Chuseok vacation day 1 part 2: Songnisan National Park

After exploring Beopjusa, I went further into the park. It was quite pleasant to be truly alone for a while (Korea's population density gets to me sometimes.) The leaves were only changing on a few of the trees even though it was October, but those few trees were a vibrant red. It was a warm and pleasant walk, though the path became hard to find when in joined up with a rocky riverbed. In the riverbed I saw a snake, which was especially fun since one hardly sees any sort of wildlife in Korea. I missed the point where the two diverged again and so had to cut across the underbrush to get back on a trail. I finally got to the top of a mountain and saw a marker at it's very top, about thirty feet above me. I brilliantly decided that if workers could climb up there to place the marker, then I could get up too. I started climbing along the crevice between the two halves of the stone dome and was most of the way up when I couldn't make it up any farther. I was afraid for a few seconds that I would slide down the steep rock face, but I managed to get back in control and ease my way back down. After catching my breath and seeing that my wounds were superficial, I dropped my pack, tightened my boots, pocketed some gummy bears, and went back up. It was much much easier without the encumbrance of the pack putting me off balance. After enjoying some ursine delights, I climbed back down and headed on my way.

Unfortunately, because of my earlier time off the path, I was wrong about where my way was. I thought I was on one end of a loop of mountains and that I should continue to the highest one, when it turns out that I was already on the highest of the mountains which was on a dead end from the rest of the loop. I couldn't find the trail going East (because there wasn't one), but since trails are often hard to find on the very tops of mountains I (again, brilliantly) decided to cut through the brush around the rocky top part and meet up with it, which would have worked had there been a path to meet up with. Instead, I found myself on top of a series of small cliffs. At one point I was walking on a narrow ledge looking across a small ravine (about a 20 foot drop) and was calculating that I could jump over it as long as I didn't hit the rock wall on my left or the tree right next to it or tumble past it and off the continuation of the ledge to my right. I was actually about to jump (apparently I was in a reckless mood) when a part of my brain screamed "What am I doing?!?" rather like Bugs Bunny does as he is about to hit a bomb with a sledgehammer in the gremlins episode. I probably would have made it, but I also probably would have died if I didn't, so I think I made the right call even if there had been a path there.

I backtracked my way onto the path and followed it until I came to a three way intersection, at which point I realized where I was. The sun was getting low so I jogged along the rest of the loop, briefly stopping at the other smaller peaks without even pausing for gummy bears. As the sun went behind the mountains I saw an animal running from me into the underbrush. I didn't see it very well, but it looked like a hairy pig and may indeed have been a wild boar (the do exist in Korea and are delicious, but we'll get to that in a few months), though it may just have been a really lost dog whose legs didn't bend much as it ran. After a while it became too dark to be safe to jog anymore, but I realized that if I didn't go quickly it would be fully dark and I wouldn't be able to see the path at all and would be hopelessly lost for the night (I didn't have a light with me), so I compromised and jogged during the straight dirt parts and walked when the path was rocky or otherwise dangerous. At about this point I promised the mountain gods a sacrifice if I made it to the road before full dark.

I should explain. For a while I played with the idea of worshiping gods for everyday things, much like people everywhere have for eons before monotheism became so popular. I thought that since there is no truth, why not make things more interesting and live in a Gaiman-esque world full of gods, goblins, and magic. Also, I was watching the TV series Rome, where household gods and sacrifice were quite common. I was struck by scenes from the show where one of the protagonists kills a bug when pleading to the gods or where he reassures his friend that his curse said in anger didn't count because he didn't kill an animal on it. For a few months I was probably the most devout worshiper the Gods of the Street Crossing have ever known as I silently thanked them on my bike rides to and from work or across the city on each dangerous crossing made successfully and when the crosswalk changed in my favor. I have since stopped the practice since I decided that it wasn't enriching my world or making it more magical, but instead felt like I was putting myself in a subservient position to these forces that I myself had invented.

I did eventually find a cement road toward the city. I soon saw an injured praying mantis limping across the road. I bowed and thanked the mountain gods for granting my request as I squished the mantis under my boot.

Ummm... anyway...the pictures for this post start here.

Chuseok vacation day 1 part 1: Beopjusa Temple

As one would expect for a major national holiday, we had some time off for Chuseok. I had a five day weekend but Alanna only had three days, so I had a day at the beginning and a day at the end by myself. On the first day I went to Songnisan National Park near Daejeon.


At the entrance of the park is a statue garden with a few interesting pieces. A little way up the path is Beopjusa temple, probably most famous for its enormous (33 meter tall, 160 tonne) bronze Buddha. What I found amazing is that there is a temple directly under all that weight. Sadly, pictures were not permitted inside.

My favorite part of the temple was actually the five story wood pagoda building. There are not separate floors to the building, so it is fun to look up at the layers of rafters from the inside. Also inside was one of very few reclining Buddhas in Korean art.

The temple grounds also had large naturally smooth stone walls etched with large Chinese characters, Korea's largest and oldest cauldron forged in 720 C.E., relief carvings on the cliffs, a giant iron flagpole (apparently all temples used to have them), and some paintings that were really fucking violent. The paintings depict tortures of Hell. They show demons using spears to stab people who were in a pot of boiling water, roasting them over fires, putting them on racks, pressing them under giant stones, etc. One of the more paintings was one where a man's tongue had been stretched out to be about 5 feet across and thirty feet long and then sliced and cut by demons. Good times.

The first 36 pictures in this set go with this post (and are labeled as such).

Chuseok

In the beginning of October Koreans celebrate one of their major holidays, Chuseok. Chuseok is sometimes called 'Korean Thanksgiving' by foreigners, which is somewhat accurate since it is a holiday about the harvest and family. Of course, it is quite a bit different than American or Canadian Thanksgiving. There's no turkey (food isn't really emphasized, at least from what we saw) and instead of telling what you are thankful for, you bow to your parents and grandparents. They also mow the grass above their ancestor's graves during the two week period preceding the holiday. Koreans wear hanboks, their traditional outfits, to mark the occasion.

At ECC on the day before Chuseok we loaded the kindergarten kids onto buses and took them a couple kilometers to a private house where they were taught the proper way to prostate themselves before their elders. Here's Ellen demonstrating the proper form for girls:
...and Neal demonstrating the bow for boys:
The day also happened to be Military Day, so there were dozens of helicopters flying in formation towards their patriotic demonstration of military might. I saw over 30 helicopters in one group. We heard the helicopters occasionally as we learned to bow. Will and I also participated since the husbands of some of our coworkers lent us their hanboks.
After bowing we went downstairs for tea and ricecakes:
The children then played games that strongly resembled ring around the rosy and hackysack.
Finally, the teachers were taken downstairs for our own tea ceremony before we all headed back to work.
There's lots more pictures of kindergarteners looking adorable here.

Format change

In order to actually complete more entries and attempt to catch up a bit, I will be posting fewer pictures on this blog and instead linking to my flickr account. Loading pictures is a pain with blogger, and is my biggest obstacle to completing posts, so hopefully I'll be able to start updating more regularly.