Category Archives: travel

Korea adventure – day # 27-28 – Temple stay (part 1)

Written on Week 33 (2013)
Published months later
Joensuu, Finland

From one of my students I heard that one could stay overnight on one of the Buddhist temples. Honestly, the comment raise my attention and I decide I want to try it. The search on the internet started and I found this temple stay website. Due to the time, location and cost I select this temple: Geumsunsa

My adventure in the temple stayed started at the moment I wanted to reach the temple. It can be challenging, particularly if one has not knowledge of korean language, so despite the website has good explanation to transmit a message might be challenging. First, I got down in the wrong side of the subway Kyungbokgung (???) station. However, I am thankful for that mistake as I saw that this particular station is VERY interesting.

Secondly, I wrote the name of the temple in latin characters and I though to get a taxi once I emerged from the subway station. Surprisingly, my English message did not say anything to the taxi drivers. Then I went to ask help to dunkin-donuts personnel, which were very kind to help me. They wrote the name of the temple in Korean but still the taxi drivers say no. The temple did not show up in the GPS, it seems. So again with the dunkin donuts personnel, we wrote the whole address and indications, in Korean, and one employee helped me to talk with a taxi driver. Finally I was on my way. When I was reaching my destination the streets were getting narrower, to the level that a car had difficulties to go through…. then we reach the limit and I needed to walk.

This temple is in Seoul, and without a question, simultaneously is not in Seoul. Check the path from the following photos.

Where the bus might drop you

Going up

If you want to continue up, you need to walk

Going up

Getting to the Temple

Finally, I reached the temple, but to my adventures previously described, I arrived 30min little late, shame on me.

This is the main door the temple.

First door

Once in the temple, we receive clothes and the program of activities is explained. At this moment we were mixed koreans and foreigners. Afterwards, we were only together for the meals.

The next photo is our schedule, which was in our room’s wall during my temple stay.

The first activity is the tour around the temple. Now that I am writing my memoirs, I see I missed important shots, but hopefully this set of photos offer an insight of the temple.

For me was interesting to hear the explanation of the doors. Big temples have three doors, which means the paths towards Nirvana. In these temple we had two, the main door to the temple (showed in an earlier photo) and the second door (shown below) the entrance towards the stairs that take us to the main temple.

The second door is on the right side, in the “middle” of the photo. I am taking the photo from another angle.

My impression, for a very short exposure to Buddhism, is that as other religions has several symbols. To me was interesting to learn some of their symbols, making me aware of my own ones as catholic. For example the stairs towards the main temple has a meaning.

In reference to the constructions the buildings are colorful and inviting. It called my attention that the ceiling of this building is actually a garden of the main temple:

One buidling

The celing of the previous building and garden of the following temple

Temple

There are also offers for Buda, and for the dead. As I said, in our believes we use several symbols, which in my personal experience are very important. One day I will talk about this.

In this case food is an offer as well as the lamps, which in my personal opinion I think are beautiful.

The position in which Buddha has his hands have also meanings. (Here link1, link2 and link3 with information)

Here some photos showing the temple(s) and surroundings:

Offerings

Lamps

Detail of the construction with the nature surrounding us

Ceiling of one building and the roof is the garden of the main temple.

Pick to the view of another temple

One side of the temple, preparing the lamps for the decease.

One side of a temple (downstairs, after the 1st door but before the 2nd door). The hanging lamps are the preparation lamps to a celebration for the decease.

View of the temple downstairs

Lamps in the ceiling

Main temple is above this construction. The garden is the ceiling of this building.

Landscape

Outdoors view from the main temple

Detail inside the temple.

Doors closed

Buda

Here we making a line to get our dinner. We are in purple uniforms while the monks are in gray. Yes, we ate sitting on the floor and the food was vegetarian and very good.

Line for dinner

As with Catholics, Buddhists can also make money donation to for the construction of their temples, in this case their names are written on the tiles being used in the construction, as in this case:

Name of donators

Construction

View of the temple towards busy Seoul:

View of Seoul

Another activity was the bell ringing. We all tried. Of course the best sound emerge when the Monk hit the bell. In here I got an adventure, because I was on the other side touching the bell to sense how long the cling last and suddenly a new hit. Oh man! That was loud.

Me posing after hitting the bell (me as always melting therefore ALWAYS with a bottle of water in my pocket!)

Hitting the bell

To finalize the day we had the 108 prostrations, from which we were practicing how one should make them.

While practicing, I confess that to me made no so much sense, but I was doing it as respect to the temple. They were accepting me as a visitor despite being from another religion and the less I can do is to do it properly.

The monk who was with the foreigners realized we were tense, so we did some yoga before the prostrations, which with the environment suits quite well. How much I remember my friend Anika, she would have LOVE IT!

However, at the moment to make the 108 prostrations, we have a CD in English and then it make so much sense. A lot of the things Catholics pray for are also expressed in Buddhism, give thanks for what we have, value, ask for guidance, etc. To me the understanding of each prostration transform the sense of it.

The temple where the foreigners were located was BEUTIFULLY illuminated with the lamps. It really offer a special atmosphere with the doors open, contact with nature, the light of the lamps, from several offers, and the prostrations connecting a physical activity with an inner conversation, call it spiritual if you wish.

Photos of the Temple at night:

Practicing prostration

Indoors illumination

inside the temple where we did the prostrations

After the prostrations, we were ready to sleep. We slept on the floor. As people knows me, when I did the judo and sometimes my back requests hard-surfaces to sleep on, so to sleep on the floor is not a problem for me. I slept well. The best of this night was that we could listen the river while falling to sleep. This was a LUXURY!

To finalize this post some photos of my walk at night through the temple, before falling to sleep.

View of Seoul at night

The light of our room

Our room

The next day, in the part 2 of this post. 🙂

Korea adventure – day #13: Getting lost in Seoul

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Week 28
Suwon, Korea

Reporting this almost 1 week late. Time passes by very quickly!

On Sunday 14.7. was my first day in Seoul. My goal was to discover the city, at least part o if. For this visit I did not have a tight schedule or fix list of museums to visit. I mainly wanted to walk in the city, as long as I feel safe.

The way from Suwon, where the campus is located, to Seoul is fairly easy. One takes a bus, which drops you at one subway station. Once in a subway one can reach almost everywhere. I will write a post only about the subway later.

I emerged from the subway at the city hall station to visit the Deoksugung Palace. The palace is located on a street which, according to the subway map, has several subways intersections. So I though the street might be interesting.

My intention was to reach the palace for the change of guard. I was a bit earlier, but I needed to eat, re-charge my batteries and locate myself. Most of the information is in Korean, so I need some time to locate myself. The schedule of the change of guard “ceremony” is three times a day. The ceremonial event is interesting, as you see in the following photos.

Ceremony at the palace

But at some point, the ceremony pauses, i.e. everybody freezes, then the public is invited to take photos with the ceremony participants. This was strange for me, but well, move and take some close up photos.

We are allow to take photos with them.

The next photo is resuming the ceremony.

I got interested on this instrument.

The whole ceremony is free of charge. 🙂

Next, I decided to go into the palace. As you can imagine, I pay attention to the mobile or digital tours available, which actually were scared. I mainly saw the following advertisement but my korean is inexistent.

Publicity fo the available app as audio guide

Once crossing the main door, one is in a garden which contains several constructions. It seems interesting and I got a booklet to read in detail more about it. I confess I really miss a mobile guide / game in here. I insist good future for ubium.

Inside the Palace

What I could grasp from the surface is that some of the buildings have western influence. For example in the building below there is some kind of Russian influence/collaboration. One has to understand more Korean history to get most out of this location.

Western influence

The construction below was beautiful, and I like how the doors or windows “open”. Specially for this hot / humid weather, I can understand was more a need than a luxury.

Palace

At the back of the garden there are some western style constructions, and one of them is the national museum of art. As you can imagine, I got in.

Museo of Art

Ah! but before get in, one’s umbrella should be left in the umbrella’s locker seen below.

At the entrance of the museum

In here it rains constantly, so an umbrella is an indispensable technology to carry.

The exposition was about a Japanese artist:

Exposition of Yanagi Muneyoshi from 25.5. – 21-7.

Before continue my expedition of this day, I want to share a brief video I took with the aim to share that this peaceful and beautiful location is in the heart of Seoul. At the time I filmed it, apparently it was a political event outside, thus one could listen the noises of the event beyond the garden walls. We are at the heart of Seoul!

After visiting the palace, I start walking on Eulji-ro street. I kind of walk 5 subway stations. The next set of photos offer an impression of the metropolis, modern, old, commercial, traffic, …

Crossing the street, from the palace to walk in Seoul

Some trafic

Tall and modern buildings

See that tower, that will be my next target I start to think….

street view

After the tall buildings, the street transforms into a commercial street of bathroom equipment. Those stores later transform into shops for lamps, later a market shows up until I got tired and decided to take the metro again….

small shops

More traffic, walking the same street.

more traffic

shops

Looking behind, see AL THAT I have been walking. I started behind those tall buildings.

streets

The market I mentioned earlier, which was closing when I reached it.

market

Once in a subway again, I decided to go to the N-tower. I got down to the University station, and wait for a bus. In my way back, I took another route to try the cable cars.

Next photo waiting for the bus in a nice surrounding, and the tower behind the landscape.

start the “trip” towards the tower

It is getting closer

The bus let you in a specific place and then one must walk up. Next photo is a view of Seou in one of the designated areas to look the landscape.

Unfortunately, the day I was there was cloudy. However, it is hard to get no-cloudy days. At least since I have been here, almost all days had rain and unquestionably the high humidity is a CONSTANT.

that is the view of the city while getting up

Reaching the tower 🙂

closer

The next photo is once I am at the top of the tower. My camera die, so the photos are taking with my tablet.

more view from Seoul

I detect an audio guide system and OF COURSE I try it.

audio guide

It was an audio guide, that is it. Perhaps my experience would have been more enjoyable if the weather conditions were favourable and one could actually see all what they explain in the guide. Things to think about these type of guides, the weather is NOT always perfect.

From the content of the guide, I confess some of the information was very interesting involving the history of Seoul.

audio guide part 2

As I live in Brussels, at the instrument museum, the audio guide detects clearly when I am steeping in the specific circle, or being close to it and then the guide starts playing the corresponding audio. Thus, I do not have to push any button. This functionality is actually nice.

inside the tower

One thing I have notice in Korea, business is everywhere. One can find stores EVERYWHERE and inside the tower is not not an exception.

Next photo is a night view of Seoul. I am sure with a good camera and proper weather conditions the view could be beautiful.

Seoul at night

Getting down from the tower and heading back. I confess by now, my feet demand a rest.

Good night tower

Bye, bye tower, until the next time. Afterwards, I went to my bed for a very good night sleep! 🙂

Korea adventure – day #12: lecture & korean cooking

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Week 28
Suwon, Korea

By the end of the first week of lectures, I realise that most – if not all – of the students who stayed in my class are top quality students. On this day, they made their preliminary presentation of their projects. The topics selected are:

Electricity Generation
Hand dryers
Subway
Use of mobile phone

After listen to them and with the awareness on how they manage this week implicit challenges i.e. group size changing, demanding work load, trying to understand me. I feel please with my students. Now, it is also my turn to work! 😉

In addition in this Friday, AISS organise the korean cooking evening, in which the students learn to cook korean food. Teachers job: to vote for the dishes. It includes to taste them 🙂 and there were 3 categories for our votes: team work, presentation and taste. I like this job! 🙂

First let me introduce you a couple of photos from the chefs working:

on half of the chefs

other half of the chefs

Next some photos of the food they brought to the judges. Unfortunately, I did not take a photo of the six dishes, as they were six teams. The dishes selected were: kimbap, ttokbokki and jeon. There were two teams preparing the same dish working independently. For this reason we have, for example, two versions of kimbap.

some of their dishes – Team A

some of their dishes

In my humble opinion, ALL dishes were DELICIOUS!!!! But overall, it was a great fun!

Korea adventure – day#10 – Folk Village & Hyundai

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AISS organizes different activities with the aim to discover Korea. These activities take place on Wednesdays and are carefully planned to create an unforgetable time, as the trip we had to Jeju last week. Additionally, students also have an in-campus activity during the week, such as cooking or watch a movie.

On week 28 lectures started and in this Wednesday we visited the Folk Village & Hyundai Motor Company.

The Folk Village is as an open-air museum. The village is well set up and very interesting. To my surprised they did not have audio guides for rent, however they did offer an app. As you might imagine I must check this! (Side note: a lot of potential customers for ubium 🙂 )

Next, I want to share my impressions of the Folk Village. For this purpose I select some photos. Remember, I am not into photography. I am fine with this fact, but when it comes moments of sharing I feel certain level of shame that I am not into photography. For sure with good shots I could be able to share more. Nevertheless, I am sure you will get an insight of what I saw with the complete _non_expert_photos_ 😉

This is the main entrance, and I like the view with the “mountain” in the background.

Once one crosses the main door, you see like an access to an amusement park, kind of (photo below). It is word to mention that the place is full of little details, as for example the lamps or benches.

Just after one enter the open air museum.

Just after one enter the folk’s village

On the right hand of the “entrance” is the section of restaurants.

restaurant section

Before looking at the houses, if one walks on the central path, one encounters the possibility to ask for a wish. As the instructions indicate below.

asking for a wish

Just in case, of course I tight my wish in here:

one of those papers is my wish

I was not careful enough to control from which houses I was taking which photos. The result is now I do not have a reliable track of the events. Consequently, here it goes only some impressions.

inside of one of the houses

The houses in the village are from different socio economical levels. So you kind find houses from the farmers to royalty.

Also one could see small fields:

also fields

Ah! the following pots are important. The pots, picture in the preceding pictures, were used for the fermentation of Korean foods like Kimchi.

In the patio of another house you can see more pots. During our visit we have periods of time with rain, and actually it looks nice, but it was trickier to take photos.

In the patio of a wealthy house, more pots!

Also I saw a house with several statues of “gods” ? .

Inside the house was an altar.

The view of another house:

Inside of one of its rooms ( from the house pictured above):

The kitchen of this house, if I recall properly.

The following construction was on the path outside the houses. The cloth hanging from the tree it seems related to “luck”. Need to research about this at some point.

Ah! The next photo I took it to show the “resting” places for the visitors. For example, in the photo below there are persons sitting inside a construction, enjoying the moment. One could sit in any of authorise constructions.

As in this one:

resting area

But one should take their shoes out.

Another resting area where one can see the individuals resting and the shoes below.

resting area

I like those resting areas, even though I had not chance to actually use them.

In my time at the Folk Village I entered the inside museum. The exposition is actually interesting, illustrating the activities that the villagers had during the year from the perspective of different age groups and genders.

I have several photos, as you can imagine, including the location of traditional games ;). But for this post I will only give the glimpse of tow topics: the patterns to make rice cakes ….

and of course the section of “children’s play” 🙂

We were lucky and we could see a traditional dance. This was briefly because it started to rain at function time, but I could get very brief shots of it.

Some hats are interesting, right?

It called my attention that at the end of the Folk Village is a small amusement park. This section was, somehow, unusual. Specially if we take into account that the amusement parks got inspired from open-air museums. After this, I REALLY have to read the book from Sten Rentzhog, Open Air Museums. The history and future of a visionary idea……

amusement park inside the village

Even a building for video games! Shame I did not have more time in here!

On the other hand, I liked more the “traditional” houses, but this fact give good space for discussion and thinking.

amusement park inside the village

One can be in the Village the whole day. Specially if one wants to explore it and experience in depth.

On the other hand, we are fortunate that AISS organises for us the possibility to have different experiences of Korea. So after have a taste of the village we drove to Hyundai’s factory. As far as I understood, apparently, to visit to the plant is not easy. However the AISS team manage to get us a visit.

The next photo is arriving to the plant:

entrance to the plant

In the hall of the building where the personnel of Hyundai received us:

inside a building

Next it is my last photo of this post, as one cannot take photos of the plant. The device I am showing is for the guided tour. The speaker has a mic and all of us have this speakers. Again, I could not avoid analysing the guiding system. In my personal opinion, it can be improved, for example technically, there is a lot of noise that could be filtered to listen properly to the speaker, additionally if one gets delayed from the group the connectivity of the speaker is broken. Unquestionably, it requires a contextual design 😉

for the “guided” tour

Independently of the radio-frequency device to support the explanation to the factory visit, I recognise the trip to the factory was enjoyable.

Thank you AISS for organising the day!

Korea adventure – days #3-5: Jeju

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As you might already perceive, when in a post I mention that I will write tomorrow it might not mean 24 hrs later. It seems this time was a week later, OMG! . Nevertheless, sooner or later I will show up 😉 Let’s summarise, because I confess there is much happening here, and I am a bit slow processing.

On Wednesday July 3^rd, which was my third day in Korea, we start our trip to Jeju island. The purpose of the trip is to integrate the group, and it worked. For me, this trip was remarkable fast and interesting. Here a brief summary.

Take the flight with Asian Airlines. First time in my life I travel in such a BIG group! 🙂

All the group flying together

After almost an hour, one lands in Jeju.

At Jeju’s airport

Next it is to take our busses, which will drive us to a ferry that will take us to Udo island.

Towards our busses

Inside our bus

How life changes, now I sit at front instead of the back…. oh well! 🙂

Inside our bus part 2

We went by foot to the ferry from Jeju to Udo.

The ferry towards Udo Island

Reaching Udo island

Once in Udo, which is a really small island, I can proudly state that I bike it all around! 🙂 Here some prove, some sights from Udo:

Biking around the island. This is one of the “common” island “sculptures” or statues.

My bike parking at the important stops for looking the landscape 🙂

Another view of the island

More view

Honestly I could have stayed there for a weekend. An interesting island to discover. Nevertheless, let’s the trip to continue. We needed to take the last ferry back to Jeju, for dinner.

view on our way back to Jeju

For dinner the organisers took us to a very nice traditional restaurant! You will see.

entrance to the restaurant

The teachers’ corner

this was the food

happy with the food

The colour of the ocean is beautiful in Jeju.

beautiful ocean

While we were leaving the owner of the place – ok, I assume he was the owner – left a traditional paper balloon free. Very beautiful.

traditional paper balloon

So, after an intense and fun day, finally we went to our hotel. This is the view from my room, and I couldn’t go out anymore. I had energy, I confess but I needed to do some “real” work.

my rooms view part 1/2

my rooms view part 2/2

On Wednesday July 4^th the agenda was as follows:

Breakfast at the hotel, and as our guide told us, Koreans eat rice at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

In the middle the rice cooker

different dishes, e.g. fish, meant, french fries and eggs.

different dishes, e.g. fish, meat, french fries and eggs.

First activity to swim 🙂 I was a fish in the tank with this heat! Love the water and as I was swimming no photographic proof of the event. (side note: next present a camera which can be used in the ocean 😉 )

After swimming we need energy so we should eat. In this occasion was seafood.

sea food

Second activity to climb the Seongsan Sunrise peak, which is an UNESCO world heritage.

at the entrance, our guys. I recall that one represents scholarly and other warrior. Notice also the gate to the right. The number of wood sticks also have a message to those who look at them.

going up there

reaching the top

view to the sea from the top

proof of to be at the top

In the same location was a demonstration of the fisher-woman.

fisher woman

If you think that our day finalised here, you are mistaken. Next stop after hiking, riding a horse. Another of the attractions of Jeju island.

the picture is bad, but it gives the idea of our riding adventure 🙂

Next, 30 min refreshment at our hotel before dinner time! So just time for a fast shower then we walked to the dinner location.

the restaurant had this view

Understanding how dinner works…

for dinner a good bbq

As it was 4^th of July, the students from USA got some fireworks and we gather at the beach before going back and recharge for the next day.

On Friday July 5th, our last day in Jeju island, we had also a busy agenda. After breakfast, we went to a Mazeland, very nice!

at the entrance

one maze

another maze

Next stop, a walk to the Bija-rim Forest

walk in the forest – volcanic stones all over the place as in home, México

the sign is just great, specially for the shoes and the snake

Next stop, the Manjag cave

like the illumination system even that this photo came very bad

like the illumination system for the cave was very interesting and well done, although my photo is blurry

back to the surface. Honestly the feeling to getting out of the fresh cave was as immersing myself to sauna. My glasses and camera got steam. Korea is hot at the moment and very humid.

Last but not least a mysterious road.

proof to be there 😉

After our full agenda in Jeju, the guide told us we saw just a little bit of the island. Unquestionably, the let us craving for more. Finally, we head to the airport to go back to Korea mainland. This is the first airport were the X-rays to get inside the waiting area are divided between national and foreigners.

flying back to mainland Korea

Bye bye Jeju, there is much I could tell about each one of these locations. It is a beautiful place, but as I said at the beginning of this post, life is busy and/or I am not that fast reporting :/ nevertheless doing my best. Now, to catch up with my course, company, papers, surveys, talking…. wish there was more time!

So, more news will come!

CAIS

virtual reference point

Category Archives: travel

Korea adventure – day # 27-28 – Temple stay (part 1)

Korea adventure – day #13: Getting lost in Seoul

Korea adventure – day #12: lecture & korean cooking

Korea adventure – day#10 – Folk Village & Hyundai

Korea adventure – days #3-5: Jeju