restaurants that had the cooked meat dish, so we headed back to this one place we saw that sold Bulgogi, which is marinated Beef. Yummy! We especially liked the little "sandwiches" you could make with the lettuce leaves, rice and bulgogi. Yummy!

After eating, unfortunately the temperature was dropping, but I was determined to see some of the sites. We walked by Cheomseongdae, which was actually built during a Korean QUEEN's rein. Obviously before Confucianism got a hold of Korea...I was about to go on a rant about why I dislike Confucianism, but I stopped, aren't you happy? So, anyway, this is supposedly the oldest astronomical observatory in Asia. Which to me was rather surprising considering China, and also they built the observatory in a valley! That really didn't make much sense to me, but hey I am looking at this through 20th century eyes. Since the girls really were cold and wanted to keep moving, I just took a picture of the observatory from outside the gate. ;o)

Hanna was getting REALLY cold and wanted to go somewhere inside. So the Gyongju museum looked pretty close on the map and I knew that we could actually go inside and get some coffee or something like that to help warm us up. So we headed to the museum only to find out that it closes earlier in the winter and we missed the time by one hour. Doh!

They wanted to head back to the hotel, but seeing how we passed another site, I really wanted to take advantage of how close we were to the site. The girls relented and we went to Imhaejeon. Imhaejeon was part of a royal Silla Palace. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a really good shot, but I gotta say I rather like this effect. These two pavilions are next to a very large pond, which you can't really see in any of the photos that I took, but hey, it really is there. I wanted to get a photo but it was rather difficult for some reason.

As I was trying to get a decent shot, there was a group of young children who were walking around the place with lanterns, which I gotta say made of a slightly spooky look.

This particular palace was a sort of party palace for the Shilla Kings and Queens. This is where they greeted dignitaries and held banquets, showing off all the unusual birds and plants that they kept on the property.  The actual palace itself burned in one of the many fires they seem to constantly have.

Because it was so cold and Hanna seemed to be really affected, even after I gave her my polar fleece vest to wear, we took a taxi back to the hotel. I was just amazed how cold the Finns were, especially considering where they're from, but I guess they really adapt quickly to different climates. We grabbed some snacks at a local store and then went to the little lounge area in the B&B to have a little break.

While we were there, I met a Canadian Law Student and a guy from Malaysia. They were both wanting to go to Haeinsa and wanted to know if I've been there. Seeing how the trip was going to be 4 hours one way for them and they were pretty burnt out on temples, I suggested that they go to Andong instead and check out the Mask Dance Village. I told them if they got bored of the Village, they could at least tour the Soju plant or SOMETHING else, unlike Haeinsa. I wonder if they actually took me up on my suggestion?

Anyway, the girls were tired so they went off to the room and after talking with the guys for an hour, I headed back to the room. We were all pretty much exhausted and cold, so we just slept. Although after a while, the floor was so hot and the blanket was keeping that heat in that it was starting to become a bit like an oven for me. Hanna though, had somehow sleep crawled so that her body was directly touching the hot floor. Wild!

We must have been REALLY tired, because we didn't wake up until around 9:30 am. We had breakfast and then went to meet the other girls at the bus station. Where I met a Korean Jahova's Witness who was wondering if we'd like a tour of Gyeonju. Who know what sort of tour they would have given us!

The girls weren't on the bus, so we figured they must have missed the bus, so we waited the 30 minutes for the next bus to arrive. While waiting, we went upstairs to the coffee shop. Which looked like something out of a Eastern European spy movie. I should have taken a picture of the other side of the room, but the ash trays and lighters looked like something from the 1970's and the faux leather chairs. Yeah, it was definitely interesting, here a picture of Heini and you can see the faux leather chair.  Well, on the next bus, the girls were on it. Turns out the bus was full so they had to catch the next bus. They were starving and I had the map the B&B owner had written directions to a Buffet place that was 6,000 Won. Hanna was really wanting another sweater or something to keep her warm, so I suggested a path, which would lead us through a shopping area where they could find something, hopefully, and also get us closer to the food place. Unfortunately, Hanna couldn't find anything to wear that wasn't expensive, and we had some problems finding the place to eat. Turns out they moved, and we had some nice Korean High School boys, who enjoyed the fact they could speak English with us, and took us to the place to eat. See, not all teens are punks!

 So we all had our fill. Hanna was the happiest because they had so many vegetarian dishes that she could just eat as much as she wanted, and everyone else didn't have any difficulties finding anything to eat, so it was good for all. We then went looking for gloves and sweaters for an hour and then we headed to the Tomb park.

So if you all paid attention to a previous entry about Gyongju, you would remember that Gyeonju was the ancient capital of the Shilla Kingdom. Therefore there are a lot of Tombs in Gyongju. We went to Tumuli Park, which was filled with Tombs and also had two tombs that you could go inside. I thought there was only one tomb so we missed going inside the other tomb unfortunately.

Inside the tomb, you could see the various layers of earth and rock to form the tombs. The tomb itself is constructed out of wood, so I really have to wonder how it was able to withstand the pressure of all that rock and earth for so long. Inside, were some artifacts and the actual grave of the King. You could see the gold and jade crown, some of the clothing and some of the remains of the mystery King. No, I don't have pictures of inside the tomb, no photos were allowed. So here's a photo of two tombs.

Just walking around the park was really awesome. The leaves were absolutely beautiful. We asked this guy to take our picture, thinking we'd get one photo but he took our group photo and then took individual picture of us. Unfortunately, my picture, I'm closing my eyes. Blah!

After walking around the park, we had to catch a taxi to the Buddhist Temple Stay. Now that was a rather interesting trip to Golgulsa, which you all will have to wait until next time to read about. Muhahahaha...

MORE PICTURES CAN BE FOUND HERE.

Knot Art Class & CCAP

Well, you guys are really going to have to wait a while for the Buddhist temple stay pictures. We're looking at over 200 pictures that I have to rename and with my schedule, it ain't looking too good.

Figured at the very least I could show the pictures from Korean Knot Art class part 2 and some pictures from my 3rd CCAP, since there was only 10 pictures from those events.

So let's see, since the teacher remembered that I really wanted to know how to make the really complicated knots, she decided to do necklaces. However, because the knots are SO complicated, she just showed me like the next level of knot and how to make a new knot. I guess I would have to take knot class for at least 6 times before I would be shown how to do the dragonfly knot.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take an after picture of the necklaces. Oops, will try to get a picture from Angela and Hanna before I leave Korea. Guess which necklace I chose? Come on, just guess.

As you see, the two purple necklaces have a butterfly knot, the green necklace is a flower (forgot the name of the flower) knot and the blue one is the dragonfly knot. I chose the blue one for those guessing.

As I neglected to take pictures of us doing the various knots, here is a picture of some of the teacher's other work.

 I chose this one because this is a special reproduction that she made of a Korean Queen's accessory. She purchased the metal clasps and stuff from an antique market so I'm sure that they belonged to a woman in the upper Korean society. Each strand is a special braid and as you can see 3 is the magic number here. The three different colors and then three strands to the right and three strands to the left. It's all about balance and harmony. The 2nd metal piece has two real very old tiger's teeth (which only the queen was allowed to wear) and the one on the right is actually little metal ear picks (yeah, haven't figured out WHY that would be part of your fancy dress, but ok). It took her a VERY long time to make this.

So on the following Thursday, I went participated in CCAP with Jasmine. We talked about American Thanksgiving and unfortunately, our powerpoint wouldn't come up on their computer! But luckily, Jasmine had recommended we do some sort of activity so we had a little contest to have them draw a Turkey. Which, Korean does not actually have, so a lot of the students were making Roosters, which I found humorous. But, I corrected them and they went on their merry way. Shoot, should have taken a picture of some of their art work.

 Here's a picture of them working hard on drawing their Turkey's. :o) There were 58 middle school students in this class.

Afterward, the teacher asked me if I could help her out. She's having some sort of English camp on December 1st and really needed another person to help her out. Only thing I was going to do was study and do a little shopping that weekend, so I agreed to help her. I'm curious to see what it is that she wants me to help them with, she mentioned something about crafts...where's an Art Major when you need one? ;o)

More pictures HERE.

Heading to Seoul tomorrow for Turkey Day so won't be back until LATE Sunday. Later peeps!

My Schedule

I've been getting a lot of questions as to what my schedule is and when I'll be coming back, so I figured I'd go ahead and post what I've got going on.

November:
16-18: Gyeongu, Golgulsa Buddhist Temple Stay (will post pictures and things soon)
20: Ice Skating with my English Conversation Group
21: Korean Doll Making
22-25: Seoul (Visiting my friend Arlyn & Shopping)

December:
1: Teaching American Culture to a bunch of Korean Middle School Kids at their English Camp; International Office Party
3: Marketing Presentation
4: Korean History & Korean Culture Papers Due
10-14: Exams
14: Exchange Student Party
15: Head to Busan
21: Fly back to the US

Figure I'll be heading back to Bristol in January, can't tell you the date just yet because there are so many things up in the air right now.

Haeinsa (해인사)

Just to let you all know, my updates are probably going to get a bit sketchy. There is about 4 weeks left of school and I have A LOT of papers to write and traveling to do, so writing blog entries is going to be a bit low on my list.

So, let's see what's going on so far...Ok my head just exploded a bit, so I'm going to have to just write what the pictures are showing me.

The other day I went walking downtown Daegu looking for the electronics street, I realized this is actually what I've dubbed "Man Street." There was so many camping, military, electronics and hardware stores in one little area, it was a bit stunning.

This was just a side street next to what I've dubbed as "Teenager Street." Yeah, I was a bit surprised to see Paris Hilton promoting Fila, but then again, no I'm not.

So on to more interesting (at least for me) subject, Korean History!! My awesome English Conversation group accompanied me and Matt to Haeinsa. The ending -sa, actually means temple. So it would be redundant to say Haeinsa Temple, but I digress.

This time around Matt, joined us and we headed to the bus station with Amy and Rachel. Bruce and James were going to join us at the bus station. We grabbed some strong coffee (Amy & Rachel had partied the night before and had only 2 hours of sleep) and then bought our tickets to Haeinsa. Pretty easy bus schedule don't you think?

So on the bus, everyone snoozed a bit but spent a good amount of time watching Amy and Rachel sleep. I'm still not sure how they didn't wake each other up when they were banging heads with each other. ;o) hahaha

I gotta tell you, Korean buses, really, don't watch the bus drive drive. Just close your eyes and sleep. You *really* have to learn to trust that you'll get there alive.

So when we got off the bus, the first thing we did was find a place to eat. We had Bi-bim-bap that was really highly priced (for Korea anyway) at 6,000 Won, normally it's 2,000 Won. But hey, tourist area, what can you really expect? Then we made our way to Haeinsa. On our way there was a rather tattered building with a lot of stores inside. I thought the tree growing from the roof was rather interesting.

We then had a rather "easy" walk (shoot anything is EASY compared to Gatbawi!) to the Entrance of Haeinsa.

Isn't Amy a nut?! Talk about good timing. On our way to the 2nd gate, there was a special old tree that somehow Matt managed to climb inside.

So then we made it to the 2nd gate and I took a lot of pictures of all the freezes that I could see. I was told they are picture stories of Buddhist teachings. I'm hoping that I'll one day be able to read up on them.

Past the third gate was a Zen maze, that you walk as a meditation. So we were game and proceeded to walk around the maze. I found that putting your hand in prayer position made me feel a lot more centered and focused, especially with the little kids racing around the maze. See, Korean children are just like American children! As I was leading the way, I managed to get a couple of shots of everyone, except for Rachel, she seemed to be really good at avoiding my camera! Here's Bruce and Matt.

Then we went into the tourist information center, where we could take a really close look at two of the actual blocks of the Tripitaka Koreana (팔만 대장경).

Tripitaka means Buddhist scriptures, so think of them as pages of the Buddhist Bible. There are 81,340 wooden printing blocks craved for the 2nd time (the first set burned during the Mongolian invasion) in 1251. It took over 16 years for them to carve and preserve. They are carved by hand, BACKWARDS, in Classical Chinese. They were carved by Buddhist monks to invoke Buddha's protection, which was needed for the Mongol invasion (where it got burned) and the 2nd time for the Japanese Invasions.

Since there is no need to reinvent the wheel, here is some information from Wikipedia that was also told to me by my Korean History professor, Dr. Michael Finch.

Each block is made of birch wood from the southern islands of Korea and was treated to prevent the decay of the wood. They were soaked in sea water for three years, then cut, then boiled in salt water. Then, the blocks were placed in shade and exposed to the wind for three years at which point they would finally be ready to be carved. After each block was carved, it was covered in a poisonous lacquer to keep insects away and was framed with metal to prevent warping.

So I guess you better not lick it!

Here is another Tripitaka, the detail is amazing isn't it?!

So this is considered a world heritage artifact and due to it's importance, I just assumed that these blocks would be stored in something similar to Fort Knox. Imagine my surprise when I the storage buildings for them.

So after looking around for a bit and buying a couple of things. We made our way back to the bus station. I rather like this shot...

And took some pictures of some awesome coloring on the leaves.

And stopped to take a picture of a really BIG turtle monument.

 

Seriously, it is REALLY big. See...

 

We caught the next bus back to Daegu, where we pretty much slept the entire way back. Since we didn't have dinner, Matt and I figured everyone else would want to eat, but only James was interested in eating. Everyone else left. So the three of us found a little place to sit and eat and then promptly headed back to the dorm for a nice sleep.

On Monday, I went to Gyeonju after Korean Language class and went to Ji-Eun's Graduation Art Show. Here is Ji-Eun with her friend, Da-Hye, in front of Ji-Eun's two paintings.

Here are Da-Hye's paintings.

So afterward, we went out to lunch and then headed off to Busan. I got to watch a really good Korean movie with Ji-Eun and then headed back to Daegu in the morning. Unfortunately, I missed both of my classes on Tuesday, but it was worth it to see Ji-Eun's art show. :o)

More pictures are located here!

Happy Pepero (빼빼로) Day! (11/11)

On November 11 (11/11) Koreans celebrate Pepero Day, a.k.a. Single's Day. Which basically is an awesome marketing idea invented by the makers of the popular snack (Lotte). Pepero's are also known as Pocky Sticks, a chocolate-covered cookie stick.

 On this day, people buy boxes of Pepero to give to their lovers, teachers, classmates, coworkers, and pets. Think of it as type of Valentine's Day.

According to Wikipedia, the numerical date for November 11th (11/11) resembles four Pepero sticks and therefore that's the reason why it was chosen to be Pepero day.

I was also told by my Korean Language teacher that people give the snack to kids as good luck for making them grow tall. I guess I need to eat a lot of those, but I think I'll grow wider than I will taller if I eat tons of them! lol

So Happy Pepero (빼빼로) Day!!

Flower Art Class - Part Two

So on Wednesday, we had a class on flower art. This time we made earrings and bookmarks.

We started off with this little kitty.

And if you are as talented as the teacher, you might be able to come up with something like this:

So I worked on mine for a bit and while we were waiting for it to finish "cooking," we made bookmarks. I'm not too happy with the one on the left side but I'm rather pleased with the one on the right.

Here's the bookmarks that Kukka, Tea, Mr. Lee, and I made while where were waiting. We've got some pretty talented people, don't we?

Then finally our little kitties were done. Here are my two little kitties.

This was rather fun and pretty easy to do, all you have to have is a pretty steady hand and some creativity and off you go! The next class is knot art. I'm going to have to video tape the teacher doing the knots this time so I can get it right!

Anyway, pictures of this class and of Seomun Market can be found HERE.

Seomun Market

So this week, my English Conversation group wanted to help me experience Korean Culture by taking me to a traditional Korean market. In Daegu, this would be Seomun Market. I had already been to Seomun Market before, but was game to see if they could show me something different.

So this is a common sight around shopping areas. Usually you will see street vendors with their goods set up along the walkway, which just makes it really hard to walk. A lot of times, it's usually really old ladies who are selling vegetables from their gardens so they can make some cash to live. Which really makes it hard for me to walk by a rather old lady especially when it's cold without wanting to buying something, but I digress.

So in Seomun Market (서문시장) you can buy anything from fish, to expensive china. One of the things that you can find a lot of is hanboks (한복), the Korean Traditional Dress. Normally worn in Korea on special traditional holidays (like we would wear suits and gowns) but because of their high prices, they are mostly worn by children, especially on the child's first birthday, or by those who are wealthy. Here is a picture of children's hanboks; they run approximately $50, and for the girls comes with a top jacket, skirt, socks, a coin bag, and a headband or cap (The girl's outfit are on the bottom row). The boys get a little hat, you can see it on the first outfit on the 2nd row, a outer jacket and an inner vest, coin bag, and a pair of pants.

As we were all starving, we stopped and had some lunch at one of the food vendors (no McD's here!). I had some sort of noodle dish that I can't remember the name of, that was quite tasty.

James, who was starving, ordered a double, and the lady was so amused she gave him 3 bowls! LOL! He ate 2 1/2 bowls, he had to get Bruce to help in with the third bowl. Then afterwards, the group helped me spend a lot of my money. LOL! I got some great presents and let me tell you, if you need to go shopping, go with some Korean girls, they sure know how to haggle! I got this China set (2 rice bowls and 2 soup bowls) for $32 and I got a free gift of 2 spoon & Chopstick holders.

So here's my English Conversation group. Bruce and James.

Rachel and Amy.

And me and Ji-Hye.

Weekend Romp through Gyeongsan

Since I spent Saturday, pretty much just being a big couch potato, I made myself go out on Sunday.

I had been eyeing the Daegu map to see what things I wanted to see before I left Daegu and noticed that there was this area of Daegu that had a fortress and some tombs "nearby."

As I couldn't find anyone to go with me, I hopped the subway to the very last station, Sawol Station and started walking.

As I was walking I passed by a rather common sight in Korea, new apartment construction, so I took a couple of pictures for you all to see. This apartment complex will have underground parking for the residents. Anytime you don't have to fight over parking is always a good design. One thing that really disappoints me about Korean apartments is the lack of aesthetics, they're just huge BORING concrete buildings that lack any real personality. With all of the architects from Korea that study abroad in like Italy and France, this really makes NO sense.

 As I continued on my merry way, I noticed a sign for Gosan Seodang, which looking at the sign, seemed to mean that I was on the right track for the fortress. HAHAHAHA

So I went walking down the side road and got to walk a bit through some farming areas where I got to see a Farmer and his wife harvesting rice, which I thought was pretty cool. I'm just glad I wasn't the one out there doing the hard work, holy cow!

Honestly, in Korea, to be one of the educated people is really important. If not, then you're going to be in a world of hurt sitting on the cold streets trying to sell socks or vegetables from your garden to get money to feed yourself. Or you could be doing backbreaking farming. Or if you study hard in High School, you can possibly get into college and get a desk job and work 70 hours a week, but hey at least you have a steady paycheck. 

Doesn't it make you realize just how good we have it in the US?

So, yes as I continued walking to the Gosan Seodang, I realized that I was actually going to the village school and not the fortress that was shown on my map! Drat!

I'm showing you this particular picture of the school, just to point out that there was a path from where this picture was taken down into the farm field below to the school on the hill. I had the coolest experience.  As I climbed down and started walking through the Apple Orchard, I stirred up a huge dragonfly hangout.

Everywhere I walked, there was dragonflies flying around me and it was just awesome to have all these little dragonflies just kinda fly in front of my face and just kinda look at me as if to say, "Wow, you're funny looking" and parade me down the path to the school.  I don't think I've ever seen that many dragonflies in my life, it was really awesome.

So as I got to the school and read the sign, I was bummed. The school was a reconstruction of the original school, because of course, the overzealous Neo-Confucians. The more I read about the Neo-Confucianism movement, the less I like I them. These highly idealistic men tried really hard to save people, but instead come across as communists. So in order to force the Korean people to follow their ways, they pretty much destroyed anything that went against what a couple of men thought were the right thing to do. :oP So hey, why not tear down schools and burn books to help these "ignorant" people be enlightened. Ok, moving on...

I don't think you have to be an archeologist to look at this picture and see that the work is fairly recent. The concrete caps on the roof tiles and the walls of the school are a bit too perfect and smooth. Oh, one thing I overheard from somewhere, was that Korea was really big about balance and so if you look at the roof, you will see that it's got this overlapping over and under look. You can see the over look with the ridges on the roof, that is considered the Male (Yang) and the under part, which connects the male part together, is the female symbol (Yin), so each roof is made up of the union of man and woman. I know Kim is sleeping but I hope the rest of you all thought that was interesting.

Seeing how it was locked and all that walking I did to see the school, I decided to walk behind the school. Lo and behold, there was a crude stone stairway that lead to this stone monument.

No, I have no idea what it stays. I just wonder if this isn't the tablet the sign mentioned.

So I took out my map and started to head to the Tombs that didn't look to far way on my map. As I started walking I saw a sign that said that the tombs were 6.1 km, as I have no idea how far that was, I figured it was probably either 3 miles or 12 miles, couldn't remember which, but seeing how the map looked a bit off, I figured it was probably 12 miles. So I started looking for a taxi and got one. The guy just spoke Korean and as my Korean stinks, we had a difficult time, but the guy ended up charging me extra for some reason but whatever, at least I was there because seeing where he was driving there would have been NO way I would have gotten there on my own.

So just on the outside of this newly developed housing area, were these random mounds.

I was just so surprised that these tombs were just kinda there with nothing more than a chain-linked fence and an informational sign saying that royalty was buried in these mounds. Apparently the ruling class (not quite kings & queens, but more like Governors to the King) were buried in the tombs and that's why there isn't any huge ceremony over them. What I thought was kinda humorous about them was that the tomb area was the local exercise area. Can you imagine doing laps in a cemetery? LOL This one guy was doing laps with his loyal older dog and a young pup. The Pup wasn't really listening and decided the Korean ladies were more fun to follow instead.

Well, you can kinda see one of the ladies in this picture, definitely can't see the naughty puppy running behind her, what a shame. But, you know the story behind this picture anyway.

I took my map and started to head back to the subway. I ended up walking a lot farther than I had thought and ended up across the street from the Gyeongsan-hyanggyo Confucian Academy. As I have nothing but distain for Confucianism, I chose to skip checking out their campus and headed in the direction of the subway station. As I did, I walked though this really cool area of beautiful fall leaves.

As I got to the end of the path and was trying to figure out which direction I should go, a bus stopped that was headed to Daegu Station, which leads to downtown. Seeing how I was still in a fog, I let the bus pass me and it wasn't until after it sped off, that I realized how stupid I was for not getting on that bus. Thankfully, buses run every 10 minutes, so I waited with a group of folks and got on the next bus. After going around what felt like all of East Daegu and about 45 minutes later, I ended up downtown Daegu. There was no way by this time that I would be able to get back to the dorm for dinner, so I splurged and went to KFC. With my chicken dinner, I was given hot dipping sauce, which I was going to use until I found out that the chicken I ordered was spicy. O_O

A tip for those traveling in Korea, if your food isn't super sweet, then it's going to be spicy!   Salty food is very rare. Just because you picked up that bag of potato chips, don't assume it's going to be salty! More than likely it's going to be on the sweet side. 

Ok that's it for this "little" journal entry. Oh and sorry, forgot to post the link to the pictures from last time, so they're combined in this photo album.

CLICK HERE

Have a nice day!!

Wow, it's been 12 weeks now?

It's hard to believe 12 weeks have passed since I've left the US and I'm bummed that there is only 6 weeks left and I still have so much more stuff I want to do. Yeesh!

Not much happened this week. Just spent most of my time sleeping or wanting to sleep. Being sick, stinks!

So this week, my Marketing class had a get together. Free food is always a bonus. :o) The party was at a downtown Daegu center for Korean children to play while learning English. We met a lot of the students but they mostly hid in the back and only showed themselves when they wanted food. ;o)

So here we have Florian (German), JoJo (Korean), Heini (Finish), Jun Qui (Chinese), and Yu Jing (Chinese) starting to dig into the BBQ!

Let's see, Korean Art class this week was Korean Paper Art. I was joined by Angela, Hanna and Kukka, this time. Here's us doing our beauty pageant poses with our art work.

Normally you can turn this plate into a serving tray but because we were short on time, we didn't get a chance to put the laquer on it to make useable. So we just have a nice piece of artwork. :o) Here's a closer look at my flowers and the little dragon fly that I made. Everything was made entirely out of paper.

 What is going to really blow your mind is some of the things you can do with the paper art. For instance, the picture down below is made ENTIRELY out of paper.

The only thing that is painted on there is her stamp on the left. It really was amazing.

The next day, on the way back from class. I stopped to take a breath from my huffing and puffing up that "hill" and noticed a dragonfly flying around me. I thought it was pretty cool that the dragonfly was the same color as the one made for our paper plates. ;o)

 Tomorrow, I plan on going site seeing around Daegu. Should have some pretty good pictures for you all to see. :o)