I only have one more day in Korea, and realized that I hadn't really updated in a while. I guess, instead of trying to catch up on day-to-day updates, I'll just post a summary of the various places we've visited since last Tuesday:

Gyeongju:


View from Namsan, over Gyeongju.


Another view from Namsan. This kind of terrain is pretty representative of what I saw of Korea.

Jeju:


An incredibly blue pool we found at the top of Cheonjeyeon Waterfall.


Jisatgae Coast, with its hexagonal stone pillars (you can see our hotel in the background).


Seongsan Iichubong, the crater left over from a volcano on the eastern edge of Jeju. The sun is setting behind us, so only the far end of the crater is lit.


Baengnokdam, the crater at the top of Hallasan. This climb was absolutely grueling.


What we had to walk up for 5.5 miles (and down for 5, though the path down we chose had a bit more planks and stairs installed). The worst thing? Encountering 80 year old Korean men and women who were -not breathing hard-.

Back in Seoul:


A Confucian celebration honoring past kings.


Streams were run from City Hall to two stages in preparation for the Hi-Seoul festival.


Hi-Seoul Festival, located in front of City Hall.


Part of the wall of Hwaseong Fortress, in Suwon, South of Seoul.

A breach in the defenses of Hwaseong Fortress.

Panmunjeom, in the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. Halfway in between the blue buildings is the border between the countries.

This man literally guards the door to North Korea (also, this picture was taken while I was standing in N. Korea! ZOMG!).


Northern Korean village of Gijeong-dong, known in the South as "Propaganda Village" because it loudly broadcasts propaganda several hours a day, telling the S. Koreans what wonderful lives the N. Koreans live.


I fly back tomorrow, so this probably the last of the photo updates. I may type up some stories while I'm flying, or further description, but, you could also just wait til I see you again in person. Anyway, it's been a fun trip, and I feel like I got a good overview of Korean culture. I also discovered that I have zero tolerance for spicy food (given that two things that Zane described as 'slightly spicy' were almost inedible to me, enough that I had to stop eating. It's not that they tasted -bad-, it's that they made my mouth burn).

Korea definitely was not what I expected. It's much more rural and naturally beautiful than I thought. The people are, for the most part, friendly (though I did run into some crazies). The food, aside from the spicy stuff, was delicious. I'm definitely going to try to find a Korean restaurant near DC. It was easy enough to get around, though not so much as Japan. It is a place I wouldn't mind coming back to.

Alright, uploaded entries for Sunday and Monday. This only leaves me with... the rest of the week.

Overall, Jeju was amazing. We mostly did a lot of hiking. Climbing the volcano was incredibly exhausting. My legs are still sore from it. It was about 11 miles rount trip, almost 6 up, and about 5 down.

Last night, we went to the "HiSeoul" festival. Either I came at a time when Seoul is throwing a festival every day, or this city does not work. Ever.

I'm off to view a fortress today, while Zane attempts to get some stuff done. I'll write more as I can find the time. We've been going non-stop for a while now.

(Journal from last Monday)

Monday morning, we woke up early to catch a bus to Gyeongju, on the south eastern edge of S. Korea. Gyeongju was the center of the first unified Korea. As such, it has tons of historical sites. Because of the various temples and ruins, I was interested in visiting it.

The bus ride down was four hours long, but it cut through much of Korea, going from Seoul in the NW to Gyeongju in the SE. After experiencing the hyper-urban Seoul, filled with neon lights and skyscrapers, I was surprised to see that much of the rest of Korea is forested mountains. I had imagined Korea to be similar to what I saw of Japan, with the urban sprawl extending pretty much everywhere but the most rugged terrain (or perhaps all of Korea -is- rugged terrain). The road probably went through about 10 tunnels on the way there, and most of the cities we saw were nestled in between two or three mountains.

The hotel we stayed in was near one of the major temples, Bulguksa. Because we are traveling right before peak tourist season, Zane has been able to get some excellent rates on hotels. The hotel we stayed at in Gyeongju was listed as "5 Star" (though that is doubtful), but it was none too shabby. It had a golf-course on site, various saunas, and an excellent dining room with floor-to-cieling windows with views of the surrounding mountains.

The entrance to Bulguksa, with mountains behind it.

As was true with every other Buddhist temple in Korea, Bulgaksu was decked out in colorful lanterns.

Bulguksa temple, with strings of lanterns.

The entrance to the main temple of Bulguksa, from the front.

The lantern strings were tied to dragons at the top of the stairs.

In a corner of the temple complex, there was a city of little stone towers, made by visitors. Zane and I built up one of our own.

After that, we hiked a mountain path behind Bulguksa up to Seokguram Seokgul (Seokguram Grotto). The hike was a bit more strenuous than we expected. We figured that 2.2 km was nothin. However, 2.2 km at an incline was a bit more than we bargained for. When we started the trail, I had been considering climbing it before dawn the next morning, as sunrise as seen from Seokgul Grotto is supposed to be amazing. After a few hundred meters, I realized that climbing that trail at 4am was just not going to happen.

Apparently falling rocks are a danger.

Our first glimpse of a building outside the grotto.



The climb was worth it, though. The hordes of kids on class trips kinda took away from the sanctity of the place a bit (as screaming chaos often does), but they made up for it by being incredibly friendly. And most of them had no interest in the Grotto itself, so we had that to ourselves for a while. No pictures were allowed inside, though.

View of Gyeongju from outside the Grotto.

Zane with a group of kids.

The kids were kind of fun, and kept calling English phrases out to us. "Hello" "My name is ____" "How are you? I am fine!" "Nice to meet you!" Unlike in the lantern parade, where it seemed like every other person we ran into was a Westerner, I haven't seen very many outside of Seoul, and didn't run into any hiking. Perhaps that's why we were treated as celebrities.

(Journal from last Sunday)

Following a late breakfast sunday morning, we made our way through Seoul's subway system to Gyeongpokgung Palace.

We arrived just in time to witness the changing of the guard.

The ceremoney lasted around half an hour, during which a new set of guards paraded around the corner.

The architecture of Korea's traditional buildings is similar to Japan, in that they both use rounded ceramic tiles with sloping roofs. However, a striking difference is the use of colors. While Japan seemed to employ primarily Orange and Red, Korea uses a lot of Greens and Blues in their buildings.

There are various buildings throughout the palace grounds, with paths winding between them and large courtyards. I wish I knew which building was which, but we were just doing a walking tour on our own. Apparently the palace complex used to have many more buildings, but a lot were destroyed during the Japanese occupation in the early 1900s.







A neat little building on an island in a pool. Unfortunately, visitors didn't have access to it.







Following this, we went to the Buddhist Lantern festival. The festival started with a street fair from Jonggak station to Jogyesa temple. Because Buddha's birthday is this coming Saturday, all the Buddhist temples in the country are adorned with colorful paper lanterns.

Jogyesa, being one of the busiest as it is located in central Seoul, has a virtual cieling of lanterns.



An entertainer in front of the temple singing to the crowd. He was actually pretty good.

The inside of the temple.

Following that, we ducked into a Dunkin' Donuts and watched some breakdancers perform on a stage. What do break dancers have to do with Buddha's birthday? I don't know. A celebration of life, perhaps? Maybe the simple existence of a party is the only excuse needed to breakdance.

The Latern parade consisted of alternating groups festival goers carrying lanterns and large, colorful floats. As stated in a previous, the parade was pretty orderly to start out with. We got to the main intersection kind of late, so we were a few rows back from the street (which sucked for picture taking). We noticed some floats not turning onto our street, though, so we ran to the street they were going down to get a better view. Police were stationed every fifteen feet or so holding up a tape barrier, but... they ran out of tape. The officer holding the end of the tape half-heartedly tried to keep the crowds from going past him, but, for the most part, after him the crowd just sort of overflowed into the streets. It was largely up to the crowd to get out of the way of any floats coming towards it. I mean, the police had whistles, but people seemed to just ignore them.


Part of the parade.

A collection of floats -not- in the parade. These ones were just lining the street.





Dragons are popular.

They breathed smoke!

And fire!

Blue Chocobos can cross rivers and streams. Actually, it's probably a peacock.

A girl riding a float, waving at the crowd from a lotus flower.

Everyone loves elephants!

Pig on motorcycle with a bazooka. Crowd stands underneath the jets of flame, unafraid. About as much to do with Buddhism as breakdancing, I suppose.

Buddha in a helicopter. It gives him hitherto unknown speed and mobility in personally reaching the masses.

A row of esteemed personages, in glowing lantern form.

A more traditional buddhist float.

This parade was a blast, between dodging parade floats and bright, fire-breathing dragons. From this, I learned that Buddhists definitely know how to throw a party.