No, I'm not dead, just lazy

Hello to all my faithful readers!

Well, I know it's been a long time, but I can assure you that I'm still alive in Korea. Nothing much has changed here. I still go to work, I'm still not loving my job, but it's still a good-paying job so I do it. I've taken quite a few small trips in this past month. I've gone to Gyeongju, the old capital of Korea, to Andong to see the traditional villages and to Masan to visit my friend Jenn from University. I've climbed a mountain here in Gumi....ok, I took a tram up the mountain and strolled my way down. All in all, I'm experiencing what Korea has to offer. I'll be heading off to Seoul this weekend to see the De-Militarized Zone with friends and possibly take in some other Seoulian sights while I'm there. I'm on the look-out for a new digital camera. Part of the reason (i.e. excuse #1) I havn't been keeping up with the blog is my camera sucks. Well, I shouldn't say that, it's just old. The battery pack is dying and instead of getting a new one, I've decided to buy a whole new camera. It makes sense, doesn't it? The memory card was really small as well. I remember, 4 years ago when my camera was new, when the memory card was good.....ah how time flies. As it stands right now my camera will stay alive for ohhh, 30 minutes before dying and will hold maybe 15 pictures on the best quality setting. That's definitely not up to today's standards. The plan is to get one as soon as my Canada tax return comes. Hurry up government!!....ya, I should hold my breath for that one.
I've been volunteering at the local orphanage on Saturdays and am beginning to learn my Korean alphabet. Life is progressing and also becomming somewhat normal. A routine has definetly been established and time seems to be flying. It's already been 2 months. Take some time and read my updates, there are quite a few. Again, sorry for the lack of upkeep here. I'll blame it on my camera, I mean, what's the fun in just reading? I know you wanna see pictures and I had to wait for friends to email me their copies since my camera's a piece and kept dying on me!
Till next time!
Cheers!!

Me in a park near my house. These two statues are supposd to guard against evil spirits. I feel safe now! 

Balanced Rocks. They're commonly found around temples. If you can balance your rock on top of other piles then you'll have good luck! So far I'm two for two at the temples I've been to.  

Bulguksa Temple 

Bulguksa Temple 

A pond outside Bulguksa Temple. Bulguksa is a really famous temple in Korea, reportedly the most beautiful.  

The Divine Bell of King Seongdeok, also called the Emile Bell. Emile in ancient Shilla means "mommy." It is called this because the bell, when first cast, would not ring. Some head priest had this vision that in order for it to ring a child would have to be sacrificed. So, because that made sense, the bell was melted down and a young girl was thrown into the molten metal. The bell was recast, and it rung. But now, according to legend, when it's rung it sounds like the child's cries of em-ee-leh when she was sacrificed.  

Anapji Pond, it used to have a lot more buildings. Still, quite pretty, I'm sure gorgeous when there is actually leaves on trees and such.... 

Cheomseongdae Observatory. It is the oldest observatory in Eastern Asia. Dating back to the Silla Kingdom.
 

All of the buildings in GyeongJu must be built to look like traditional Koraen buildings. A neat place to visit. 

Tombs in Tumuli Park. Some of them are several stories high! They are royal tombs dating back to the Silla Kingdom (57 BC-AD 935)
 

Trip to Gyeongju

In the beginning of March Drew, Devon and I took the 2 hour bus trip to Gyeongju. Gyeongju was the old capital of Korea during the Shilla Kingdom for over 1000 years. There is a ton of stuff I could write about what I saw there. It'd take forever. Instead, here is the website. http://www.lifeinkorea.com/travel2/travel.cfm. It's a great website. Very informative. I will say this though, it was bloody cold that day. I'm not even joking, oh my god. I'm just a Vancouver Island/Lower Mainland girl. I am not used to the cold. It is not supposed to be that cold! It was a chill you into your bones without even thinking about it cold. I was with Drew, from Cleveland and Devon from Ontario via Halifax. They thought it was cold, but not THAT cold....I on the other hand, thought the world was ending.
Anyways, Gyeongju was pretty cool, my first glimpse of Korean culture. I was very happy to see that there actually was some out there! Bulguksa Temple is terrific. Beautiful. I must go back in both the Spring and Fall to see the flowers and the fall leaves. By then I should have my new digital camera so I'll take plenty of pictures, I promise. Check out the website! It is really well done. There was just so much that I saw there, seriously, it'd take me forever to explain.

Trip to Andong

This past weekend Julie, Kathi and I went on a day trip to a city 2 hours away by bus to visit. The city, Andong, is famous for the traditional villages it has and for it's Mask Festival. The first village we went to was alright. Korea was still pretty brown when we went, it's starting to bloom now, so things are becomming prettier, but then the buildings seemed to blend into the surroundings. Doesn't help when the buildings have straw roofs and mud walls. The buildings were cool, the first village didn't really meet my expectations though. I had envisioned a Barkerville sort of situation, people working in the houses and stores, showing us how things were back then....but nope, it was just a bunch of empty buildings, surrounded by garbage. We didn't have to pay to see the first one though, and I'm glad. The only good thing about the first traditional village was that it was beside a big dam and there were signs everywhere leading to the dam office. I didn't care so much that the village sucked...because Kathi and I just couldn't get over that people actually worked in the dam office and how lucky they were that every morning they got to actually legitly say that they "had to go to the dam office." ....ya, we were bored.
The next village, Hahoe was way better. We had to ride on a city bus about half an hour out of Andong. Sadly, we got the bus filled with male high school students, but that was ok. There was also a really nice man on the bus, he spoke awesome English. He lived in Seoul but also had a house in Hahoe. He'd visited Vancouver a few times and also Halifax. The guy actually knew French too...I met a Korean who knows more French than I do. Kinda felt like a pitiful Canadian at that moment, and then it passed, cuz who needs French in BC anyways? He told us where to go once we got off the bus and I'm glad he did, around the corner from the bus stop was a Traditional Dance Stage. We stood and watched the traditional dance, which is a play done to music (drums) for awhile, then moved on. It was a nice day and pretty crowded. Being taller than everyone else, I start to feel uncomfortable blocking everyone's view. We then headed into the village. Again, not really what I had expected, this wasn't like Barkerville either, but we did see some ladies walking around in traditional Korean dress (Hanbok). I bought some souveniers (magnets and two miniatures of these funky looking statues that you find all over Korea, they're supposed to guard against evil spirits). Mainly it was just neat to see old-style Korean buildings that had actually been maintained. We walked around for a long while and then headed back to Andong.
We were starved so we stopped to get something to eat before boarding a bus. I like Korean food and so do Kathi and Julie. It's a good thing, since once you leave a medium-sized city like Gumi, western food is hard to come by. We sat down and ordered. Another wonderous thing about Korean food is it takes hardly any time to be served to you. The lady promptly brought us out forks to eat with. I've become quite apt at using chopsticks. Julie and Kathi have been here twice as long as me and have also mastered the skill. They (Koreans) just assume that we don't know. Normally they're almost embarassed though to offer us forks, they do it to be polite to us. This lady was bordering on rude with the forks. She pretty much slammed them down in front of us as if to say "here, I know you'll need these." This of course, made us determined NOT to use the forks. She then stood behind me as we ate and stared at Kathi and Julie. Poor Julie got so nervous, she broke under the pressure. She dropped her Mandu (kinda like a perogie) into her broth and it splashed everywhere. We were laughing, but the lady wasn't. She came over, took away Julie's chopsticks and gave her another fork. Well, that was it, we were laughing so hard. Julie was actually banned from using chopsticks! Try using chopsticks when you're laughing, it's hard. Kathi and I managed to make it through the meal unscathed, however I'm not sure our hostess was all that impressed with us. Anyways, we paid, we left and headed to the bus station. When we got there and bought our tickets we noted that the bus was leaving in 15 minutes. There already was a pretty good chunk of people waiting for the bus so I went to wait in line while Kathi and Julie went to the bathroom. The bus pulled up and the "line" surged. There is no order in Korea. It's all about me, me ,me. I just don't get it, line up for Christ sakes. Pushing isn't going to help, it just serves to make any westerner in the way of your pushing very angry. That was me, I pushed back. I sent three different people behind me flying. One guy landed on his butt. I didn't care, I had passed my Korean limit for the day. I like Korea, I like Koreans, I like Korean food, but I can only take a little bit of it at a time. That usually means 1 day of travelling. Everywhere we go we get pointed at, laughed at, stared at and made fun of. This is a very rude society. Very inclusive, very anti anything non-Korean. Anyways, I got on the bus and made my way to the back. I found 3 seats still available in the last row and plopped all of my stuff down on them. By this time it was standing room only on the bus and trust me, I was not a popular person holding 2 empty seats for foreigners who were still in the bathroom. I didn't care, I wasn't in the mood. I wanted to sit and there was no way that my friends were going to be standing for 2 hours. Long story short, they got on the bus, we all sat down, the Koreans stood and we zoned out until we were home.
It's not all as bad as I make it sound. I had just had my fill. Please, do come to Korea and make your own opinions. There's probably a nice Korea out there somewhere, I just havn't found it yet! I'm going to Seoul this coming weekend to go to the De-Militarized Zone with some friends. We're doing the DMZ on Saturday and exploring Seoul on Sunday. It should be a good time. Maybe Seoul holds the key to the friendly Korea! I've heard that we'll blend in way more. It's just the smaller towns where we all stick out like sore thumbs and draw the most attention. Seoul, with it's 14 million people, is not as homogenous as the rest of Korea. I'm looking forward to the somewhat annonymity and also to the DMZ..I'll make sure to post any pictures I get of North Korea on here. I don't think we are allowed to take pictures of the North Korean guards.....I'll do my best though!

Me at Hahoe Traditional village


Kathi and Julie at the Hahoe (said Ha Hoeeee) Traditional Village

Korean Traditional Dance 

Korean Traditional Dance 

Andong Traditional Village - and the set of a popular Korean Soap 

Andong Traditional Village 

Temple on Geumosan 

The bell at the temple on Geumosan....all temples have bells, but this one had a drum too....so it's better. Notice the painting. It's the same in all of the temples, all hand done, all over the country. Amazing eh?  

The Temple inside the cave on Geumosan. Apparently where some monk received enlightenment in the 1400's 

The "great wall" of Korea...actually a 2.5 km wall....but sure, it's great 

The waterfall on Geumosan Mountain in Gumi. This is considered nature in Korea......I don't recall this many other people being with me when I was in nature in Canada. 

Guemo-San Mountain

This tuesday was a national holiday in S. Korea. In Canada it's called Earth Day but here it's Arbor Day. This day is apparently due to the devestation and deforestation caused by the Korean War. So all Koreans are supposed to go out and plant trees on this day. We didn't plant any trees, but we did climb a mountain. Along with half of the people in Gumi it seemed! It's so funny, we took a cab to the base of the mountain, where we encountered GEUMOLAND!! It's an amusement park, I dunno, for those who want to say they went to Geumosan, but didn't actually want to do any climbing, they can just pretend. It was packed, which is our fault for going on a holiday. We had decided to take a cable car up and the walk back down. It was a really nice day, but it's getting muggy and the humidities rising here in a hurry. Walking up a mountain didn't seem so appealing. It's weird, because I recall just under a month ago freezing my ASS off touring around Gyungju. The temperature on average here now is about 24C. Humidity is resting around 40-50%. A month ago I'm quite certain that bare skin exposed for an extended length of time would turn black. I didn't post any pictures of me in Gyungju for that reason. My smiles are so stressed because, and I'm not even exaggerating, the skin on my face was so cold that my smiles were all crooked and weird. A month ago...weird.
Anyways, we got off the cable car and had to hike up a little ways to a temple and the waterfall. We meandered around crowds, and actually WAITED IN LINE on a mountain to walk up a path to see the waterfall. Once there, ya, it was nice, it was a waterfall. I've been to Niagara, this didn't really measure up, but ya, it was nice. It's starting to get prettier here. Trees and bushes are starting to bloom...I may head back to Geumosan once that has happened more, maybe I'll appreciate the water trickle more when there's some flowers backing it up. After the water fall we, I'm not joking, waited in another line to climb up this steep rock path to a cave where some guy reached enlightenment or something in the 1400's. We got a really good view of Gumi (through the haze) from up there. It was worth the climb. We rested for a little while up there, and met a Baptist church group from Daegu, some of whom had been to San Fransisco. They talked to us for awhile....actually, one guy followed us for awhile. They took our pictures, we smiled, and then waited in line to go back down the mountain.
On our way back down we stopped at the Geumosan Mountain Fortress. It was built in the 13th century. It's like a mini Great Wall of China...a really mini one. At one time it surrounded the whole mountain. It was destroyed during Japanese and Chinese invasions during the 16th and 17th centuries and was since re-built, but not to it's orgional spanse.

Two of the boys from the orphanage, cuties eh?  

The orphanage

Ok, last catch up post. I've been volunteering at the local orphanage here in Gumi for the past few weeks when I havn't been off galavanting around the country. Devon and I go around 10am on Saturday mornings and teach English to two of the college students that live there, then we play with kids for a few hours. Yes, there are university anc college students living in the orphanage. They can stay there as long as they are in some sort of school after they reach legal adult age. The majority of the children are between 3-8 years old (western age) they're really fun. They don't point at us or treat us differently at all, it's a nice change. They just see us as big people to jump on. The orphanage, while not the perfect home environment, is pretty good considering. The kids all live in the same "apartment" their whole time there. There's generally about 6-7 children per apartment, all different ages. There are bedrooms (they share) a kitchen, a common area and a bathroom for them all. They also have a permanent "mother" who lives there as well. In total there are about 80 kids. Some orphanages have part-time/full-time staff, so the children's caretakers are constantly changing, here it's way more consistent which is good. Devon and I get fed lunch every time we go, traditional Korean style. I must say, I do like Korean food, it's a good thing too, because it's insanely cheaper that trying to cook Western all the time.
The orphanage is good, I love the kids, and it's nice to get out of my own neighbourhood once in awhile (the orphanage is across town). It's pretty sad though as well. The majority of the kids will never be adopted, not because they're not wanted, but because their natural parents often never give up their legal parental rights to them. Koreans are very concerned about blood lines, and as such would usually never consider having their child raised by someone else. That could result in a name change or something equally as horrific!! It's a weird country.
You may wonder why the children are even IN an orphanage if their parents are still alive? Well, of course some of the children are there because their parents have died and there is no one to look after them, but sadly a lot of them are in there because their parents dropped them off. I keep hearing about this terrible Korean economy, but honstly, I don't think it's all that bad. The parents use this as an excuse to drop off their kids, claiming they can't afford them anymore. Apparently they've never heard of birth control, I bet it's easier.
So, that's the orphanage. I like doing it, I've always volunteered, and they are SUPER cute. I'd tell you some of their names, but I can never remember. Korean names sound all the same to me. I do know that one of their names (a little girl who's permanently attached to me) is Yoon, Die-Young....and well, you can see why I remember that one. You Die Young? Man, if that girl ever moves to Canada she's going to have to get a name change.
Till next time!