In the City of Gyeong-Ju, Gyongsangbuk-do

From the Bulreyong Valley we headed south to the city of Gyeong-Ju. We arrived late in the evening and found ourselves a cheap hotel. Upon entering our room we discovered a sink full of lettuce. I guess the owner of the hotel uses that room to wash his vegetables in? After some laughter, the manager removed his lettuce, and we bedded down for the night. Some time in the early morning Rob discovered a cockroach breathing his last breath in the bathroom. It was indeed a quality hotel. After a restful night, we headed out to see the "amayjing" sights of Gyeong-ju.

Pay attention kids, here is a history lesson! Did you know that Gyeong-ju was once the capital city of the Shilla Dynasty? It became the capital around 57 BCE. It was the capital city for nearly 1000 years. Nowadays, Gyeong-ju is famous for the many massive tombs of ancient kings and other royal people. I guess that's life- King one day, tourist attraction the next. These grass covered tombs are called "Tumuli".

We made our way to Tumuli Park and the adjoining Wolseong Park. We parked our car and for a few chunners rented a couple of bikes to see the park in style and grace. Here we saw many things such as Asia's oldest astrological observatory, an ancient ice house, as well as some giant grass covered hills aka ancient tombs. As we were riding around we found Anapji Pond, which was filled to the brim with blooming lotus plants. This pond, as well as some buildings that royalty lived in, was built by King Munmu. Apparently, in 935 CE, the buildings came under attack and were burned to the ground. The residents of the buildings threw many of their treasures into the pond and surrounding moat. These treasures were not discovered until 1975 when the pond was drained for reconstruction. That would be such an amazing find! What a surprising glimpse into history.

After a nice hour long bike ride we dropped the bikes off and headed to a very famous temple called Bulguksa. This temple was very pretty, but for whatever reason, tiredness... I dunno, it just didn't seem to be all that impressive at the time. I've recently acquired a great book about Korean temple motifs, and I now regret not spending a bit more time there. What was impressive to me, at the time, was the Seokguram Grotto. Seokguram Grotto is a giant stone sculpture of Buddha located high up in the mountain behind Bulguksa. It's not just a giant stone sculpture, it's a giant stone sculpture set in a granite rotunda with amazing carvings surrounding him. This grotto was built in 700 CE. I can't even imagine the effort it would have taken to carry all that granite up the mountain. Unfortunately everyone and their Ajumma were there, so we all had to shuffle along in a line to see the Buddha for a few seconds. Ah well, it was still stunning!

Gyeong-ju is also famous for a dish called Ssam Bap. Sometime during the day (it's all a little hazy now) we decided to try this dish out. This meal consists of a wide variety of fresh and steamed leafy greens, fermented vegetables and a plate of fried fish. Much like other Korean meals, but without any gochu (hot chili pepper). Traditionally, gochu was not used in food and it is a relatively recent spice in Korean history*. We also ordered a large bowl of Dong Dong Ju, a delicious fermented rice drink. The taste is a little yeasty and maybe a little sour... well I can't really describe it, but take my word for it - it's masshida!

From the Grotto, we headed towards the East Sea to find a place to camp for the night. We decided that it would be a good idea to head towards the Sea Tomb of King Munmu, hoping that we could find a camp site along the way...

More about the sea tomb of King Munmu later.... pictures SOON!(I hope...Rob?!:-))



*Korean food is famous for being covered in gochu jang (hot chili pepper paste). It is one of the main condiments that makes many Korean foods bright red and very spicy. Chilis were first introduced in Korea in the 16th century and gochu-jang made from dried red-chilli powder has been in the pantry of every single Korean household ever since. Got some tough bitter mountain root? Cover it in gochu jang! MMMMMM! No one will notice the flavor when their taste buds are burned off!

Summer Vacation 2009: Rob and Kat do Korea

So we've been back from vacation for about a week now. Rob started back at school, and although I've tried to go back to school, they just keep sending me home. I wish I was at school, because I never get stuff done at home. Internet TV is just too distracting...

Anyway let me tell you about our adventures driving around Korea... what I can remember anyway. So after Jisan Festival we headed to Wonju to pick up the car we rented. After some errors in communication we convinced the man that it was okay to give us the car. Unfortunately we couldn't convince him to rent us a navigation system, but instead he gave us an old dusty map book from 2003... did I mention it was all in Korean? No matter, I can read the little squiggles well enough to read names of cities. After filling out all the paper work we got on our way. Somehow we managed to find the highway to Taebaek and headed back to pack up some more stuff for the journey.

We really had no plan except to drive in a southerly direction. The first stop on our road trip was a beautiful waterfall that Rob had told me about, but never been able to see. There's no bus or anything that goes out that way. The waterfall is called Mian Pokpo, which translates into Beauty Waterfall or Beauty Fall (say that fast). It's a nice little walk to get to the waterfall. It was a nice humid day, and as we walked we saw many strange looking mushrooms and caterpillars. After walking through a small temple complex you walk a bit more until you come out into a small clearing. From high in the reddish tinged rocks falls a delicate stream of water. The legend has it that if you are lucky you can see angels bathing in the blue green waters of the pond below the waterfall.

After that we headed for the Bulryeong Valley. We drove through this scenic green forest covered valley until we ended up at Bulyeongsa, a Buddhist temple. This temple is famous for being home for 50 ascetic Buddhist nuns. The nuns were very surprised to see us, as I don't believe many foreigners make it to such an out of the way place. We received many warm hellos and annyong haseyos. It was extremely idyllic. We entered the grounds through a nice shaded pathway. The pathway opens up to the temple grounds. In the center of the temple grounds is a pond that reflects the mountains which circle the area. In the reflected pond you can "see" Buddha. It's really just a bare part of the mountain reflected in the pond, but from this angle it really did resemble a Buddha statue. It was extremely peaceful there, and of course I wish that we had stayed longer. On our way back to the car, we spotted a giant toad hopping up towards the temple. Perhaps the pond is his home, can toads be Buddhist?


more to come soon... photos also soon to be posted. please be patient, we are lazy.

Jisan Valley Rock Festival

To kick off our vacation right, we attended a three-day festival in a little resort-town southeast of Seoul called 지산 (Jisan). The line-up looked pretty sweet, with Weezer headlining the friday night, Basement Jaxx the saturday, and Oasis on Sunday. The trip to get there was a little difficult, as we were carrying supplies to camp out for three nights on our backs.

A little history of the festival...there is none. It's the first year that they have held it, so there were some functionality-issues to work out, but all in all, they did a pretty good job. The organizers actually were involved with the Pentaport festival in previous years, which was the biggest annual festival in Korea. However, there was a dispute, and the two separated, creating two festivals on the same weekend competing for fans. Which is unfortunate, as the Deftones were on stage on the Pentaport festival at the same time.

We arrived late into the day on friday, as we both had to go to work in the morning to ask permission to leave early. We walked into the concert grounds in the middle of Fallout Boy's set. I'm not a big fan of their music, so I wasn't that impressed from what I did hear, but I'm biased. We set up our new tent for the first time (or attempted to set it up), and went in to meet up with Ryan Hillstead and Lisa Styles who were also attending the festival for the weekend. The attendance seemed surprisingly small. It's hard to really estimate, but on the Friday night, I'd guess between 8-10,000 people in the whole grounds. This would increase by Sunday, but at that point, it was a welcome intimate show. Weezer hit the stage at 9:30, and we were easily able to walk up to a good vantage point to watch the show.

The thing with Korean crowds, that is a great attribute in my opinion, is that the people who mosh, jump up and down, and dance, as opposed to the violent arm-swinging slam-dancing. Now, not to betray my metal and punk roots, I do like the slam dancing on a limited basis, as well as crowd surfing, however, I think things have gone too far in the last five or six years. Moshing used to be about collective energy and emotional discharge, but it's become a violent organism that results in serious injury, and isn't something you can opt out of. Korean festivals are a welcome respite.

Anyhow, Weezer rocked the house, debuting some new tracks, rocking some old tracks, and taking from the range of their 15-year body of work. I'm not really that big of a fan of their newer work, as it's starting to become recycled and stagnant, however, they played such a great range, it's impossible to not enjoy. Josh Freese was on the drums, freeing up Pat to play lead guitar and lead vocals. Very surprising and impressive. Rivers did a lot of preparation for the Korean show, I've been here for almost two years and it seems he knows more Korean than I do. The crowd loved it, and chanted for the encore. "WEE-ZAH! WEE-ZAH! ANG-CORE! ANG-CORE!"

Day two was very relaxing. As we were exhausted from traveling and working the day before, we had gone to bed fairly early, avoiding the all-night electronica parties. We hung out on the grassy common for most of the day. We were lucky, the clouds overhead kept the temperature down most of the day. There were some notable Korean acts throughout the day, the most notable being called Deli Spice, a rock/hard-rock act that looks like a bunch of blue-collar Korean workers, but kicked out amazing tunes. The headliner Basement Jaxx didn't disappoint. They have an amazing stage show, and for a mostly electronic act, they use a lot of analog instruments, drums, trumpets, guitars, and so on. The singers and dancers were amazing with multiple costume changes. I'd say that this was probably the peak performance of the show, with an unmatched energy.

The last day was a scorcher. Hot and sunny, the only way to cool off was to go hang out in the "cool down" zone, which was a bunch of mist jets and fans that brought the temperature down quite a bit. We saw a Korean band Dr. Core 911 who were the first Korean hardcore band that I've seen. We caught up with them in the cool down zone and talked in broken english and broken korean for a few minutes. This day actually had an amazing amount of talent. The B-Stage had some more independent, edgy Korean rock and punk, and Patti Smith graced the main-stage with her extremely charismatic and powerful hippy presence.

Oasis...(or should I say "Oh-ashes" as the Koreans do), why do people like you? Well, one reason is because they're a solid stadium-anthem rock band. The songs are catchy, easy to remember, and they're constant ripping off of the beatles, from riffs to cover songs. Korea loves them, it's the second time in six months they've had a performance here. The attendance was easily double what it had been for the previous two days by the time they went on. Everyone knew all the words to all the songs, and despite Liam's childish behavior, I don't think any of them were disappointed. However, Liam's attitude and the way he spit out the vocals with so much contempt and sarcasm, it's hard to respect the band. "I don't really know the area, I don't even know the name of the festival, but you've been the bollocks..." Maybe Noel is a good guy, or maybe it's just in comparison to such an asshole, but he made the show watchable. He played some good guitar, he complimented the crowd, and actually looked like he was enjoying it.

The night finished off with a display of fireworks better than anything I've seen in Canada, and people slowly walked out of the concert. Ryan and Lisa and their friends had to work the next day, so they attempted to take the shuttle bus home, although it was a doomed venture. Fortunately they caught a ride home with some friendly Koreans, and were home by 1:30am. Kat and I went to our tent and were fast asleep before 12. Festivals are very tiring. The next day we went to Wonju to pick up our rental car to continue on with our vacation. More on that to follow.

All in all it was a blast, and we have another festival (only one day) on August 15. Headliner: Nine Inch Nails. I'm pumped.

You can check out some pictures from the weekend HERE. Click on the Jisan folder to see them. Also, there's this guy who videotaped the entire Weezer set, and if you're a fan, it's worth watching. I'll try to post that in the next day or two.

Until next time, keep fit and have fun.
rob