For the Engineer in all of us

This is a fine example of road side Korean construction techniques, brought to you again by the excellent photographical skills of Amity. We stopped about 247 times along this highway to take pictures of rice paddies and flowers and this was the only thing I asked her take a pictue of along the way ( if you do want to see her work with flora and fauna... which is phenomenal...check out her award winning photos at http://www.eyefetch.com/contest.aspx?contest=80 ).

It was very interesting to see how they laid out these planks of wood to form the traditional Korean/Asian slanting roof top. I believe this particular site is intended to be a gas station.

Potty-centrism

Amity found this sign in Gyeongju a few weekends past. As plentiful as toilets are here, sometimes they are a little less than inviting. Often bars and restaurants will have shared accomodations with a single urinal and stall, and a "eyes front and center" code of etiquette. There still are some "squatter's" around which consist of a porcelin hole in the middle of the stall. This picture was taken in a train station washroom and I guess there was an actual toilet behind this door.

There are too many jokes to be made here, so I won't bother.

Near Miss

It is monsoon season and the picture above is of Typhoon Ewiniar. This one is currently raging its way up the west coast and missed Pusan by a peninsula. The rain today was still unreal, probably the worst I have ever experienced, and just poured down blankets all day. An umbrelly was useful only for keeping dry above the neckline as everything else just soaked in minutes. Fingers crossed on the next one!

Jejudo

A few weekends ago we managed to actually get 3 days off of work. This was the most time I'd had off since coming here in June '05. So, we packed up and headed for Jeju island.
Jeju is a sub tropical island in the south, it is a popular honeymoon destination and only takes 45min. by plane... or 9 hours by ship. The choice was clear.

We luckily got ourselves booked into a nice luxury hotel in the luxury hotel district along the southern coast. It was beatiful, palm trees and lush foliage line the roads. There was a gorgeous beach a few minutes walk from the hotel which was virtually empty of people. In fact, there was hardly anyone around. We did see a sign for a "Hooters" bar, optimism got the best of me as we entered and instead of buxom babes slinging chicken wings and beer, there were two dudes serving octopus soup and cold noodles. Oh well, at least they had beer.

The fact that it rained the entire time we were there was not all that disappointing. We still managed to see a lot around the area we were in. There is a beautiful botanical garden. A gorgeous tropical gully with a walkway leading down to a waterfall. We managed to visit a local folk village and also hit every luxury bar in every luxury hotel within crawling distance. Out favorite was the Hyatt which had a huge Goya fish pond surrounding the bar.

We did have a bit of an ordeal at our last dinner, the restaurant we went to was beautiful and designed like a royal palace. Most of the main dishes were horse meat. Now, horse meat doesn't really raise any ethical issues with me, but there is something just not right about it. So we had the pork.

War Memorial

War Memorial...

Okay, so I'm playing a little catch up. These pictures are from the war memorial in Seoul. The Korean war claimed many lives on many sides. It was the first UN military engagement and included over 15 participant nations. There were nearly 300,000 South Korean casualites and 60,000 American soldiers killed or MIA. This is a fact that I am often reminding my students of whenever the express anti-American sentiments, that these Americans died "defending the freedom of people they had never met, in a nation they had never heard of". In all honesty, the Memorial is full of propoganda such is that statement which is inscribed above the names of the UN casualties. Inside, the memorial is huge and contains military artifacts from far back in history, from swords and spears to MIG's and M-60's. It is outside on the grounds to the left of the memorial that you find a junk yard of planes, tanks, missiles, and guns. It left us with a very weary feeling after and we were anxious to leave all of the implements of death. All in all, I feel this memorial was more about glorifying war and war technology, than it was honoring those whose lives had been claimed by it.

GyeongJu

GyeongJu

Walking off the train into Gyeongju is like stepping through a portal. Both time and space are transformed and opened. The air is hushed, the sky is open, and there is a big fat green horizon all around. This was quite a contrast from the present day capitol of Seoul. Especially after spending a night in Itaewon, which is a seedy bar district famous for indian food and something know locally as "hooker hill". Gyeongju is the old Capitol of Korea and was the ruling seat of a unified Korea. Nowadays it is called the museum without walls as the city has seemingly integrated itself around dozens of historical outdoor sights.

We walked about 15 minutes from the train to our hotel which was quite nice compared to room we rented in Itaewon. It was late afternoon, so we relaxed for awhile and then taxied to some ruins and then walked back through a royal cemetary and past an ancient observatory.

The next day was full of adventure and intrigue. We rented bicycles from a shop across the road from the hotel and headed south of the city. There are clearly marked bicycle routes that run around the southern end of the city where most of the cultural sites can be found.

The ride out was really interesting as both sides of the road were lined withrice paddies and farmers wading knee deep and harvesting the rice by hand. It was very surreal, right out of movie. As we kept stopping to take pictures, I had this image of Korean family pulling their rental car over on the side of some rural Iowa road and taking pictures of some overall-clad, John Deer potato farmer. Our main destination was Bulguksa Temple which was about 22km from our hotel. It was a hard ride but definitely worth it. The temple is huge, it was built in the 9th century and burned down by Japanese invaders in the 14th century. It has since been restored and is one of the finest examples of traditional Korean architecture.

After wandering around and a few exciting rounds of hide and seek, we took off and headed back towards the city. It was mostly down hill and much easier than the way out. It was a great trip and definitely worthwhile for anyone.