"Let all the Earth rejoice"

"The splendor of the king

Clothed in majesty

Let all the earth rejoice, all the earth rejoice.....

How great is our God..."

Every time I see the beauty of this earth displayed so gloriously I always think of this song. I took the girls to the Daegu Arboretum and was singing this to myself the whole time. Just look at these pictures; they cannot do the real thing justice!

Now that you are done marveling with me, you can laugh at me. Here is my "Gulliver's Travel" tale. I found this place in my Daegu tourist map. So I take the bus over to Camp Walker and walk to the taxi stand and say "Take me to the Arboretum". (Insert cricket chirping here.) Blank stares. "What?" they say. So we go back and forth for a minute....if they don't understand they start talking to you in Hangeul like that helps. Fortunately the travel office is right there and I went and got the man that works there to translate for me. He wrote in Hangeul where I wanted to go and where I wanted to come back to on a piece of paper for me to show the taxi driver. So that problem was solved and I had the number to call a taxi to come back and get me when we were done. Except I can't read Hangeul so when I called to leave I had the same communication problem. The thing about call taxis is if you can't tell them where you are, they can't come get you. What to do? Well, I called a friend here who can speak some Hangeul and she told me the word for subway. So I'm half shouting this word at random people who walk by and they're all staring at me like I'm a psychopathic idiot. Next, I call Matt and have him try to get one of the KATUSAs (Korean Augmentee to the US Army) to call the taxi for me. Well, he didn't know what the Arboretum was either. I pull out the paper the man had written on for me and shove it and the phone at a Korean lady who was walking by and point back and forth and she read it to the KATUSA. Situation solved. The cab arrives and I made it safely back.

The Arboretum is built over an old landfill. It is part of a 'green push' country initiative. At least that's what this paper says. I had a great time at the Arboretum. It was really beautiful with all the fall colors. I guess now I have to go back in the spring when all the flowers are blooming! Enjoy the pictures.

The Streets of Gold!

So I had one of those out of body experiences, you know, where you think you see heaven and all that you love. I was in Daegu at Seomun Market. It was exhilarating! It's a combination covered market with some indoor shops interspersed. Everything you can imagine was for sale here; like a mega super - Mall of America (the biggest mall in the US in case you missed out some pop-culture!). We started walking and all the shops are honeycombed together but somehow grouped in categories. Like all the fish is together and all the chickens are together. Yes, they had live chickens or dead, plucked or not. The smell was.... let's just say we walked quickly. Then there were hundreds of clothing stalls, shoes for sale, and then we got THERE. This is where my soul floated from my body and hovered in bliss. It was the handmade dresses and hand knit sweaters and handmade fabulousness section. You can watch them create while you shop. And everything they had was absolutely beautiful. I did not take the following pictures because of course I didn't have my camera, they are from www.lifeinkorea.com/Travel2/taegu/59 . The first is a typical view of what you would see if you just looked down the street. It's a narrow passage to walk around in and scooters drive through here too so you have to be careful. One actually bumped into Emily's stroller, though he was going at a very slow speed so she wasn't hurt, but I thought Matt might end up in prison for a moment there. And while Koreans are normally very polite, if you get in their way in these markets they will push their way through. Notice the lady in the foreground sleeping; we saw several of them!

The below is a picture of where they make the traditional Korean dresses, called Hanbok. They have books out and I assume you pick your style (you can get a "fashioned up" modernized one) and then you pick your fabric. They're really beautiful. I want one but what on earth would I do with it? I would feel awkward wearing it since I'm not Korean. That may seem weird to some but that's just how I feel.

There are so many shops and you just walk and walk and I was lost. I didn't have a clue where we were in relation to where we started. And I'm sure we didn't see half of it. There are supposed to be 4,000 shops. Yes that's a four with three zeros. Beat that Mall of America!

Mt Palgong

Here we are on top on Mt. Palgong, which is north of Daegu. We had to get a taxi and he basically ended up being our private driver for the day. To give you an idea of how cheap that is here, we had him drive/wait for us for about 6 hours and paid about $65 USD for this, including tip. At Mt Palgong we rode the cable car you see behind us to the top, about .7 mile, but it felt a lot farther! Carrie was a little frightened but nothing ever scares Emily. The view from the top is spectacular and limitless, except for the haze or mist, depending on what source you check. The day we went seemed to be especially hazy so it was a tiny bit disappointing but still beautiful. (If you're a facebook user you can check out my photo album for a full set of photos.) Here's a couple more.

Carrie and Emily of course could have cared less about the view, and Carrie, I think, was a bit scared because she kept asking if we could go back down. The place in the photo above has no guard rails or anything and as you can see from her face she was not impressed.

After we came down we went a traditional Korean restaurant, where you take your shoes off and sit on the floor. As you can see from the photo the spread was large. However, I don't know what most of it was. The waiter spoke English well and we knew the meat we were ordering (duck) and he told us a few of the side dishes but we didn't want to ask him about everything. He was really nice and even made the girls each a balloon animal. (We also found out at most restaurants you do not tip, it's considered insulting.)

We had our first taste of pickle kimchi here, and we liked it, although I have to eat in my lettuce roll and not by itself. I'll explain kimchi for a moment: you can pretty much take any veggie and pickle it through a certain process and make kimchi. Cabbage is the most common although we had pickle and eggplant here. It's generally spiced with dried red pepper but not always. Honestly, I mostly find the thought of anything pickled revolting but I have tried it. I'm not a fan. Maybe it'll grow on me. It has been served at every single restaurant we've been to here. Moving on to the above mentioned lettuce rolls; you take your lettuce leaf, put your rice, meat and whatever else you want in it and roll and eat. It's fun. I don't really know if we're doing it the Korean way but that's our way and I like it. I felt bad when we left this place because while we did at least taste everything, it's very different from what we grew up eating and it is hard to develop new tastes when you're our age, so a lot of the food got thrown away.

After lunch we went to Donghwasa, about 5 minutes drive, which is the site of a Buddhist temple complex. It was a really pretty setting but I will be honest, I found it unsettling to see people bowing down before the Buddha statues. We just enjoyed looking at the beautiful buildings and picturesque setting.

The paper lanterns were hung over every open pavilion. Some of them had tags attached with writing and I think they may have been prayers but that's just my guess.That statue of Buddha in the last picture is supposed to have two of the Buddha's bones inside given by the Myanmar government. The statue is 33 meters high, which is roughly 100 feet.

In the picture below is the inside of the Daeungjeon main worshiping hall. The brochure I got says "It is presumed to have been built between 1727 and 1732." It has three different statues in it, each a different Buddha. I don't really understand the difference so I'm not going to attempt to explain but their names are Amitabha Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, & Pharmaceutical Buddha (center). The giant stone one is also the Pharmaceutical Buddha.

It was a really beautiful area as I said before and I enjoyed seeing it. We want to go back another time when we have the backpack carrier for Emily. It was very difficult carrying her everywhere and up/down the numerous fairly steep steps.

We also went bowling on post that evening so it was a busy day. Carrie beat both of us with her little bowling slide! She was determined to carry the ball by herself too. It was a fun day, but we were glad to be home that night!

A Korean Feast

So I tried a new recipe for dinner. Bulgogi and some stir fry. There was supposed to be noodles with this to, but I didn't prepare them correctly. In my defense it was only because they took much longer to fix than I realized. You just soak them in water, not boil them. With some of this stuff (like the noodles) I'm having to wing it because I can't read Korean and some of it doesn't come with instructions anyway, you're just supposed to know what to do already from mom I guess. I bought most of the ingredients from the little shop by our apartment. I got the bulgogi recipe from a Korean cookbook from the post library and the stir fry I made up on my own and used a sauce recipe from the cookbook. It had Chinese cabbage, carrots, and I had intended to put bean sprouts in it, (which I think are delicious when prepared correctly), but what I had bought was not bean sprouts. I think it was some sort of really skinny mushroom. It's the long tan stuff in the bottom picture. So it turned out okay; I wasn't all that impressed with the taste of the sauce so I'm going to tweak it some. Less sugar, less sesame seed oil. Little more salt and pepper. All the family ate it with no complaints, which is saying alot. Carrie usually complains about anything different to eat and Matt doesn't like too many vegetables but they both ate it without complaint. Emily ate all hers as well, but she never has been too picky.

We should have ate on the floor Korean style! We ate at a restaurant here like that, take your shoes off at the door and all, and I loved it. I thought it was quite comfortable. Only problem was chasing the 18 month old around while trying to eat.

Here are some pictures! Bon appetit!

A bit of History

I know I posted this picture before but I did some research and wanted to share what I found. This is Hill 303. During the Korean war the North Koreans/Chinese caught and massacred 41 US soldiers on this hill. They tied their hands behind their backs and apparently just randomly shot at them. Some soldiers did manage to escape by faking death and this is how there are accurate reports of the event. There is a granite plaque around somewhere; I haven't walked back there as it is very steep and I don't want to take the girls back there by myself with such a grade. Eventually we will go see it.

Not very exciting I know but it is sobering to look out your window and see that everyday and know what happened there. It makes me think. It's one thing to live an ocean away and see Kim Jong Il blustering about nukes, it's quite another to know he's basically in your backyard. The South Koreans live with this knowledge everyday and while they don't let it paralyze their lives they do keep that threat in the back of their minds. Of course I can only represent what a very small portion have said, and most of them are Katusas (Korean soldiers who work with the US Army) so maybe it's a little more day to day thought for them.