Safety Theme Park Field Trip

This month's field trip was the Daegu Safety Theme Park. It was pretty awesome. The kids were able to watch videos (in Korean) that I think were explaining what causes disasters and how to react - like fires, earthquakes, floods, hiking accidents, and so on. What was really interesting is that the exhibits were very hands on. I took some videos to show you guys :]

This is an earthquake simulator - the kids had to turn off the electricity and gas line and then hide under the table. They were so excited! Later we walked through a "alleyway" with falling "brick walls" and debris on the ground.

The fire extinguisher simulator - the kids got to take turns putting out fake fires.

The Safety Theme Park was up the Palgong Mountain, so it was quite a drive, but the kids amused themselves, and by the drive home most were exhausted and asleep. This is Kyoung Mo and Olivia, he clearly has a crush on her, and its pretty adorable.

Kyoung Mo fixing his socks with great concentration.

Chloe, Chaeyeon, and Lucy

Olivia and Minseo sharing chips. All of the kids bring snacks big enough to share. They are so sweet about it, I can't even turn down really weird snacks I would have never picked out on my own, and just drink a lot of water to avoid the taste.

Edwin is a pretty serious kid most of the time, but occasionally he does a Hawaiian dance that is hilarious.

Edwin eating candies.

My mother says I need to explain how to post comments, because it is difficult. From the main page of the blog, you scroll to the bottom of the entry, click comments, then scroll down, write your comment, and click post as "Anonymous" leave anything as the website or email - google.com is fine, and put your name under "Name" and click "Post Comment."

Daegu City Tour

This past weekend I vowed to be more independent in my tourist-ing around the city, and went on a Daegu City Tour by myself. These are pretty cool, and all of the big cities have them in Korea. You pay about $8 for the day, and you hop on and off the tour buses at the designated stops/times, and its unlimited for the whole day. I got a late start, but had time to see three of the locations on it. (you can make the pictures larger by clicking on them)

First, I went to the Bullo-dong Tombs. Daegu has 137 tombs right in the city, which is because Daegu was a part of the Silla Empire (remember the post about Gyeong Ju?).

I wore flip flops and was hung over. I was not prepared for the hiking portion of the morning.

Lots and lots of tombs, each one labeled with a little plaque and a number.

After the tombs, I wandered around the area waiting for the next bus, and found a really cool outdoor market that stretched on for blocks and blocks. They had all sorts of strange things and smells, amazing textures and colors. It was beautiful.

I am addicted to peppers in Korea.

Korea has a lot of telephone wires. Between the buildings, everything is exposed and cutting through the mountain views. It makes for a very unique picture of the city.

My second stop was the Goo-Am Folk Village. This is a living museum - they have traditional aspects of Korean culture on display and it is generally hands on. This was a small one, but was interesting nonetheless.

Everything here is cute.

Everything.

I was taught out to make egg baskets out of straw. To me, this doesn't look like a basket, but they have handles and are cute. Don't worry, those are foam balls, not real eggs.

The instructor made me this out of leaves, which I love.

I wanted a little statue of their totem poles, but they only make cutesy things in their wood carving shop, like the heart shaped stuff above.

The third stop was the Bangjja Yugi, or Bronzeware, Museum, which is up on the Palgong Mountain (remember the Dondhwasa Temple?). It aims to preserve Korea's traditional methods of bronzeware, and it is full of beautiful, intricate pieces of art. These are handbells, which I loved, since I learned to play them and all.

This is the largest gong of its style in the world, in the Book of World Records and all. I wish I had gotten some frame of reference in the shot.

These are candle sticks. I wish I had more information about everything, but there wasn't a lot of English captions. Then I tried to find a place to eat, as I had some time before my bus was coming to take me home.. a wonderful older woman working the information desk at the museum decided to walk me to a noodle place down the road, and taught me how to eat the long thin, slippery noodles with metal chopsticks. She had been studying English for twenty years, but felt uncomfortable speaking in it, since she rarely was able to practice with native English speakers. I try to explain to these people that my Korean is practically nonexistent, and their English is generally impressive, so they shouldn't be worried.. but I get the impression that a lot of people have not been as accepting of little grammar errors, which is just wrong.

Changing the subject though, the work weeks fly by, and I have been crazy busy. I am sending packages and letters to people who have sent me things already, and am excited for that. Corinne and I are going on base today, to pick up some American goods (some for Tricia, t0o!) and eat some Taco Bell. Tomorrow might be a day trip, so I should post more pictures soon.

Donghwasa Temple

Chris and I went up to Palgong Mountain to the Donghwasa Temple. Its in Daegu, and is famous for its HUGE Buddha statue, pictured above. Its hard to tell scale from this angle, but I can assure you that it is gigantic - 33 meters or 108 feet tall! The pamphlets in English say that this is the largest Buddha in the world! To give you some scale, the pagodas 17m high, so they are much shorter but look taller as they were much closer to the camera. (Click the pictures to get a larger version of it!)

There was this beautiful fountain next to the Buddha statute, which Chris assured me is good to drink, but I decided to stick with my safe, bottled water hah.

Because this temple was built in the mountains, it is surrounded by beautiful waterfalls, giant trees, and breathtaking scenery. It was built here during a time period when Buddhist monks were persecuted, and this was intended to create a secluded place for the monks to live.

This was carved into a wall of rock on one of the paths through the mountain.

The temple was a large, spread out amount of land, with paths leading through the mountain with buildings, Buddhas, and statutes dispersed amongst the area. Every aspect of it was stunning.

Inside the buildings was an "alter" area, with buddha's image in pictures or statues... and in front was usually people praying at little stations like this. A small pad to rest on, with buddhist texts and materials for traditional ceremonies.

One buildings collection of buddhas.

A small archway leading up a path.

All of the buildings had buddhist symbols on the outside, this is one of the earliest forms of the peace sign.

I love the architecture. This painting is beautiful, and probably has been retouched numerous times, but I love it regardless.

In the entrance, and throughout the temple, there were giant statues of the temple's "protectors."

The protector is crushing a nondescript "bad guy."

I'm not sure if he is protecting or killing the dragon, but I think its awesome.

I'm really white.

The details of the paint really amazes me.

This is near the ceiling in one of the temple buildings.

This is the first temple I have been to, and I am more than impressed. It was beautiful, and serine, which was nice, as I have heard some are full of rather disrespectful guests. The weather was insanely hot, but more than worth it. I can't wait to see more of Korea, and to experience more temples. I am looking into doing a temple stay - staying the night in a temple, from about 4pm one day until the next afternoon. It was created to introduce people to Buddhism and the lifestyles of Buddhist monks. Stays involve creating your own prayer beads, traditional Buddhist meals, and doing the 108 bows monks do every day. I feel so ignorant of Korean and Buddhist culture, I think a temple stay would be eye opening and educational. I've been looking for one aimed at foreigners, with instructions in English, and think I should be able to do one in October.

Daegu's International Body Painting Festival

Here's a shot of Daegu in the evening, some days its so cloudy and humid you can't see the mountains, but lately its been getting better with fall starting.

There was a ridiculously large park filled with people and a huge stage. I went with my friend Alisa, and it was awesome. I tried soju for the first time (yes it is as bad as I thought it was going to be).

We could walk around the tents and see the models being worked on and getting ready to walk on stage.

I didn't take that great of pictures because I was so far from the stage, but here are some I found online from the event.

You can tell that she is wearing underwear, most of the models were wearing that or even full body suits, which were then painted over. Korea is a pretty modest society, so it isn't surprising.

Gyeong Ju

Gyeong Ju Adventure! The first step was not being lost, thank goodness for Corinne and Jessica. They were very prepared tourists. I brought a hangover and sunglasses, they brought maps, guidebooks, experience, and talent.

First we went to a Lotus Garden. Gyeong Ju is famous for being the ancient capital of the Silla Empire, and is known as the "museum without walls." The city's motto or slogan is "Beautiful Gyeong Ju (fun fact: I live in Colorful Daegu). From what I understand, the whole city is basically temples and beautiful gardens. I was more than impressed.

The garden had a traditional irrigation system.

Lotus Flower Ponds

This may help give some perspective on just how big the area really is. There were tourists, but a lot of Korean couples posing for photo shoots - it is my understanding they often have engagement photos taken here.

Next we went to Anapji Pond, which was part of the Silla empire's palace. Of course, it has since been destroyed, but they have dug up archeological sites and found artifacts and remains from the buildings. They have restored some of the more simple buildings, and have models of the most complex ones. I've heard it is especially beautiful at night, and intend to come back at least once more before I leave Korea.

This is a restored building. The architecture is beautiful, the painting exquisite. I love it.

This pond is actually artificial, but beautiful and full of huge koi fish. I've heard rumors that the small island in the middle was used to display exotic animals during outdoor parties.

The Silla emperors are buried in these huge burial mounds. From a distance, like in this photo, they look rather small, but that is deceiving, I cannot remember the exact measurement, but heard that they are about half the height of great pyramids, and are multiple stories high.

This is the Cheomseongdae Astronomical Observatory, which seems ancient and simple.. but further research proves that wrong. According to their tourist guide, it is made up of 27 stories of stone pads that are 30 cm high, all carved to look like the same Chinese character, and totaling in 361 stones - for the number of days in a lunar year. It is an elegant structure with mathematical significance, which is highly impressive to me.

This is another garden, which had random characters designed to look like kings and queens in the Silla Empire, just dropped there for a photo opportunity.

Really, I can't say enough good things about Gyeong Ju. It is absolutely beautiful.

More gardens we walked through. We ended the evening with duck galbi, which is actually chicken and the first Korean food that I absolutely love. I think I am getting it again this week, it was that good!

I have barely even scratched the surface of all there is to do in Gyeong Ju. It has over a thousand years of history, and there are temples, gardens, parks, museums, and so much more I have not even seen. I need to go back, and soon. I heard it is beautiful in the fall with the leaves changing, so possibly returning in a month?