Gyeongju Part 1: Anapji and Dreamer Guesthouse

Another long weekend, another item ticked off of my 'Korean Bucket List'. This time I decided to visit Gyeongju (경주) , the historical capital of Korea, for the weekend of Lunar New Year, or as the Korean's call it Seollal (설날). Gyeongju is one of Korea's most famous tourist spots due to it's historical significance as the first capital of the Korean Peninsula (kind of like the Korean version of York, for the English people reading this.)

Couldn't agree more Mario!

Transport and Budget Accommodation

As can be expected on busy national holidays, the buses for the first day of Seollal sold out quickly and I was forced to travel down to Gyeongju on the Wednesday evening. After a horrendous 7 hour journey (almost double what it usually takes) I finally arrived at the bus terminal at 2am, weary and aching for my bed. I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to get a taxi due to the lateness of the hour, however the bus terminal was bustling with taxi drivers waiting for customers. For people who have not pre-booked accommodation, the bus terminal is surrounded by dozens of Motels, all with the lights on (this means they have rooms available), so cheap rooms are easy to find (You can expect to pay from 40,000won for this kind of room). However, as I was travelling solo and on a budget, I opted for the jimjilbang (Korean Spa) option. The name of the jimjilbang I stayed in was 스카이스포렉스 (I just showed the name to the taxi driver). Having been to numerous jimjilbangs before, I can say that this one is nothing special, having only a few small bath tubs and a rather dated interior. However, the complimentary pj's and towels were clean (extra charge of 500won for a blanket), the room was clean and warm, and it is the closest jimjilbang to the bus terminal (only 5,000won in a taxi). So if you can stand to sleep on the floor for one night, with the sound of Korean ajummas snoring (and sometimes farting) to lull you to sleep, this is by far the cheapest and most economical option at only 8,000won per night.

Dreamer Guesthouse, Gyeongju

Thankfully the next day, my friend Lucy and I had pre-booked a bed in a lovely little guesthouse called 'Dreamer Guesthouse', which we found through Agoda.
On arriving at the Guesthouse we received a warm and friendly welcome from the receptionist, who showed us around the rooms, which were brightly and modernly decorated with many additional girly little touches. We opted to stay in the 8 bed female dorm. Each bed had the following features: curtains, personal reading lamp, bookshelf, slippers and the hugest, fluffiest blanket we have ever seen (We had serious blanket envy!). We particularly liked these features as they provided a level of privacy that we wouldn't usually expect in a shared dorm room. Definitely a step up from the wooden block that passes for a pillow at the jimjilbang. However, the winning feature for us was the foot spa and nail bar which the guests have free reign over. Not really a necessary feature, and I'm sure the boys won't be impressed by this at all, but we loved it and it added a little unexpected  touch of luxury to our stay.

Foot spa at Dreamer Guesthouse

Nail bar at Dreamer Guesthouse

 Follow the link for pictures of the gorgeous interior, and additional info on the types of rooms available:

Dreamer Guesthoust, Gyeongju. Agoda.

Breakfast at the Guesthouse was basic self service but the owners have tried to accommodate both Korean and Western guests, which I thought was very thoughtful of them. Korean style breakfast consisted of noodle soup, and Western style consisted of eggs, toast, jam, butter and filter or mix coffee. It was great value for money, and superior to most hostel breakfasts, however my only complaint (and a very small one at that) would be there was no milk for the filter coffee and no juice :(
An additional bonus is that the Guesthouse is conveniently situated close to both bus terminals which makes getting to all the sights extremely easy.

A bit of History: Korea's first ever Queen!

Gyeongju is packed full of historical sights and museums having once been the capital city of the Shilla Dynasty which rules two thirds of the Korean Peninsula from 57 BC to 935 AD. So if you enjoy geeking out as much as I do then there are plenty of historical bits and pieces for you to drool over.
 My all-time favourite fact of the trip being that during this period women were of surprisingly high status (something that would change drastically in Korea's later history) and Gyeongju is the proud home of Korea's first Queen: the almighty Queen Seondeok. Queen Seondeok not only survived  many male attempts to discredit her claim to the throne (due to her being a women, the shame.)  but also built many great temples, pagodas and buildings including Cheomseongdae,  the oldest surviving Star-gazing observatory in East Asia, and Korea's 31st national treasure.  In fact, her reign was SO successful that she improved the already high status of women in  Silla society, and  led the way for two more female regents after her death. And to think the Spice Girls thought they invented 'Girl Power'...

Cheomseongdae is the oldest surviving star-gazing observatory in East Asia.

Me posing awkwardly (as always) next to the observatory.

Queen Seondeok also has an extremely successful Korean drama based on her life. I'm not sure how historically correct it is, but if you love a good period-drama as much as I do, this might be up your street.


To read about it CLICK HERE

To watch it online CLICK HERE


Anapji Pond at Sunset
By far the most impressive of the sights in my opinion was the Anapji Pond. After our initial confusion due to the fact that it is referred to everywhere as 'Anapji', but the sign for some reason says something entirely different, we managed to time our arrival at the pond perfectly, just as the sun was going down. I'm sure that the pond is still beautiful by daylight, but by night it is absolutely stunning.

No caption necessary.

Proudly sporting my audio tour headset there! 8-)

Anapji pond was originally built as part of the Wolseung Fortress (which no longer stands) during the reign of King Munmu in 674BC. In true kingly style, Munmu ordered the pond to be built in the shape of the Korean peninsula so that he could feel like he was lording it over his whole kingdom at once (He was probably feeling a bit demasculinised after all those female monarchs, bless). In it's heyday the grounds were filled with exotic plants and rare animals and it could hold as many as 1000 people, including envoys and diplomats from all around the world, within it's walls. 
For the geeks among us, an audio tour head set is available in multiple languages for the small free of 1000 won. Although we felt very conspicuous wearing our nerdy headsets (we were the only ones, haha), it was worth it to hear in detail about the history and the various artifacts that were excavated from pond in the 1970's. Among the artifacts, my absolute favourite were the multi-sided drinking dice. The party guests would roll the dice to receive some kind of forfeit or dare. An Ancient Korean version of 'Ring of Fire' shall we say.
 It seems Korea has a long and on-going tradition of drinking games (my kind of country!), which is in keeping with my next blog post which will include a modern (and much more fun) twist on the Korean traditional board game of Yunnori. 
And that concludes this post.

For directions and more info about Anapji CLICK HERE

For a great blog about Anapji and other sights in Gyeongju CLICK HERE

Geumsunsa Temple Stay: The Weekend I Decided to Become a Buddhist... until 2.30 on Sunday Afternoon When I had my First Wine.

Doing a Temple Stay has been on my 'Korea Bucket List' for a long while now, and I finally got around to ticking it off my list when I visited Seoul's Geumsunsa Temple last weekend. Although 4.30 am wake up calls, all vegetarian meals, and 108 bows of repentance for our many and various sins may not be everybody's cup of tea (literally, as there was a tea ceremony on Sunday morning), I loved it and would count it among my best and most interesting weekends in Korea.
On arrival at the temple we were greeted by our lovely English speaking guide Moon-yum, who showed us to our room and fitted us out with our very stylish Buddhist Monk style PJ's as modeled in the pictures above. I got lumbered with the men's ones on account of my lankiness, where as Lucy some got nice pink ones, worst luck.
After we settled in a bit we were given our initiation into the Buddhist world by being taught how to do the three bows: first bow for the Buddha, second bow for Buddha's teachings, and third bow for Buddha's legacy and all the teacher's who have passed down his teaching's throughout the generations.

 The cool thing about Buddhism is that there is no 'god' as such, but just a man who foundered the religion after observing and learning from the patterns and rules of nature. This is symbolized by the center Buddha statue, who is called 'Cosmic Buddha', in other words the Buddha of the Earth.




The Cosmic Buddha's hand gesture, the left hand wrapped around the right index finger, is supposed to symbolize how everything in the world is interconnected, although where I come from it symbolizes a very different type of connection...
Anyway, after easing us in gently with a guided tour and a vegetarian dinner, we started the climb of 108 steps up to the main temple to do our 108 bows of repentance. 108 is a special number in Buddhism as they believe this is how many feelings we have.  This number is reached by multiplying the senses (smell, touch, taste, hearing, sight, and consciousness) by whether they are painful, pleasant or neutral, and then again by whether these are internally generated or externally occurring, and yet again by past, present and future. 6 × 3 × 2 × 3 = 108. As we were walking up the steps Moon-yum explained to us we weren't doing the bows for the Buddha but for ourselves, to let go of all the bad feelings and thoughts we had and to empty our minds. I found the idea of a religion that focuses on looking after yourself and not focusing all your attention on some all-seeing, all-knowing idol pretty refreshing and interesting , that was until I heard the story of his birth...
So apparently 10 months after his mother dreamt that a white elephant with six tusks entered her right side, Siddhārtha Gautama (the first Buddha), was born through her right armpit -_-  Really? Her armpit? I think any other part of her anatomy would have been less ridiculous. But no, the founder of one of the most practiced religions in the world was born though an armpit. But as our guide reminded us, it is just a story after all, and no more ridiculous than Jesus feeding the 5000 with a few loaves and fish when you think about it. Not that that really helps...

After completing our bows, we joined the rest of the group for the evening chant and meditation. Two monks led the chant, which we were supposed to chant a-long to (I failed and just stood looking awkward and confused instead), but combined with the brilliantly decorated walls of the temple, the smell of burning incense and the dimly lit lanterns up above, the atmosphere was really quite surreal and beautiful. 

Standing before the start of the Evening Chant

Three types of meditation: walking meditation.

Sitting meditation.

Laying down meditation.

After the meditation we all headed off to our shared dorm room for a very early bedtime of 9.30pm. Our beds were made up of a mat, blanket and pillow on the floor but after all that bowing, chanting and meditation it wasn't difficult to fall asleep.

The next morning we woke up at 4.30am, which was surprisingly easy despite the lack of coffee in my system, and headed back to the main temple for the Morning Chant and a bit of yoga. One of the yoga activities was a 'move your body freely however you feel like moving it- just go as the music takes you- there's no wrong or right way' kind of thing. The monk leading the class was shaking her body all over the place and looked quite perplexed when, as I didn't feel like moving my body freely in front of a bunch of random Korean women,  I just shuffled awkwardly from one foot to the other, haha. 
After this embarrassing, but surprisingly enjoyable ordeal was over, it was time for the Ceremonial breakfast. As Buddhist's believe is saving resources, even our own energy, we were told to eat as 'cleanly' as possible so that the bowls were easy to clean. After swilling all of our dirty bowls with rice water to get rid of any food residue, we then had to drink the rice water with the bits of food in it. Some the Korean housewives found it quite disturbing, but it actually didn't really bother me at all. We then swilled the bowls out with clean water, which we were told were for the 'hungry ghost' whose throat is as thin as the eye of a needle (I'm afraid I think this story belongs along side the one about the arm-pit birth). So if anything even as small as a grain of rice is in the water, the monks have to drink all of it, to save the 'hungry ghost' from choking. 

We finished off a very enjoyable stay with a steady hike around the surrounding mountains, which was made even more lovely by the beautiful autumn scenery. Overall it was a great experience, which I would recommend to anybody providing they are willing to go there with an open mind, and step out of their comfort zone a bit. 

Kumusta Philippines: Part 2

One of the first things that struck me on arriving at the Philippines was just how overwhelmingly friendly everybody is.I wouldn't  say Korean people are unfriendly (although I have heard this said, including by Koreans themselves), but  I have said before they generally tend to be more reserved and shy about  certain things. One of these things being speaking to foreigners. So unless they know you, it's unlikely that they're gunna speak to/smile at you if you're passing in the street, or cross paths in the hallway. Even if you live in the same building, and see each other every single day but haven't been introduced to each other. A lesson I learned the first few times that I attempted to greet my elderly neighbours when crossing paths on the stairwell, and received a look of such stunned confusion that I can only assume I crossed some kind of weird Korean social boundary that I didn't know about. A feeling that  will probably be way too familiar to my fellow Korean expats. An exception to this rule is the few brave adjummas (the korean word for a stereotypical middle-aged, working class ladies who are stereotypically very loud and cankerous), who sometimes run over to me to tell me how pretty I am and how small my face is. A bizarre compliment, but one I have grown to appreciate none the less.

In stark contrast to this, the Filipino people will talk to pretty much anybody and everybody. Tricycle drivers, hostel owners, waiters, random people you meet in the street: everybody has some kind words to offer and by no stretch of the imagination could the Filipino people be generalised as being 'shy'.

 Never was this more apparent than on our last day in the Philippines, on which we visited Pristine Beach, Puerta Princessa.

 Posing for some snap shots in the sea, we suddenly became very conscious of 7 little pairs of eyes on us (the only foreigners on the beach)...

Quickly, we were surrounded by a group of the sweetest little Filipino kids, giggling and laughing, with a hundred questions for us on their lips. 

They were not impressed by my inability to jump at the same time as them, haha!

New little buddies!

The little boy in the yellow shirt to the left of the picture is Johneil :)

After a question and answer session that would rival the Spanish Inquisition (although  they may have been a tad more cute about it), one little boy called Johneil, asked me 'Do you like starfish?'. When I answered that I did, he sprinted off in the direction of the beach, and I just kept talking to the other kids thinking nothing of it. Ten minutes later he returns, grabs my hand and put a little dried starfish in it, then asks his brother to translate something.

'A remembrance of meeting us and the Philippines', his brother said. :'(

My prized starfish <3

As if this wasn't heart-breakingly sweet enough, their families then invited us over to share their celebratory feast. It was their baby son's Christening and in honour of the occasion they had roasted a whole roast pig (or Lechon), chicken feet Adobo (obviously, my favourite, me being partial to a bit of chicken foot and all :p), a never ending stream of wine and of course Filipino dark rum.

Sally, me and the rest of the family!

Full roast pig, or 'lechon' as the Filipino people call it.

 My friend Sally and I both agreed that our new friends had made us feel so welcome that we could have happily sat there and drank, talked and danced with them all day. But unfortunately we had a plane to catch :( So with a little too much wine in our bellies and sand still in our hair, we made the mad, last-minute dash for the airport.

Back to reality !

One Korean School teacher's quest to save my SEOUL. Pun intended.

Now, I think it's fair to say that in the UK (or at least my small part of it) the words 'jehovah's witness' have a certain stigma attached to them. For instance, the average english persons response to those two  words is to emit a groan, which all English people can sympathise with. It's a groan that means that they have paid you a visit and so you were forced to endure the humiliation of having to hide behind the sofa and pretend you weren't home, whilst they batter down your door with a large copy of The Watchtower.
Now,  I don't think Korean people are overly fond of Jehovah's (my korean friend once called them 'crazy'),  but Christianity is definitely more popular here that at home and you literally can't turn a corner without seeing a church. At home church groups consist of a few doddering OAP's, who look as though they might be in the graveyard next week instead of sat on the pews, where as church groups here could easily be mistaken for youth clubs. On my trips to the beach last summer I often bumped into huge groups of teenagers on church excursions.
Anyway, me being your standard English girl you can imagine what was going through my head when I discovered that I'm teaching across the hall from a dedicated believer in Jehovah. -_- oh dear.

I should take this opportunity to say that in fact my the teacher is a really, really nice woman: really kind and generous and helpful. In fact, I don't even have a problem with her believing whatever she wants to believe in (even if I do think it's absolute nonsense, sorry! >-<). I can only find a problem when she continues by ramming it  down my throat.
The conversations always start with some kind of bribery... 'do you like chocolate milk?' she asked. 'Yeah!' I naively reply ... 'Okay, let's drink it and watch this short video together'. Of course, there was a catch!
So the first video is about the 'spiritually thirsty', 'godless' people of Europe. Any of my friends and family at home reading this, that would be us :D 'I hear that they use church buildings for other uses... like night clubs?!' she asks me in horror. 'Oh yeah, there was one near my university' I say, trying to sound neutral whilst mentally recalling the time I nearly broke my ankle whilst falling off a table in the Leeds nightclub HALO, a converted church, after about 8 sambucas.
So after a few more visits like this, my patience was starting to wear thin. Until finally she knocked on my door today with another delightful video about how all the victims of natural disasters die, because they don't acknowledge the Passover. Drinking wine and bread on a 'special day' makes you immune to earthquakes and tsunamis didn't you know? (I drink LOADS of wine so surely I'm invincable now). So I decided to bite the bullet and tell her that I respect people's right to believe whatever they like, but I don't believe it. And tried to explain the word 'agnostic' to her. Her reply: ’I want you to come to my church and be baptised so you can get salvation'. What?!...hahaha. So apparently, 'I don't believe in Jehovah' translates as 'I MUST get baptised IMMEDIATELY!'. Finding it quite difficult to be polite at this stage so I tell her I've got a few issues with the bible. For one thing I don't think being gay make you a bad person ('being what?' 'gay. G A Y' awkward silence ). Secondly, I don't think women should obey men. After growing up with the strong women from my family the idea of men telling woman what to do seems somewhat ridiculous, and I don't intend to break the tradition. You'd think she'd take the hint, knowing now that I'm a homo-loving, night club going floozy, whose unlikely to obey my husbands orders (that's assuming I take a husband, might just open a brothel in a converted church)... but no... cue the next video:

This one about Jesus coming to visit us in 1940 something. He was a bricklayer in Bolton, didn't you know? It seems knowing the full extent  of my sins has just made her more determined in her quest for my salvation. I expect the next post will be written with one hand, the other being handcuffed to a church pew, whilst being exorcised by my co teacher's local priest.

Buddha's Birthday Take 2: Busan

Sangwangsa Temple: You know somethings worth seeing when the locals are queuing to get a look.

So a few weeks ago I visited the Seoul Lotus Lantern Fest, and then wrote a very disappointed post about how it was a bit crap...maybe tried to phrase it a bit more gently than that, ha.
Anyway, I'm glad to say that my faith has been restored by my later visit to Sangwangsa Temple in Busan (산광사, 부산). As soon as we reached the road leading up to the temple I knew I wouldn't be disappointed. The street were absolutely crammed with Koreans and tourists all making their way up to the temple, but apparently that was nothing compared to earlier in the day when there was a half hour line just to get into the temple. You know somethings worth seeing when the locals are queuing to get a look. The first thing you see as you approach the temple is a stone staircase encased in a kind of tunnel of lanterns, so as you're walking up to the temple you're completely surrounded by them. This in itself was beautiful, but then you emerge at the top of the stairs to be greeted by the temple itself and what I can only describe as a sea of lanterns. They were literally everywhere. It was an amazing sight to see and probably one of the best experiences I've had since I moved to Korea.
The pictures don't really do it justice in the slightest. Sounds like a cliche, but it was genuinely breath-taking. Each lantern had a wooden tag on it with a number on and the highest number I saw was somewhere between six and seven thousand. I mean seriously, six thousand lanterns!


View from the top, looking out over a sea of lanterns.

The wind blowing the lanterns.

Shameless selfie as we walked up the stairs to the temple, haha.

View from the top of the stairs as we emerged from the 'tunnel', looking down on the city.

Sadly, I didn't bring my proper camera along with me so only managed to snap a few crappy shots with my phone. But this guy has got some awesome shots of the place and you should definately take a look:

http://jasonteale.com/blog/2013/05/samgwangsa-temple-in-busan/

Buddha's Birthday Take 1: Seoul

The Lotus Lantern Festival in all it's brightly coloured, neon-flashing glory.

So this weekend me and a few of my Cheongju friends thought it would be nice to pay a visit to the Lotus Lantern Festival in Seoul, held in honour of Buddha's Birthday (which is actually next week, May 28th).
This day is called 석가탄신일 (Seokga tansinil), meaning "Buddha's birthday" or 부처님 오신 날 (Bucheonim osin nal) meaning "the day when the Buddha came". And thanks to Mr Buddha we all get a lovely long weekend off work, which we'll be spending in Busan :D
Anyway, back to the festival. It's always featured high on my Korean Bucket List, as a must-see while I'm here in Korea. But ended up being not quite what I expected...
Let me paint a picture of what I imagined it to be... hundreds of hand-made multi-coloured paper lanterns contrasting beautifully with the darkness as they were released  into the night sky, incense burning, monks chanting, etc, etc.
The reality can be summed up in the following photo:

An  lantern in the shape of a Samsung mobile phone. How very Korean!

It's not really that I didn't enjoy the festival. I just expected it to be a bit more magical.
 Most of the lanterns were made out of synthetic materials, as oppose to the traditional paper. And at one point as we were walking down the river a lazor show with accompanying music started out of nowhere!  Two of the huge parade lanterns, in the shape of a dragon and an elephant, were actually robotic and had sound effects! And one of the lanterns, in the shape of a little boy, even had a flat screen TV embedded in it's head where photos of different Korean children's faces kept flashing up. Even the monks weren't as I expected to them to be! My (admittedly idealistic) image of them as pious beings, devoted to their religion, living frugally with just the bare necessities was shattered when a Buddhist monk reached past me with his Samsung smartphone to snap a shot of the lanterns on display. I spotted another one who had clearly had enough of walking in the parade, his lantern slung over his shoulder carelessly, looking as pissed off as can be.

All this said I did really enjoy walking down the river and looking at the different lanterns there. And admittedly, it was kind of picturesque, although maybe not in the traditional sense of the word. And I suppose if you are looking for a very 'Korean' experience, as the modern technologically advanced nation that it has become, then this would be it.

Another thing that I found interesting (and very refreshing!) was that the parade had a section dedicated to people with disabilities. I've often heard that being disabled or having a disabled family member (particularly mental disabilities) is considered to be quite shameful and taboo in Korean culture, and is not something that they talk openly about. Although, personally I've not found much evidence for this, (At one of the school's I work at their are a number of handicapped kids, and although they don't deal with them the same way as western schools might, they've always talked about the issue openly and without prejudice as far as I've experienced.) I was still a little surprised to see handicapped people taking part in the parade. I didn't manage to get many pictures of this, as the parade was moving too fast, but it started with a huge lantern in the shape of a person pushing a wheel chair, and was followed by a group of monks pushing children in

wheelchairs, and then more handicapped children with their carers carrying lanterns and smiling and waving. It was really quite touching to watch, and hopefully this is a sign that Korean society is

 becoming more forward thinking and accepting when it comes to people with disabilities.

A blurry shot of the monks pushing the disabled children's wheelchairs.

So, I think that's everything for now. Overall, I'm still glad I went. It was a fun experience, just not the experience I was expecting.
Next week, Busan! :D