Memorial Weekend

Yes, Memorial Day is an American holiday. So there was nothing special going on in Korea. The weather has been just perfect here, so on Saturday we drove out to Guemosan again, where we had previously seen the paddle boats on the lake at the base of the mountain. It is a small man made lake, though it is fed by the small stream that runs down from the mountain. The place was packed with Koreans spending a day in nature, away from the city. There were only a few people out on the lake though, so it was nice to be paddled around by my husband! The girls were complete opposites; one of them was scared and kept asking to go back, while I had to keep both hands on the other to prevent her from jumping out of the boat!







Across the street from the lake is a small amusement park, with rides comparable to a traveling fair. We took the girls there, but you had to buy different tickets for each ride at the central ticket kiosk for each ride, which was difficult for us since we don't speak Korean. Turns out it didn't really matter since they were too small for most of them anyway. They had numerous coin operated rides, like you see at the mall, so we let them ride several of those.

Daddy joining the fun!

On Monday, Memorial Day itself, some people from church went back to Guemosan and I decided to go with them. We paddled the boats around the lake again, then took the cable car up to the top of the mountain. The last time I went up it was winter, so this time everything was different. I didn't have my camera since I was man-handling two children. Take my word, it was beautiful. We met a curious squirrel who would get within an arms reach, then run up the rocks again. We also saw some cute chipmunks, and watched another squirrel get punished for invading a magpie nest. Everyone else went up to the cave, but I've been on that path before and was not eager to retrace those steps! We finished up the day with late lunch/early dinner at the Lotte Mart food court.

While I was out on the lake paddling, Matt was on the ocean fishing. Actually it was more like in the harbor, but whatever. He took an MWR (Morale, Welfare, & Recreation) fishing trip. They had a boat driver and supplies provided and caught some fish, which were then pooled and filleted, and they all ate sushi from their freshly caught fish.


So, the lake,the ocean harbor, and on Tuesday some shopping in downtown Daegu complete with awesome Krispy Kreme doughnuts! (One of the things I bought was a t-shirt that says "Boston, Massachubatts"! {not a typo}) Turned out to be a typical American holiday weekend after all!

Party on Post

This past weekend they celebrated the 50th anniversary of Camp Carrol. It was a lot of fun. They opened the post to the public and had numerous performances, most of them by Koreans. First up was the Republic of Korea (ROK) Army drill team.

They spun and tossed their bayoneted weapons around. If you've ever seen a drill team before then you've seen this. Pretty standard show. There were a couple of differences I did notice. First was instead of one person calling commands the whole time there were different people calling them out at different times. Second was when you watch a US drill team, they are eyes front, stone faced, dead silent. The ROK team was talking to each other and looking around. I always like watching drill teams though.
There were several displays of traditional Korean music and dancing.

samoul nori - traditional percussion music

Traditional folk song. After the first song they started 'breaking it down' and were lightly twirling around and circling. It almost sounded like she was rapping at one point! Unfortunately they only had two handheld microphones for these group performances. I think it detracted from the whole effect because you could only hear one or two people and not the group. The group pictured below all sang but only the women had the mics, so you couldn't hear the men or the large wooden flute. At the beginning they held it up to the flute while he soloed, and it sounded beautiful, but then they took it away to sing and the flute was lost in the soprano voices.

Traditional poetic song. They explained before the start what it was about but I couldn't understand what they were saying.


Hwagwanmoo - traditional dance. This was my favorite performance. There is a whole row of ladies behind her.

There were several helicopters and motorized vehicles displayed that they let people get in. Matt enjoyed this as much as the girls! Toward the end of the event the ROK army had to fly their helis off and we were there to watch, which was fascinating for the girls (and Matt!) also.


The event closed with a concert by Fred Shaffer, which was pretty good. Matt took the baby home and Carrie and I stayed to watch a bit of it. She was fascinated at first, then she said it was too loud.

Bye bye!

Manbulsa

The weather has just been fantastic the past couple of weeks creating a wonderful opportunity to explore outside. This weekend we went to Manbulsa, a temple. And yes, most of the temples just kind of run together after a while but this one is a little different. There are supposed to be 10,000 small buddhas in the main temple, although I wouldn't be surprised if there were more! According to what I read, people will buy these and have a name engraved. These buddhas will then bring happiness and good luck to that person. The inside and outside of the temple is covered with these tiny statues plus other sizes, and with the lights it has a glowing effect. Behind each small light you see on the wall is a tiny buddha.

They also have a bone enshrined, called a sarira, which is supposed to one of buddha's. You can actually see it inside its' little dome! There was too much light shining on it to get a better picture than this.

This is also said to be the only temple with stone coffins in its premises. The body is cremated and then placed inside these domes. The website called them pagodas.

We walked on all the scenic and buddha lined paths to the different things they had.


Avaloketeshvara hall. Maitreya statue flanked by 'lucky bags'. If I understand the (bad) translation correctly, one is for merit, the other for virtuos deeds. If you pray facing one of the bags you can "accumulate" the aforementioned virtues.


The Great Lantern Tower,a small model of one in India.


Nirvana buddha


33 meters buddha



I'm pretty sure they were doing some remodeling because there were some things on the website we didn't see or that were in a different place. There was also a lot of digging going on while we were there.

Rambling Randomness

It only takes a short time to recover from one trip before I'm rarin' to go on the next! Since we have to stay local for now I've been watching the brown signs; you know, the ones that mean 'historical spot ahead'. I spotted one that said Gayasan Botanical Gardens, so one Sunday after church we went. The signs for the garden were intermittent after we got off the main road, but we found it without too much difficulty. The drive was fairly mundane until we were almost there, then there were some beautiful flowers and a few statues and a pagoda along the road. I made Matt stop at the pagoda for a picture. It was built in 802 as part of a large Buddhist temple complex that was destroyed in the Japanese invasion during the 1590s.


When we arrived at the gardens there were two paths and we couldn't tell which way to go as there were no more signs. So we followed the crowd. Turns out your mom was right, don't follow; the crowd was wrong! We ended up walking up a very steep hill to a newly and not completely constructed Buddhist temple. At least the scenery was pretty! This was at a fairly high altitude so the climate was milder and the cherry blossoms were still in full bloom here. I like this shot:

These show how rocky the terrain is here!




The garden itself was disappointing since there was nothing in bloom except a few azaleas, which are all around our apartment and everywhere else, so big deal. And that was a Sunday afternoon.

The following Saturday I wanted to go to Juwangsan National Park and walk on the trails. Somehow we didn't make it. I won't say how, just somehow. (We ended up in Andong again!!) There was a lovely place we stopped to have a picnic. It looked like it was once a really beautiful garden but hasn't been tended to recently. Spring in Korea is fantastic and these are a few examples of why:




Flowers like these are everywhere! But so fleeting. It was a great scenic spot and I took a few more pictures of the things around us.





We never did make it to Juwangsan Park. Guess we were meant to see other things instead. Since we were in Andong I wanted to try to get to the mask museum that I had been wanting to see the first two times we were here. However, the road signs were shall we say spotty, so we ended up on the wrong road. Instead we stopped at Bongjeongsa, where the oldest wooden building in Korea is located, circa 1363. I cannot attest to the veracity of that statement because to be honest it seemed in pretty good condition to be 600+ years old. Here is the building. You had to climb a set of stone steps up to a small courtyard that wasn't big enough to take a full shot, so I had to take the picture from the steps.

I chose to walk up the road since it was such a nice day and a pretty path; Matt drove the girls up. A few more pictures for your viewing pleasure!

love the lanterns!

pagoda said to have been built around the 12th century

Touring Tokyo

Tokyo, the big city of big cities. A simple perusal of a Tokyo guidebook quickly reveals that there is enough to do here to keep you busy for years. We had one day, and not even a whole day! There are no historical sites in Tokyo as the city was mostly destroyed during World War II. I chose to follow the Asakusa walk outlined in the Frommer's guidebook because according to the book, it feels the most historical.
We started at the Kaminarimon Gate, with a 100 kg (220 lbs) lantern hanging in the middle. (I wish we could see it lit!) It also had two statues inside representing the gods of thunder and wind, which are supposed to be ready to protect the deity in the temple beyond. They, like all other statues inside gates around Japan, were enclosed in mesh, making it difficult to get a decent picture. You can almost see them in the picture, flanking the lantern.

We strolled down the Nakamise Dori, which is a packed pedestrain street lined with souvenir and sweet shops. According to the book, record show there have been vendors here since the late 17th century, so I guess this really is the historical side of Tokyo!


We walked through all the people and peeped in a few shops, passed a five story pagoda to reach the real highlight of this walking tour. At the end of Nakamise Dori is Sensoji Temple, the oldest in Tokyo. After passing through another gate (Hozomon), we see that the temple is completely enclosed. Apparently they are doing some long term work on it. Very disappointing. We went inside and the shrine was very pretty, although it was surrounded by mesh as well, which doesn't allow for good photos. The ceiling was beautifully painted, but as the light was dim inside it also did not photograph well.
Hozomon Gate with the temple incense burner; people are 'washing' themselves in the smoke to purify themselves.

Inside Sensoji Temple.

There was a very small, picturesque garden with some shrines next to the temple that was also very lovely. And that was the end of our Asakusa walking tour. As I had expected this to take a few hours longer, this was wonderful news because it meant we could see more! So we plotted a course for Ueno Park, full of things to do and see. I wanted to go to the zoo here because it was supposed to have a giant panda, one of the few zoos in the world to possess one. When we got to the zoo there were several signs that said "We DO NOT have a giant panda." (She died two years ago.) I was very disappointed, again. But we had to go because the girls knew we were at the zoo and were clamoring to go in. Tip: if in Tokyo do not waste your time here! It's a very small zoo and when we were there most of the animals weren't even out because they were cleaning their pens. (Aren't they supposed to do that when they don't have paying customers?) I had to content myself with a mediocre view of a red panda and a picture with a plastic giant panda.

After our visit to the zoo was over, we strolled around Ueno Park some more. It's a very big park. We came across what I now know is the Toshogu Shrine, erected in 1651 in honor of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the man who made Edo (Tokyo) the seat of government, thus setting in motion its history. The shrine itself was closed when we were there, which is a pity; it has cool stuff inside! But we did walk along the copper lantern lined path. There are 50 lanterns, each donated by daimyo (feudal lords) from around Japan.

In this area there was also a Hiroshima memorial. There is a flame burning on it that is supposed to have been taken from the ashes of Hiroshima and kept burning ever since. In the beginning it was kept as a symbol of the desire for revenge, now it is meant to represent the desire for peace. In Japan they make paper chains to place instead of using flowers. You can see these hanging on the sides.

We didn't have time to go to the peace memorial in Hiroshima, though I really wanted too. It seems almost sacrilegious in a way to be American and not go pay your respects at Hiroshima!
After this we got on a paddle boat and went around the lake, admiring the cherry blossoms some more and laughing at a cat. I don't want to say we were laughing at the people who owned the cat, but this cat (fur covered I assume) was dressed in a baby parka, had a stroller, and was being hand fed. They were taking pictures of the cat with the blossoms. (Americans are not the only people obsessed with their pets.) I don't know, maybe it was a show winning cat?

Next stop was dinner and the hotel, but first I couldn't resist the free observation tower so close to our hotel! Tokyo really is a big city!

And that's the end! We did spend one more day in Tokyo, but it was dedicated to DisneySea. We chose DisneySea because it is unique to Japan. I'm glad we went, but it's kind of a rip off. There are very few rides and shows; it's mostly souvenir shops and restaraunts, and they don't use the FastPass system adequately. I was disappointed, but the girls had a blast and that is why we went.