July 12 - Visiting Bulguksa Temple

Ohmygosh, it's been a month since I've updated my blog - where does the time go? So here's the posting that I've been waiting to finish for a few weeks. I discovered that the pictures I take look better if I don't see them for a couple of weeks, something about a fresh look reveals details overseen when they're fresh in the camera.

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"Life's a journey, not a destination."

I was invited to a conference out of town on the weekend of July 12, and naturally accepted. The conference was ho-hum, but the journey was fascinating. Having lived in California all my life, I'm used to the rest areas along the highway being, um, the bare necessities -- they're places to stop only when you really really have to go while you're getting to where you're going. Here, the rest areas are built to considerably higher standards, with cafes, food courts, real fresh brewed coffee, and swap-meet like vendors selling all sorts of dime store treasures.

One of the outdoor food vendors was cooking up fresh squid on the grill. Fortunately, another patron ordered one up just in time to snap a picture. Nothing defines a road trip like fresh rest area squid!

The squid looked much more appetizing than the fried silk worms for sale along the walking path to the temple. I would have taken a picture of the silkworms bubbling away in the frying pan but was afraid I would be obliged to actually eat one... there are limits to what I'm willing to do for a picture.



Destination: Bulguksa Temple

The names and explanations of items on the temple grounds were copied from the guide book I purchased for 4000 won at the temple.

Along the path to the temple grounds is Banyayeonji, or the Pond of Wisdom, teeming with koi. The reason it is called "Banya" is that it symbolizes wisdom, which is like a pure lotus flower not contaminated in muddy water.


On the bridge at the left side of the picture is Roger and looking out from the trees is Jason, two of my friends from Osan.


The Bulguksa temple, as explained on the sign at the entrance




To enter the temple grounds you must first pass through the Gate of the Guardian Kings, where the watchful eyes of the four sentries stand allowing only the virtuous to pass. Shown here, from left to right, are Virupaska guarding the west, Vaisravana guarding the north, Dhrtarstra guarding the east, and Virudhaka guarding the south.


Sitting on the floor between the legs of the guardians are some creatures, not sure exactly what they are but they look like they may feed on the remains of the impure who try to pass through the gates.








Finally arriving at the main temple, it's quite a sight.




The stairways up to the main temple are properly called bridges, the lower flight of stairs is the Blue Cloud Bridge and the upper stairs the White Cloud Bridge. The guidebook states, "if one enters the temple by the bridge, one is freed from the ignorance and suffering of the world." Unfortunately, the bridges were fenced off so I guess I'll 'm cursed to forever suffer in ignorance.






What what tourist attraction would be complete without a gift shop? Inside there are all sorts of trinkets, but a couple of things caught my eye, like the wall of miniature Buddha statues, and one golden Buddha in particular on a table full of Buddha statues.


There is so much more to this temple, it is simply huge. Here's a garden gate, to who knows where.



"The Dabotap, which is considered the most beautiful pagoda in the world." (Description as printed in the tourist guide from the temple.)

"Dabotap (multi-jeweled pagoda)
National Treasure Number 20

This pagoda of Many Treasure, sometimes called Chilbotap, Seven Treasure Pagoda, is one of the most famous monuments in Korea, symbolizing several different things. The teachings of the Buddha are symbolically portrayed. The square-shared base stone symbolize the Four Noble Truths (a teaching about the unsatisfactory of life and how to overcome it), one of basic principles Buddhism. Ten stone stairs rise from each of the four sides symbolizing the forty practices of Buddhism.

"A record states that originally there were four stone lions up until 1902. Three of them disappeared when the pagoda was repaired by the Japanese colonial government in 1925. During the dismantling of the pagoda in preparation for repairing it, two gold Buddha statues and many relice were found. The pagoda stands 10m 40cm high and is National Treasure No.20."

"Seokgatap (Sakyamuni Pagoda)
National Treasure No.21

"The official name of this pagoda is Three-story Stone Pagoda of Bulguksa. It stands 10m 40cm high, when Gim Dae-seong constructed the temple in 751, he built these two pagodas. The perfectly proportioned Seokgatap is representative of the trend in the Unified Shilla Period when pagodas were simplifies to consist of three stories standing on a two-story base.

"Eight lotus flowers, the Golden Seat of Eight Direction or the Lotus Pedestal Seat of Eight Directions, have been called around the pagoda, the simplicity of this pagoda is enhanced by the complexity of its twin, the Pagoda of Many Treasure.

"When the pagoda was dismantled for repairs in 1966, the Great Mantra Sutra and 70 cultural relics (28 different kinds) were found in the pagoda. These were designated National Treasure No.126. Seokgtap has another name as well, thus Sakyamuni Pagoda is sometimes called the Pagoda without Reflection."

That's about all I've got from the Bulguksa temple visit, and for that matter I want to find other national treasures to blog about. Pagodas are cool and all, but when you get right down to it, they're piles of rocks.

4th of July rafting and spelunking

Have you ever gone into the bathroom on a humid day just after someone got out of a long, hot shower? Or imagine the sticky wet feeling of going into a sauna fully clothed. . . The feel of putting on clothes fresh from the dryer, when they're warm but not yet dry. That's what it's like outside right now here in Anseong Korea, at 9:26 pm. I never thought it could be dark and hot and windy and foggy all at the same time. I've been told it's a dry 'wet season' here this year but it's plenty humid.

So the rainy season is supposed to be upon us and my raincoat is hanging at the ready in my closet... in San Jose. Fortunately shopping for clothes in this town is easy, the local Lotte Mart has a nice selection of jackets and there are quite a few familiar brand-name outlets in town. Unfortunately my stature doesn't resemble the Korean norm, as was displayed most unfavorably by the look of horror on the face of the nice lady at the Lotte Mart as I tried on a size XL raincoat. The sleeves ended just below my elbows and zipping it up wasn't going to happen - even spandex won't stretch that far. So I peeled off the jacket being careful not to tear anything and wriggled into a size XXL. Much better, I could actually zip this one up... if I held my breath. I didn't really check the sleeve length, I was afraid the shoulder seam might tear if I reached forward. The look of exasperation on the clerk was enough to convince me to look elsewhere. Down the street are a few outlet stores that sell outdoor gear, so I choose to try on a size XXXL jacket at the Black Yak store but it was still too tight across the shoulders and the prices were scary expensive. So where does an American buy clothes around here? Outside the Osan American Air Force base! There I found a USA sized XL jacket, quite reasonably priced and hand-made by the seamstress in the store. I'm warming up to the 'think globally, buy locally' concept!

Shoes. Now that's another story. I was invited to go river rafting over the 4th of July weekend so a pair of water shoes were also on my shopping list. Fortunately, the sneekers I wore from home have my european size printed inside, but unfortunately finding size 295 water shoes is difficult. One shopkeeper looked at my feet, shook her head and told me 'no big sizes.' After wandering around the shopping district for a couple of hours I settled on a pair of Adidas size 305 - they're a bit narrow but they stretched to fit okay. Ironically, I returned to first store I looked to buy them.

Saturday July 5th, 5:30AM. The insistent bee-bee-bee-beep bee-bee-bee-beep of the alarm clock drifts through my head, dredging out sleep like a vacuum cleaner sucking up a trunkfull of goose down. I think I have finally figured out that alarm clocks don't awaken their sleeping owners, they're merely empty vessels that fill themselves up with sleep when they sound off in the morning. Snooze buttons are merely valves that open to return a tiny bit of sleep back to you, to be sucked away again a precious few minutes later.

Roger is picking me up around 7:00AM and I still have to stuff my clothes into my day pack. The Plan, as I understand it, is to drive East, camp on Saturday night, go rafting on Sunday and return home. I've been told not to worry about food, and Roger has a spare tent and sleeping bag. Just in case I pack a few apples, hard boiled eggs and instant coffee. It's a privilege to be a passenger in Rogers SUV for the weekend, riding East along highway 38 let me enjoy the scenery and it reminds me of the Sierra foothills back home - low hills covered with thick brush and lightly forested. The highways we traveled are only a decade old and in great shape, with more tunnels than I'm used to on U.S. highways.

We arrived around 11 am and met up with the rest of the group at the camp site, unpacked and set up the tents on the sandy banks of the Dong Gang river. The shade of the bridge over the river was welcome relief from the mid-day sun, and surprisingly the mosquitoes didn't find my blood to their liking. The afternoon was lazy, we did go in to town to get lunch and supplies but mostly just splashed around in the river and enjoyed the day. For dinner there was fresh corn on the cob and chicken bought from a local farmer. The corn was different from American corn, tougher and not as sweet but good all the same. The chicken was boiled in a huge pot set in the top of a 55 gallon drum with a fire below, then rice added for a combined dish best described as chicken porridge. I also enjoyed the freshly picked, boiled white potatoes.

Sunday morning my hard boiled eggs and instant coffee were breakfast, the kimchee raman cooked up by the group didn't appeal to me for breakfast. We packed up and drove up the river to where the river rafting outfitters set up shop, packed ourselves into their vans for the drive up the river where we would mount the rafts. The road to the drop off point is mostly under construction so it wasn't the smoothest road through the mountains. Our group filled up two vans of mostly Koreans with four Americans mixed in for ballast. I found size does have it's privileges in the raft, the guide assigned me to the front right of the raft and Ben on the left. It must have been a good choice since the guide kept shouting instructions in Korean with mounting enthusiasm throughout the trip -- he would shout, and Ben and I would paddle like crazy. I don't know why the others on the boat kept looking at us like we were deaf -- neither of us hid the fact that we don't understand Korean... After the guide switched to shouting, "one two three four" for the paddling cadence he seemed to calm down a lot.

Roger had his little waterproof digital helmet camera along for the trip and here's one of the video clips he took of us navigating one of the few whitewater portions:



It was fun floating the river, with the water levels low this year the whitewater was really calm though.


After rafting, we visited the Gossi cave, it goes about 700m into the mountain and is pretty amazing. At the cave entrance visitors were asked to take a hardhat for safety, a good idea since mine got used a number of times once inside. Along the entire path inside the cave, catwalks and handrails have been installed to keep people, and the cave, safe from each other. I can't believe they let visitors actually touch some of the formations inside the cave, they look incredibly fragile and have taken millions of years to form.













It took me a couple of weeks to get around to posting this time, I'll try to be more speedy and less wordy in my next post.

Since I began this post three weekends ago, I visited the Bulguksa temple on July 12th, and also went to lunch in Fukuoka, Japan on July 19th. It has also started raining today July 20th so I may have a lot more time to update my blog.

Thanks for reading,

Jerry.