gyeongju - the finale.

in the morning we were woken by someone and told we had to get up or we would miss breakfast. it was already 8 and it was only being served until 8:30. we weren't too fussed about it, since none of us really like to eat rice and seaweed soup in the morning, so we took our time getting up. in a period of about 20 minutes five different koreans came knocking on our door reminding us to get up for breakfast! (on a side note koreans are under the impression that no foreigners ever eat in the morning.)

we missed breakfast.

but that was ok... eileen had some nuts and dried banana, and i had some crackers, so we ate those. at nine all the kids and teachers were rounded up for an english competition. of course, it was outside in the same place as the bonfire the night before, even though it was freezing... and the wind coming off the lake didn't make it any better. after a while emma and i snuck inside to where the competition was moving after they had gotten the contestants down to 200 students instead of 900. the contest lasted for about an hour and half and then we were free.

we figured that since we'd gone all the way to gyeongju that we should try to get some sights in before leaving so we headed out of the amusement park to find a cab. that didn't prove as easy as in gimhae, so we got a lady in a corner store to call one for us. he took us to the bus station downtown so that we could see what time the buses were heading back to gimhae. we didn't have much time because we had plans to go to a friends that evening for our ladies wine and cheese night (also known as "chat n fat" - you can read about it here on kim's blog.)

if we learned one thing, it is that gyeongju is huge. it takes a while to get anywhere, and all the many many temples that cover the place are all quite far apart and not in the center of the city (obviously). so after a sketchy lunch of boiled beef soup, we headed to the nearest tourist site - the Daereungwon Tomb Park.
this is from the entrance. it cost us 1,500 won (~$1.75) to get in. it is the biggest park of tombs in all of gyeongju - 23 tombs, which look like this:
giant mounds of dirt covered in grass. well, to be fair, there are things buried inside of them... though most, if not all, have been excavated. you might remember my post on suro tomb - i thought his was big (compared to the ones you see all over), but as it turns out, i guess he wasn't that important.

it's probably a lot nicer when the grass is green...!

these are the tombs of the royal Kim Family who ruled during the Silla Dynasty. apparently you can walk inside one of the tombs and see the excavated objects, but i guess we didn't get that far, as we had a bus to catch... oh well, next time!
this sign was atop the gift shop that was open! and yes, everything was (price and quality), so i didn't buy anything...

on our way to and from the park we kept seeing stores selling "gyeongju bread" i was really excited because i could read the sign. i know the korean word for bread and sounded out the korean for gyeongju...it's nice to think i may be getting a grasp (however small) on this language. so, we had to get some - gyeongju bread, that is.
this was the shop we bought it at... "barley bread of purity korea", yeah, ok. they're kind of like mini pancakes that have stuff inside. i say stuff, because there seemed to be a couple of different kinds of them in the one box. one of them had red bean paste (sweetened) and the other almost tasted like maple, but we aren't sure what it was. here's what they looked like:
they were pretty tasty and we managed to scarf down a load of them on the bus... we also bought some for the ladies night...

all in all, it was a nice day and a half to break up the monotony of gimhae... and i'd do it again in a heartbeat!

gyeongju - part two

after spending much of the afternoon in the cold at the amusement park everyone split up to "play games or whatever" with the kids. my group ended up singing some kids songs - the muffin man, humpty dumpty, if you're happy and you know it - i knew all of them from my childhood, and these kids were really great at singing them. they were in four groups and i had to choose the 'winner' (the group that sang the best) of every song - the teams had names: peace, surprise, excalibur, and chicken! i excalibur won this game. (yes, excalibur, they couldn't tell us what it was, but they chose that as their name anyway)

after that we played a "hugging game" where the kids all held hands in a circle and then i yelled out a number - say 13 - and they had to get into groups of that number. whoever was left out at the end was out of the game. the ten students left at the end were the winners. did i mention that if they won we showered them with lollies and chocolate? ya, that's a good idea, sugar 'em up!!!

our last game was a spelling contest where they chose five students to one-by-one run up to me, then i showed them a letter of thee alphabet, then they ran back to their team to come up with a word, ran back to me to say the word and spell it correctly. the team with the most points won...can't remember which one it was. it was fun.

then we all had dinner at the cafeteria. after that there was a show, or as the koreans put it, "recreation time". some of the kids had prepared dances or songs - yes, i spent my friday night at a middle school talent show! hahaha! it was pretty boring, but cute. here are some shots:
some of the kids i spent the afternoon with dressed in their pajamas dancing around the stage...

more of the same... you get the idea...

the coolest part was the professional dancing group. they were up there break dancing for quite a while. i took some video, but with no sound it's pretty boring... plus i never got the really cool bits of dancing, so i'll leave it to your imagination...

after the show we headed back into the sub-zero night for a bonfire. woohoo. can you tell i was excited? it was just so cold out... and a bunch of these kids had no jacket, no scarf, mittens, hats or any kind of warm clothing on. it was ridiculous. and, of course, this being korea, everything has to be all ceremonial, so it took a while for the fire to get lit. they had these people running around the circle with a torch - sort of like the olympics - and then one lady did one final lap to "we are the champions" and finally the stack of wood covered in gasoline was lit.
not like any bonfire i've ever been to before... what's it sitting on? a strange metal tray. i guess it's easier to clean up.

anyway, emma and i decided it was too cold and snuck away back to the log cabin we were staying in. this was the strangest and most surreal part of the whole trip. not only was this an amusement park, but they had all these dorm style houses and little mini houses all over for people to sleep in. apparently we were the lucky ones staying in the main cabin.

this was taken in the morning... doesn't it look like it belongs in canada? (almost anyway)

a shot inside the cabin... loft style and all. there were a bunch of rooms on the second floor - we, the foreign ladies, got one to ourselves:
eileen, me, and emma in our room. there wer eno beds, just mats, pillows, and blankets. it was okay since the floors were heated.

i took this shot of the little sleeping houses the next morning:
they're not much bigger than your average back yard shed in canada, but families sleep in them. it was just so weird that people would go and stay at a place like this. i suppose that it was built with events like ours in mind, but i just couldn't get over how odd it was. like a little village, sort of like a ski resort but not as cool...

all in all though, it was a good time... more to come on the events of the next day (saturday) so stay tuned!

winter camp @ gyeongju world - part one

on tuesday i got an email from my friend emma. she was going to be working at a winter camp and they needed some extra waegooks (foreigners) to come along... so i volunteered. we would be going to gyeongju and staying overnight, everything was planned already, and all we had to do was show up.

gyeongju is the ancient capital of the silla (pronounced shilla) dynasty which ruled korea for about a thousand years. it's about an hour and a half north of here (gimhae) in the province of gyeongsangbuk (i live in gyeongsangnam - nam means south and buk means north). in 1979 gyeongju was recognized as one of the worlds ten most important ancient cultural cities by UNESCO; it is also home to six world heritage sites. there are hundreds of royal tombs, temples, palace sites, fortress ruins, and pagodas. this is just to give you an idea of the kind of place we were going... so much history, interesting sites, and cultural heritage to learn about. we were excited. but, this being korea, the camp wasn't going to be touring any of these places, we ended up at gyeongju world - an amusement park!

our day started on the hour and a half bus ride with 50 kids.
i love the way korean buses always look like your grandmothers living room. at least this one didn't have the technicolour lights that you often have on tour buses here...or maybe they just weren't on because it was daylight. so after our bus ride of awkward conversation with kids that don't really speak english we arrived at the great and wonderful gyeongju world... how odd that they go to amusement parks in the middle of winter. the weather isn't terrible (by canadian standards, it's actually quite nice) but it's still cold out.
the first thing i noticed was the snow on the ground. i haven't seen snow since last winter, back home in canada. this is man made snow that just blew off the toboggan run, but it is snow, and i had to get a shot of it!
i thought this display was hilarious! eskimos with their igloos and huskies! how canadian of them! there were displays like this all over; houses with roofs covered in snow, santa clause standing on a mountain of snow, but the best was all the korean stuff thrown in around it:
like this one. i'm an ancient silla warior! i mean, this is, after all, gyeongju world, not the north pole!
and this one where i am a korean bride being carried off after my wedding - i just couldn't resist getting my picture taken in these.
and they had churros! i HAD to get one, just because it was so random to see them in korea. it's hard to find them in montreal, but to have one in korea was so weird. they also had waffles that they folded in half and filled with apples and sugar... reminded me of beaver tails, and how i haven't had one in ages... (just another thing on my list of stuff to do when i get home.)

you can see the picture of the baboons in my previous post... they had a petting zoo with goats and other animals, but i didn't get to see much because i was meant to be walking around talking to the kids... who didn't want to do anything but get on the rides. i was allowed to go on two rides - the octopus (pretty lame), and the tornado, which rocked. it was probably one of the best rides i've been on since i went to canada's wonderland a few years back. they had a ride similar to drop zone, but i didn't get on it.

so the afternoon at the park was okay, but it was freezing cold, and i was really happy when it was time to go inside and "play games or whatever" with the kids... stay tuned for that - i'll be posting more soon!