I've had a vacation from my studying vacation this week, traveling around the Korean peninsula and taking in the views and culture. Don't get me wrong ---I really enjoy being on Baengnyeong! But this has been a much needed break from the tiring schedule of fog collection, and a chance for me to explore other parts of Korea.
While many ferry trips had been cancelled due to dense fog between the island and mainland South Korea, my ferry on the 3rd of July was on time. This was cause for celebration in my mind, although my poor colleague, Jungmin, was left on the island for another day to overlap with the incoming fog collector, Sungwon. For lunch the day I left, Jungmin ordered a pot of soup served on a hot burner which was delicious and full of vegetables and purple squid.
I don't think I've discussed this yet, but the side dishes that are included in a full meal here (a set) are delicious! They include kimchi in various shapes and flavors, cooked greens, dried crunchy anchovies (still attempting to enjoy eating those), honeyed lotus pods, and sometimes tofu or garlic cloves. A note about the garlic: I though that this would be too intense for me, but I think that there's so much garlic in the food here that it just tasted delicious.
It happened that several good fellows from my EAPSI cohort planned a trip to celebrate the 4th of July as an American group in Busan, at the south end of the Korean peninsula. So I planned to spend a night in Seoul with my friend Kelsey in her goshiwon (thanks!!) and head to Busan with Josh and Kelsey the following night after a day of work at a coffee shop. I sat and worked on the Seoul National University campus at this gorgeous patio overlooking a path and mountains for a few hours, and then toured the campus a bit. You can see from these pictures how mountainous the city of Seoul is --there are many hikes that have been recommended to me in the urban area, although I've also been warned that there is a bazaar of goodies offered along the way up and a string of people in their unnecessarily fancy hiking gear. Nevertheless, I'm hoping to return to Seoul to do at least one of these city mountain hikes.
We had planned to buy our tickets at Seoul station to take the train to Busan that evening, but all seats on the trains were sold out --there was only standing room on a five hour slow train. We opted to stay in Seoul and enjoy the city for another night, and decided to go watch a local band play. Another member of our EAPSI group is a drummer, and plays frequently with friends in Seoul. Some of his friends were playing in a small bar called Strange Fruit in Hongdae, which turned out to be a really fun show. One of my favorite things about traveling in Korea is that it's so safe and welcoming. After the show, we ventured to this secret bar called "Got" (flower), which had no sign and was down a darkened staircase. The bar was a scene from the sixties: music playing on a scratchy record, walls hung with colorful images of trees, suns, and musical artists, and an owner/tender who I'm certain was a singer with a gorgeous, gravelly voice. It was a very surreal and unexpected night in Seoul.
We awoke the next morning to catch a train at 7 am to Busan, and after a quick photo opp and being accosted by a group of people doing endless CPR who wanted us to join in the fun (Kelsey and I agree that the victim would have been dead from a shattered rib cage after such a long session of CPR), we met our friends in Haeundae Beach.
The beach is very touristy, and was especially full of Americans because of the 4th of July. It's a beautiful sandy beach with calm waves that are great for swimming around or floating in, which is just what we did. We also took a nice walk along a wooden pathway to a lighthouse and an overlook of the rest of the city.
If anyone reading this is considering staying in Busan at a hostel, I recommend Chan's Guesthouse, which was clean and offbeat, and even had little postings about environmental sustainable practices that I appreciated. Chan plays the citar, which he did for us, and then let us try as well. He also had some Tibetan signing bowls, which I thought were especially calming and fun to play. In the pics here from top to bottom are Jake and Kelsey, Chan, and Jon.
The guesthouse was in a street market area with strange foods like eels, which were skinned alive before being cooked (eek!) and blackened eggs.
We explored the city a bit, led by our fearless Korean friend, DK, and had a discussion that I really enjoyed about Korean cultural differences from ours. It's especially evident to me that Korean gender roles are more prescribed than Americans', and that their goals in life are generally much more guided by financial stability and success. The advertisements and k-dramas are all full of images of happy, wealthy families, pregnant women, and young men and women with glowingly healthy skin and expensive clothes. Please note that this is just a generalization, and I've certainly met people who don't seem to fit this stereotype at all. But it's noticeable in public places, especially in Seoul and Busan, that there's more of a push for these ideals than in the states that I've lived in. (Pics of us around Busan, from left to right ---top: Luke, Jake, DK, Kelsey, Jon; bottom: Jake, Kelsey, Jon, DK, Luke).
And then were the chicken ...holes... another weird food to add to the list! I didn't venture to try this once since I've been keeping up my vegetarianism, but wow!
We had dinner at a chicken and beer restaurant, which is a common combination of American foods here in Korea. Luckily, this venue also served fried shrimp and radish kimchi! (Left to right: Kelsey, Luke, Colleen, DK, Annie --friend of DK, Jon, Jake, Dave).
On Sunday, Melissa (who studies marine invertebrates --in particular, she's looking at copepods right now) and I went to Taejongdae, a big park on the coastline. It was quite a journey getting there, since I'd looked at the un-scaled map and decided that it was a short enough distance between the subway and the park entrance to just hike it... never follow a map without a scale! The onset of the monsoon and outer bands of the typhoon made the day drizzly and damp, which neither of us really minded (Melissa is a great hiking partner!), but we decided to take a cab the rest of the way there and a bus back after a wet first few miles. The view from this little peninsula of the city, though, was stunning!
My phone battery died before I could take pictures in the park, which was also really beautiful! In particular, there was a flower festival with a large area of blooming hydrangeas that we happened upon (Augusto from our group also had seen this the day before). Melissa took some pictures with her fancy camera, so I might get some of those and post them later!
I stayed Sunday night at a hostel in Busan that was not nearly as nice as the first, but still clean and had a kitty for everyone to pet (I miss George!). Busan is a lovely town, and worth a visit while you're in Korea.
...And then off to a templestay! From the very start of my planning for this trip, I had wanted to do a templestay. I've been interested in Buddhism since learning about it from Mr. Clock's world religions and cultures class in high school, and this was the perfect couple days for me to venture off and see what it was like to be in a Buddhist temple. Since Misha, who has been on the EAPSI Korea program before, recommended the temple she stayed at, I had gone with her advice and booked a night at the Golgulsa temple in Gyeongju. I took a train and two buses, then walked another 15 minutes to the temple, which is the birthplace of a martial art called Sunmudo. It's a mix between yoga and a martial art used for defense, which I got to practice twice. Before I write more about that, though, I'm going to quickly outline my trip with some pics in case anyone else would like to go to Golgulsa.
I arrived at Singyeongju station via KTX train, and took the 700 bus to the Express Bus Terminal in Gyeongju (1500 won). This is outlined on the website pretty well and I'd recommend keeping those handy while you're in transit. Here's the bus stop you'll need for the next bus, with the bus terminal across the street, and the pagoda-shaped information center mentioned in the website directions:
Next, take the 100 or 150 to Golgulsam, up through the mountains (also 1500 won). It's about an hour ride. Here's the stop for Golgulsa, with a logo on the sign for the temple.
And just for some color, jeans filled with petunias, which you'll see along the way.
Finally, after about 15 minutes of walking (I recommend a combo of the "sidewalk" and the roadside against traffic, since the sidewalk is pretty overgrown and there are SO many big spiders here), you'll reach this little store and walk to the left a little to get to the entrance of the temple.
After checking in and changing into my garb, I walked up the road to find my fellow templestayers, who were also wearing canvassy orange vests. I found some students at a horse corral, learning to canter on a horse, so I got to join in --I'd never gone that fast on a horse before! We rode the older, white horse in the back in this picture. She winced a little every time a person came down heavily on her back, and I winced empathetically. The teacher, from as much as I can understand, told the four younger students that I was an experienced rider ("I've ridden two or three times in my life", I said) and they all clapped for me after I made three terrifying loops around the corral, hoping with each bounce that I wouldn't go flying into the muck. When I returned to the dorm, I discovered that I had been with the wrong group of students --but I got a free horse ride!
This seemed a sort of odd summer-camp-like experience for a temple stay, and this was definitely not the mood of the rest of my time. The temple buildings were similar colors and design to the buildings we saw in Gyeongju on our orientation, and there were fearsome gate keeper statues, just like at Bolgugsa.
There were also paintings on the buildings and statues around the grounds of sunmudo, which includes lots of kicking exercises ---I really need to work on balance!
We ate dinner in this simple cafeteria, although my fumbling American flexibility didn't allow me to sit neatly cross-legged under the tables like the Korean students. The food was similar to that I'd had at the cafeteria on the HUFS campus, but they stipulated that you shouldn't leave any food on your plate after --everywhere else I have been, there has been an entire second meal left on my plate after I've finished. It's not that I'm not eating, but that they serve SO much food, even the boys didn't eat all their food on Baengnyeong.
There were statues of pagodas and Sunmudo masters all over the grounds, which were forested and very misty for my visit.
We practiced Sunmudo in this building in the evening. We started with a chanting service, which was beautiful --there was harmony sung by some, although I'm not sure whether it was purposeful. We bowed at some points, following the teacher up front from our separate cushions. Next, we meditated for about five minutes, which I really enjoyed. Our orientation guide had briefed us on the theory behind this: to focus on the present moment by listening to your breath and feeling it flow in and out of your nose. If a thought comes into your head or sound is made that stirs you, accept it and then come back to your breathing. This allows you to focus in other parts of your life and center your thoughts in difficult moments. I really dug this, and although I only successfully meditated for a few seconds at a time, I think I'll keep trying this. We next took laps around the room, first running, then walking on hands and feet in a v-shape, then the same backward, then like duck, then like a duck backward, and then... well, then I took a water break. I should mention that I roomed with a very kind girl from Korea who studied Buddhist education, and Immanuel from Brittany, France, who I shared my time with at the temple. She also took a water break. The final part of the night was the real Sunmudo: striking poses in sequence to form a kick, which in slow motion required balance and strength.
A side note about my time at Golgulsa: in the time in between events, I finished this excellent book about a series of treks on the Appalachian Trail, which is hilarious and also informative about AT hiking. I definitely recommend it and I'm looking forward to reading lots more by Bill Bryson (I've only read A Short History of Nearly Everything before this, which was also well-written and full of factoids).
We turned the lights out in the dorms at 10 pm, then back on at 4:15 am, when we walked up to the top of the hill for a morning chanting service. Here are the students in orange, and other visitors ---girls on the left, boys on the right, and monks in front. They chanted for about 30 minutes, then we meditated for about 30 minutes (at 4:30 am, I meditated briefly, then fell asleep in a seated position for short periods until I was too afraid of snoring and just sat with opened eyes for about 25 minutes).
After the service, they normally walk around this pagoda at the top of the hill, but since it was rainy, we returned to the dorms before breakfast.
Here is the empty temple. You can see the prayers hanging from colorful flower lanterns overhead, pictures of sunmudo on the wall, Buddha at the front, and cushions on the floor.
Immanuel and I walked around and took pictures of the shrines and temples after breakfast. This Buddha carved into the rock is from the Shilla kingdom (700-900 AD). It's a steep climb to the top, which I cannot imagine doing without these metal fences.
Next to the Buddha are several temples, including the one we used for the morning chanting service, and an outdoor area where they do performances of sunumdo.
This temple, in particular, was dug into the rock next to the Buddha carving --so beautiful!
These lanterns are mainly for tourists to the temple, I think, but they're beautiful! They were inside each of the temples, hung from the ceilings.
After an amazing experience, I trekked back to Gyeongju and to Seoul, where Kelsey allowed me to stay with her yet another night! The outskirts of the typhoon were over the area when I left the temple ---or maybe just a monsoonal storm...? For being in an atmospheric science, I'm terrible about looking at the weather. Either way, it made for a wet but homey trip.
Now I'm back at HUFS! I'll be here until Sunday morning, when I will leave again for the island. I'll stay for a week, collecting any fog that might be around, and then we'll pack up for the campaign. I would have gone back to the island on Thursday, but we decided that the weather patterns were unfavorable for fog, so I get to have a few days in this lovely, big dorm room here in Yongin. There may be no fog next week either, but it would be nice to get just a couple more good samples to bring back! I'm more than half way through the trip now, and it's been an unanticipatedly colorful experience. I can't to see what else Korea has in store for me, and what we can discover with these fog samples. I found out yesterday that I will be submitting an abstract to the American Meteorological Society annual conference on atmospheric chemistry in January, to a special session related to fog! This has been and will be a productive summer adventure.
Whew. That was a long one.
Thanks, Tom! It was stunning. Wish I could have captured the wonderful quiet and smell of incense to share as well.
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