james new brain

SOUTH KOREA – 2007.09.23 – DAY27

Gyungju/Busan Vacation Post 5 of 9

Today we rose early to get some hiking in. There are not only temples in the area, but a big mountainous area with tons of trails and historical relics scattered throughout.

We took a bus out to a parking lot where many trails begin, and decided to hike to a statue formation depicting Seven Buddhas. It was a few kilometers away, with a kilometer of elevation gain, so it wouldn’t be terribly difficult. And, we’d get a very scenic walk through farm land villages to even reach the trailhead.

I snapped this wraparound-book-cover pict on our walk to the trail head.

It was also pretty rainy off and on over the course of the day, so that would help with keeping the number of folks we would see on the way down. We ended up only passing one other group on the entire hike, excluding some farmers in the fields on the way to the hikes start.

A pond we passed on the walk to the hike. There were REALLY pretty buildings the whole way out, spaced out by fields.

Also, cute puppies were running around. (Hopefully these little guys weren’t just being raised to make dog stew..)

Ryo/Gollum follows along. Oh, the hike has started now.

We started hitting some real elevation gains as rain started pouring. But we were in these cool Bamboo shoots! (Photo by AMY DELAHANTY…I borrow a number of her photos in this post because they ended up being way to cool)

This one’s mine, though. Hannah, Silvia, Ryo, and the bamboo.

This give you a sense of the step-height? Shit got difficult.

Suddenly, the trail opened up, and we were there. A cliff side with the two pieces of the 7 Buddhas right on top.

Three on the back piece, two on each side and two on the front of the front piece. They look out over the cliff down the mountain range.

The strangest part was that at the top, along with the 7 Buddhas and the great view, there was this little temple with a monk there to serve us coffee and some potatoes…

A wider view of the full cliffside: Buddhas, and temple, with us drinking coffee. What the heck? We just walked an hour through very rural Korea followed by a kilometer straight up rocks, and all this is up here?

The potatoes, and the monk. See? (Photo by AMY DELAHANTY)

Another of Silvia’s panoramas. This one shows the view. Click to enlarge once the page has finished loading. (Photo by SILVIA RIEGLER-HEISSENBERGER)

(Photo by AMY DELAHANTY)

(Photo by AMY DELAHANTY)

“Rea-day to rolllll out.”

So regarding this picture: On the walk down the mountain, me, Ryo, Hannah, and Jelly played this word association game where you say a word and the next person uses that word to connect to his own thought, etc. This picture shows our hard earned moment of victory: for closing this very difficult circle……

zodiac, killer, whale, rider, ride-or-die, hard, on, top, heavy, metal, gear, shaft, who’s the man?, down, town, hall, Hall comma Anthony Michael, Myers, Myers comma Oscar Weiner, dog, pack, the bowl, Bowling for Columbine, Columbine killers, killer comma zodiac.

Yea we cheated on those last couple, but how else can you end up on Zodiac? doomed from the start…

Anyway, here’s another picture of a puppy, this time on the way down.

(Photo by AMY DELAHANTY)

Um, this one by AMY DELAHANTY knocks my socks off.

Next stop: Busan.

SOUTH KOREA – 2007.09.22 – DAY26 (CONT’D)

Gyungju/Busan Vacation Post 4 of 9

We get back to the hostel after a long day of culture basking, to a party of internationals on the hostel roof. Teachers, some other folks from Yonsei, and ussssssss:

Note Hard City Bear Claw (Jelly and Silvia don’t know how to do it yet), and also sorry about Jesus, forgive him, he’s Mexican.

These scary steps are how you get up to the roof.

roof-top antics begin.

Ryo tells a joke about smokes..

..and me and Jesus Perez’s collective winks provide the punch line.

Triangle love with Hoe-sen.

Katharina’s finger paints some colors, while Silvia’s just spews dotted line.

Good night.

SOUTH KOREA – 2007.09.22 – DAY26 (CONT’D)

Gyungju/Busan Vacation Post 3 of 9

From Bulguksa, we took a bus up some real windy hills to SEOKGURAM GROTTO: another national treasure of Korea, this one a gigantic stone Buddha statue built in to the side of a hill way up in the mountains.

The stone steps leading up to the Grotto.

A pagoda at Seokguram’s entrance.

Entrance built in to the mountain.

Pictures were forbidden inside, with gaurds enforcing. My attempt was completely blurry, but Sylvia got this one off. It’s much bigger in person.

There’s more from today, see next post for roof party!

SOUTH KOREA – 2007.09.22 – DAY26

Gyungju/Busan Vacation Post 2 of 9

First was to get some culture. We took a bus out to Bulguksa Temple. It’s a huge AND ancient Buddhist temple with tons of ‘national treasures’, as designated by the South Korean government.

BUT first, lemme show you our breakfast.

Oh, here’s a good group photo, sans me. Clockwise from left bottom: Stephanie, Maricarmen, Katharina, Silvia, Hannah, Ryo, Jennipuh, the French-man, Amy, and Jelly.

(PHOTO BY SILVIA RIEGLER-HEISSENBERGER)

We got Pajun for panchan! Trust me, this is a HUGE deal.

A garden by the entrance to the temples.

The Swastika is common ornamentation on Buddhist buildings and artifacts in Korea.

Posed Chingus 1.

The temples aren’t huge, Amy is just really really small. (PHOTO BY AMY DELAHANTY)

what’s that girl pointing at?

I really like this one that Amy took. As you walk around, you go up and down steep staircases and keep going through gates like these that reveal more and more buildings with folks praying in them. (PHOTO BY AMY DELAHANTY)

Whatever freaking scary resurrected warrior demi-god is behind this gate frightens the bejezus out of me, and I cry myself to sleep thinking about it every night.

IMPULSE BUYS: a ceramic bird that whistles a bird call, and dirty shot glasses.

So Silvia somehow managed to take these awesome panoramic shots. Once this page has finished loading, click on them to actually get the zoomed in and awesome view of them.

Both of these panoramas by SILVIA RIEGLER-HEISSENBERGER.

More posts in a little bit.

SOUTH KOREA – 2007.09.21 – DAY25

Gyungju/Busan Vacation Post 1 of 9

This week I’ll cover my vacation within a vacation, checking out the south-west South Korean peninsula, the cities of Gyungju and Busan (or Pusan), and seeing some cultural relics, and doing some hiking along the way. AND—> I get to go to the beach-yesssssssss haha. Additionally, I borrow a few pictures to fill out the coverage in these posts, but cite the photographers so’s ya’ll know what you’re looking at.

At Nambu Bus Terminal in Seoul, about to skeet out of town. (PHOTO BY SILVIA RIEGLER-HEISSENBERGER)

I tried to pack like Colin this trip, meaning I was prepared to sleep on a park bench under a blanket i brought, poop outside with my own toilet paper, and light the groups way through tunnels with my head lamp. If need be.

Maricarmen you haven’t met yet. From Mexico, and awesome? yes, completely. waiting for the bus. (PHOTO BY AMY DELAHANTY)

Bus station waits. Amy looks like a peanuts character, and that dude looking at Ryo is Charles Maxine, who is from now on called The Elusive French-man, as he seemed to elude my camera for most of the trip.

The 6 hour bus ride through the country to GYUNGJU was uneventful, but nice. There are no bathrooms on these charter buses (unlike the rest of the world’s charter buses) so every two hours we’d make a pit stop at an unnaturally huge and bustling rest stop. Also, on the road, there’s much more open land, but still views are almost always broken up by the next church with a neon red cross illuminating it for miles, or more of those towering housing farms.

You can clearly see that we stayed at the Hanjin Hostel.

One angle of an inner-hostel-courtyard view. The bottom right door led to the 6 person room.

Another angle from the same spot. Much warmer, huh.

Silvia and Katharina split a two person room. My flash is ruining what should be a picture of Katharina realizing that the one and only light in the windowless room isn’t turning on.

Um, and this is the adjoining “bathroom”. (PHOTO BY SILVIA RIEGLER-HEISSENBERGER)

Yea so I guess Silvia and Kat got a little screwed, because I found our room to be NICE.