Jon achiminida!

....or something very close, which means good morning. We're at Gyeonju this morning, and off to an accelerator lab and a very large steel works facility. Yesterday we visited a beautiful buddhist temple called Bulgugsa and a buddha statue situated on a lush mountaintop ravine (Seokguram). We saw the Hyundai plant in the afternoon, which included a driving tour of the campus and a walk through a building where they assembled Elantras. For lunch, we went to a Turkish restaurant, which seems strange ---it's near the Hyundai plant because of the large number of Turkish workers at the plant. On the way back to our hotel, we stopped at the ocean (yay!). I stuck my feet in the water and watched a large number of ships moving around just off shore. Dinner was a traditional Korean set: kimchi, glass noodles, jellyfish, seaweed soup, sea squirt and other small dishes brought to us while we sat at floor level. We were serenaded on the bus (which doubled as a karaoke room) by two of the EAPSI fellows --the karaoke continued in the basement of our resort hotel, but I decided instead to get my eight hours of sleep in.

The Buddha statue in the mountains was surrounded by a beautiful forested area with plants and fog, much like the Oregon coast. 

There was a little temple near the statue where a monk was praying and singing, and just below the temple an array of these colored paper balloons.

Underneath the balloons, the air around you glowed --this picture doesn't really capture it, but you get the idea.

We wore these funny blue plastic lab coats because it was much rainier and foggier than we had anticipated when leaving the hotel at the Seokguram site. 

The monk in this little temple sat and sang softly, and you could smell incense being burned within. Since this was a tourist area, there were people chatting outside the temple, but it was still a very spiritual experience to be there.

Here's Josh from Delaware in the woods --we enjoyed the plants on the walk to and from the Buddha.

There was also a fountain below the temple and paper lanterns where you could drink the spring water from the mountain - very fresh!

Although we couldn't get back in to identify this one, the botanist in our group, Sean, has been showing me all sorts of plants along our tour of Korea.

We arrived at the temple and entered the second gateway: the guards of Buddha are inside, and will fight for you if you have not left your bad thoughts at the initial gate.

Another interesting tree and some stacks of stones at the temple:

There were several temple buildings within Bulgugsa where you could bow in front of statues of Buddha. This is just one; I could only take photos of some. Another contained small stones called Sari that are found within monks' ashes after they are cremated. They look like little glass pieces, and their origins aren't known.

This pagoda is very famous --it even has a copy that's at the museum we went to the day before. It originally held the Saris of some monks who lived at this temple.

We ate at this Turkish restaurant (buffet style ---very good), and after they gave us little teas (the red and orange glasses). The men were served orange, while the ladies were served the much sweeter red tea. The guy here in the red is John, who's going to OSU (go Beavs!).

Our Korean set meal probably contained 100 different small dishes --the kimchi is on the bottom left in red. 

All the buildings in this town, Gyeongju, were shaped as pagodas on top with clay roof tiles.

Our hotel/resort --you can see the ferris wheel and other amenities in the distance. The smaller building in the foreground has a karaoke facility, cafes, and a place to rent bikes.
 

From the other side, you can see more of the lake and a bridge that lit up with changing, colored LED lights at night. Both these photos were taken from our room.

...and onward to PAL and POSCO the following day!