Something making me smile today...

I love this so much, its a real mood lifter and definitely makes a lonely day at work brighter.

Haeinsa, Tripitaka Koreana and Romance

This weekend I decided to treat Garry to a weekend away, just the two of us, to a place we had wanted to go to since orientation called Haeinsa (meaning Temple of Reflection on a Smooth Sea). It is a village in central South Korea, in the Gaya Mountains in South Gyeongsang, which has a very famous Buddhist temple and stores the Tripitaka Koreana - the world’s most comprehensive and oldest intact version of the Buddhist canon in Chinese script. The script is carved onto 81,340 wooden blocks and they were made in the 13th century. There are no known errors on the 52, 382960 characters.

Haeinsa Temple was first built in 802. Legend says that two Korean monks returned from China, Suneung and Ijeong, and healed King Aejang’s wife of her illness. In gratitude for the Buddha’s mercy, the King ordered the construction of the temple. Haeinsa was burned down by fire in 1817 and rebuilt in 1818.

The Temple of Haeinsa and Janggyeong Panjeon (the buildings that hold the Tripitaka Koreana) were listed as UNESCO World Herittage Sites in 1995.

So, we set of early Saturday morning and caught a bus first to Daegu (90 mins) where we had to transfer bus stations and then get another bus for Haeinsa (120 mins). We arrived at Haeinsa about 1pm and were greeted by an agjuma (old lady) who tried to get us to book into her hotel. We followed her and had a look but the level of flowers was beyond comprehension and the bathrooms left something to be desired. We walked up the hill a little and found a traditional looking Korean motel - it had a lovely open hallway and balcony that ran all along the front. We viewed a room, agreed a price and dropped off our stuff.

Our traditional Korean hotel which looked out over the mountains and Mt Gaya.

We set off up the hill (with a few beers from a local shop) and spent some time sitting in the warm sunshine drinking beers and chatting. After a 30 minute walk we reached Haeinsa Temple - it was definitely more beautiful than other temples we had seen and built in an amazing setting in the hills. We were slightly disappointed that the Tripitaka Koreana were behind wooden slats and the guard was very protective of these - you were not allowed to even tough the outside wood of the building (however, we later realised that even the building is National Treasure No. 52 and Koreans are very keen on their national treasures!).

This is a map of the many temples in the area.


Turtles.


There were a group of kids on an outing and this girl was very excited to speak English to a foreigner - she was even more excited when she realised we lived in Pohang as she was from Pohang. She ran after us twice to keep chatting! Bless.

Some traditional spices the old agjumas were selling.


Garry sitting by the river, drinking some beers.


Entrance up to Haeinsa Temple.


Very old tree trunk that I really can't remember the significance of - sorry.


Haeinsa's many buildings.


This was a long winding maze that you walked around and while you walked you prayed for forgiveness.


Buddhist painted drum.


I love these bells, they are so beautiful.


Peek-a-boo!


Ornate door handles.


Ornate wood carving.


These are one of my favourite things about Buddhist Temples - the floor tiles are beautiful and so intricate.

Janggyeong Panjeon where the Tripitaka Koreana are held. And this is as close as we got.


Lanterns in the Temple Square - preparing for Buddha's Birthday on 21st May.


Decorated elephant.


Leaving Haeinsa to head back for dinner.

We walked back down to the village, and with our tummies rumbling we chose a restaurant - this didn’t take long as there were only about 4 and they appeared to serve the same food. In true foreigner style, we just pointed at what someone else was having and asked for that. A million little side dishes arrived and we waited for the main but it never arrived. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. There were always crisps!

Back up the hill to the hotel, with a few more beers and the bottle of Champagne we had put in the hotel owners fridge before we went for a walk. We sat on two big wicker chairs on the balcony area and watched it get dark sipping on champagne out of plastic cups. It was pretty chilly but the room was not much to look at so we just wrapped up and sat chatting until the small hours.

When we awoke in the morning, it was a beautiful day and we packed quickly and headed down to the waterfalls we had seen signposted the previous day. Well, there was A waterfall, and it was quite pretty so we sat down and munched our breakfast of crackers and cheese slices. It was at this point that we made a wrong decision - we read in our South Korea book that there was a large gold Buddha statue half way up the mountain and we figured we had plenty of time to walk for a while and still get home in plenty of time.

Waterfall at Haeinsa.


Aw.

So we set off on our first proper hike in Korea. We were not at all put off by the millions of Koreans around us who were coming DOWN the hill, dressed head-to-toe in the best hiking gear ever and looking fresh as buttons (it was only midday after all) and tucking into their packed lunch by the side of the river. Up we went, up many many many steps and it got steeper and steeper. There were signs along the way telling us how far left to go and we kept thinking 2km wasn’t that bad. Anyway, to cut a long story short, it was a LONG hike to the top - one of the ones where there are a million peaks an each time you think you are at the top, you are not. We were ill equipped with Converse baseball boots on and no sunscreen. At least we had some water! When we finally got to the top, after scrambling up some rather large rockfaces and saying “hello” a million times to all the Koreans going DOWN the mountain, the views were amazing and it was all worth it. And we were once again humbled by Korean generousity - a group of young Koreans gave us 2 rolls of gimbap (Korean sushi rolls with veggies inside) and two mini Twixs. We must have looked really unprepared! The walk back down was much quicker than on the way up and we treated ourselves to one final beer before starting the journey back to Pohang.

Gimbap at the top of the mountain.


Sitting on top of the world.


Its a bit high up here!


We did it!

It was a fantastic weekend and I would definitely recommend a trip to Haeinsa to anyone looking for a relaxing, peaceful, romantic weekend.

Pohang Hangdo Spring School Picnic

In South Korea, schools tend to have their school outing quite near the beginning of term as the weather gets hotter and hotter into June and July. Most of my friends school’s had already had their school picnic day’s out and I was waiting excitedly for ours. However, Jenny told me one Tuesday that the picnic was that Friday day and that we would have no classes. There was no mention of us attending the picnic. I was disappointed as I really wanted to go on the picnic and spend some time with the kids outside school and get to know them a bit better. Over the next few days I dropped some rather big hints about liking school outings and by the Thursday the other teachers seemed to have picked up on this as a ticket for me appeared on my desk and I was told that I would go to the picnic with a 3rd Grade class. Oh, I thought – I don’t teach 3rd Grade and know none of the children and they speak no English. Anyway, I decided to make the best of it so came to school bright and early the next day all set to go on a school outing! And it was raining. Typical but I have lived in Scotland long enough not to let that put me off (ssshhh, Garry, this is the new Mon).

A million buses arrived in the school playground – 6th Grade were off to a amusement park in daegu, 4th Grade were going to a country park and both 3rd and 5th Grade were going to the amusement park in Gyeongju, originally named “Gyeongju World”. And my spirits were lifted when I boarded my bus with Cass 3-4 as some of the kids in my after school club were in this class and so very excited that I was with them.

This is Bella, one of my little after school cuties.

And this is Alice, who has the most gold teeth I have ever seen in a 9 year old and is boisterous and brash but I love her so, she is my personal favourite.

Gyeongju World in itself is not much different than any small amusement park – it had some big roller-coaster rides and one of the plummet-style tower things but I am not all that keen on rides so just wanted to spend time watching the kids having fun. However, once again my hopes were blighted as my day was to be spent with the other teachers, walking around and sitting about. As these were all Home Room teachers, I think they appreciated the break from the kids and were enjoying some peaceful time.

While the kids were eating lunch, there was a Butlins style show on the main stage consisting of about 12 males and females dancing and miming to K-Pop classics. Some of the kids loved this but one of my after school club boys most certainly did not!

Butlins minus the red coats.

He was not amused and stood at the front like this for the full 30 minutes.

Costume change number 4 and they were off again!

Little Jane, another after school club gem who is just the cutest.

Teachers lunch Korea-style - individual little pots of bimimbap and seaweed stew. Yummy!

I did get cajoled into going on two rides – one called a Tambourine which was a big round ride with seat round the edge but nothing to tie you in and it spun around shaking like a tambourine. Not much fun and gave you really sore arms! The other was a river rapids ride which some kids came on with us and was quite good fun.

The queue for the river rapids.

A few of my 5th graders waiting for the rapids.

Actual dinosaur.

One of my favourite 5th Grade girls who is very perceptive and quickly picked up on my British accent and now copies it everytime she says "hulllloooooo" to me.

A group of my after school club kids including Cathy, Julie, Daisy, Bella and Jane. I did not name them.

The two teachers that were my companions for the day and dragged me on the dreaded tambourine.

In the afternoon, the rain came on pretty heavy for a while and the teachers retreated to the only restaurant area there was. Sitting under wooden shelters, we ate Korean pancakes (yum yum) and drank makgeolli (rice wine – yuck yuck).

Before I knew it, the day was over and were loaded back on the buses to return to school. It was 3pm when we got back and I decided to sneaky off home as clearly no work was going to be done in the last 2 hours. I don’t think anyone noticed…………….

Class 3-4 with their teacher who made my day a whole lot of Korean fun!

Korean Aerobics

After 2 months in South Korea of no exercise (and the 6 months prior to that in Glasgow if I am being honest), we decided to join a local gym in Pohang. Corey and Paul were already members and my thought was that if friends went to then it would give me more motivation. Hhhhmmmm.

Anyway, it’s a small little gym and definitely not as high class as Virgin or Greens but it has treadmills, bikes, plenty of weights and an area for doing abs work so it was all we needed. They also offered exercise classes for an extra 15 pounds a month so I decided to sign up. The first night went pretty well and we both felt much better for having done some physical exercise!

On night number two, me and Corey got cajoled into attending the “aerobics” class the runs Monday to Friday from 7pm til 8pm. Corey warned me about this particular class as she had watched it before and found it very amusing. But the problem is in Korea that it’s very difficult to say no when someone asks you to do something – partly due to the language barrier and partly due to the kindness of the Korean people. So, we were introduced to the aerobic instructor, in all her shiny dance tight and leg warmer glory and we began our first class. I have to say, I have never laughed so much during exercise in my whole life. It was basically a crotch thrusting class with arm movements, some which made it look like you were masturbating a massive penis (sorry Mum, but it did). The music was the hardest, fastest Korean happy hardcore techno ever. Trying to hide our laughter, we attempted to get involved in the class but it was the longest/shortest hour of my life. To add to the humility, Paul and Garry were outside the studio watching us the whole time.

That was the first and last Korean aerobics class I will ever attend. Body Attack, come back, all is forgiven! However, we had been told that in Korea if you start attending a club/class/group and are introduced to the coach/instructor/leader then you should think seriously as it is rude to stop attending. So, for the following few nights we decided to go for a 5 mile run down the beach and head back to the gym for after 7pm to do some weight and abs work and hopefully never be asked to attend again. This kind of worked but it was a bit embarrassing.

The video below is similar to our experience, except there was a lot more thrusting in ours and more spandex!



Outdoor exercise for me from now on!

Cherry Blossom, Mr Pizza, Rice Cake and Rice Wine!

Me and Jenny at Bomun Lake, Gyeongju

In South Korea, they are crazy about cherry blossom trees and have a whole festival in the month April surrounding this. There are two main areas to go and see the cherry blossoms and one of these is the historic town of Gyeongju which is about 25 minutes drive from Pohang.

Gyeongju is very famous in South Korea as it has a number f UNESCO World Heritage sites and was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Silla which ruled most of the Korean peninsula between the 7th and 9th centuries. Due to the vast number of archaeological sites Gyeongju is often referred to as “the museum without walls”.

My co-teacher, Jenny, is from Gyeongju and still lives there with her husband. She was very keen for us to visit Gyeongju during the cherry blossom festival and so invited us one Saturday afternoon. However, we had gone out for a “few drinks” the night before and as usual, Monica was suffering a tad. Anyway, we met her at school (in South Korea, even in elementary school, the kids attend school 2 Saturday mornings every month and as such, Korean teachers also need to work on some Saturdays – us lucky EPIK lot escape this tragedy) at 12.30pm and she drove us to Gyeongju.

We started off with a tasty hangover lunch in Mr Pizza, a Korean pizza chain which does REALLY good pizzas – although I am NOT a fan of the sweet potato mousse (yes, that’s right, sweet potato mousse) that they often feel the need to put on the pizza or fill the crust with. Why? So we munched until we were full and then headed off for the Bomun Lake area to see the cherry trees in full blossom.

Bomun Lake is a man made lake about 6 km outside Gyeongju but is very beautiful during the cherry blossom season as it has millions of cherry trees around its edges. I found this lovely quite on the Korean Tourist Info website and thought I would share it with you – “Viewing the beautiful scenery of this walk with pink petals dancing with the wind wind make you smile gently.” It did and we smiled a lot. We spent the afternoon walking around the lake and chatting.

The cutest thing I have yet to see in Korea. This was a remote controlled kids car, complete with K-Pop tunes blasting out of the little speakers and little girl with a head scarf that it is a must for any lady in a convertible.

Me and Garry blossoming it up!

Hiding in the blossom.

And a bit more blossom....

Trying to make the blossom photos a bit more original....

Jackie Chan style blossom.

Ah, two cute little bottle of beer enjoying the view.

No idea what we were looking at but it must have been interseting...

Mandatory "kimchi" sign to do in all Korean photos.

Tunnel of cherry blossom, it really was beautiful.

Happy days with the blossom.

Conquering the huge lake one step at a time...

Another little cutesome one, this time with angel wings on the back of his lickle rucker-sacker.

Beautiful blossom and blue skies.

And some more.........

And yet more........

Love these paving stones, they are from the Silla Dynasty apparently and all around Gyeongju (although I fear they may not be entirely original)

After our legs were worn out, we headed down to the university district in Gyeongju and had the most amazing fresh strawberry juice drink I have ever had. And only for a pound. The noises I made were not normal!

I have clearly stolen Garry's strawberry juice also....

On the same weekend there was also a Rice Cake and Rice Wine Festival being held in Gyeongju so we headed over there late in the afternoon. However, due to our late arrival, most of the festivities were ending. We sampled some ricke cake which Jenny insisted on buying for us – its not at all sweet and in Korean is called “dok”. Its made by pounding rice to within an inch of its life with a big hammer and then made into a ball shape of doughy, stodgy, tasteless stuff. Sometimes they put red bean paste in the centre which Koreans think is sweet – its not.

We sauntered over to the rice wine tasting section and sampled some Korean traditional rice wine. We have tried this before and are not really fans. Its kind of like a starchy, milky, grainy cream coloured liquid that tastes like alcohol. Not good. We bumped into a few friends who had clearly had an afternoon of sampling and one recommended a berry wine she had sampled so I bought a bottle and we headed off home.

For a hangover day it turned out pretty well and was really good to spend some time with Jenny outside school and get to know her a bit more.

Hammering away the rice to make delicious (??) rice cake.

Finally, some new Korean words for all you readers:

Makgeolli (pronounced 'mak elli') = Korean rice wine.
Dok (pronounced 'dok') = Korean rice cake