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Published: January 3rd 2013
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It's about Sarira
In Buddhism if a person is really religious, when they are cremated, these objects are found. The more there are, the more faithful they were. At Haeinsa. I’ve three more trips to tell stories about. In early November, I returned to Gayasan (Gaya Mountain) for the third or fourth time. Originally we had planned to go somewhere further away, but on a weekend it’s a struggle to convince people to wake up early. Although I’d been there before, my other trips were to Haein Temple and walking downhill along the river (really nice in the fall!). I’d never gone uphill, to the mountains.
In Daegu the weather had been cool when we left, but at Gayasan it was cold and overcast. The guy in our group convinced us to hike up a mountain, instead of just having a relaxing walk. We were eventually persuaded, and we hiked to Sangwangbong peak. It was a bit difficult but doable.
We got to the peak around 2:30pm, and we had to decide which way to go back. Route 1 was back the way we’d come. Route 2 was about the same distance, up another peak and then to a different park entrance, but since we hadn’t come that way we weren’t sure how difficult it would be. For the sake of seeing something different, we decided on Route 2.
The second peak was Chilbulbong. It was only about 10 minutes after the first peak, so if you get to one, you may as well go to the other one. Once there, we knew we’d have to hike pretty quickly to beat the dark. We also didn’t know if we could catch a bus from the other entrance, and we didn’t know when the last bus back to Daegu was. Yes, we were well-prepared.
The hike back was pretty quick because it was just down steps, and we made it to the park office just as it got dark. There were rangers there who gave us a taxi number and told us bus times. A taxi picked us up to take us to the bus stop. We made it back to Daegu and went to eat Andong jjim dalk (steamed chicken—one of the best K foods!). I was super-happy to be warm and eating.
The next weekend I visited a place I’d seen pictures of before I came to Korea—a temple in Busan on the coast. It’s called Haedong Yonggung Temple. There are very few temples (possibly only 1!) along the coast in Korea. This one was pretty
nice, although it was really crowded when we went (Saturday late morning). The landscape and atmosphere around the actual temple buildings were a bit different than other temples I’ve been to. There were a lot of statues, and the paths were pretty well-landscaped. I did expect more paths along the coast, but maybe I was mixing it up with another place in Busan. FYI note: a lot of directions say to take buses there from Haeundae Station, but you can also take a (slow) train to Songjeong and get a taxi there (for less than 10,000 won).
My most recent trip was to the small city of Jeonju, about 3 hours west of Daegu. My Korean friend drove us. Jeonju, like most Korean cities/areas, has “representative” foods (sorry for the Konglish). Jeonju is known for bibimbap (my fave K dish, made of rice, vegetables, hot pepper sauce, egg, and sometimes tuna or meat); a large variety of banchan (side dishes); kongnamul gukbap (beansprout soup with rice); and makkeoli (rice alcohol).
Our first stop was to eat bibimbap. Jeonju’s variety is actually usually made with raw beef. I’m not brave enough for that, so I got the one with
ground meat instead. My friends who ate the raw one said it was good, and they didn’t get sick afterwards. Next we drove to the Hanok (traditional house) Village. It was way bigger than I expected. It wasn’t only houses, but some small museums, other historical sights, and lots of cute artsy little shops.
Jeonju is where the Joseon Dynasty began, and it’s where the founder is buried. My friends are lame and not interested in reading boring historical info like me, so we didn’t go to see that. It was really cold when we were there, but in warmer weather, you could spend a day strolling around the Hanok Village. After the Hanok Village, we went to Deokjin Park. There’s a small lake with some bridges across it. In the non-winter months, there are lotus plants on it, but when we went they were all dead. Near that, we booked our love motel for the night. I’m pretty sure it was 40,000w per room.
We then attempted to find Jeonju’s downtown. After asking some college students who said Jeonju didn’t have a downtown, we wandered a bit. We found food, drank wine in a wine bar, went
to a multi-bang (multi-room=private rooms where you can play Wii, go on the internet, sing karaoke, etc.), then went for makkeoli and yache jeon (savory vegetable pancake). The makkeoli and jeon were wonderful!
The next day we slept in, then searched more and found a real downtown. It was actually pretty nice. I don’t know what was wrong with those college students. We went to eat brunch, and later checked out this market called “If you touch (it), you must buy it market”. It’s contained within Nambu Market. It’s an artsy place where younger people sell handmade merchandise and have opened some restaurants. It’s slightly reminiscent of Insadong in Seoul, but unfortunately almost everything was closed because it was Sunday afternoon.
Thinking of all my trips, I’m glad I did so much while the weather was nice. It’s so cold and snowy here now, it takes massive effort just to get out of my cozy bed. It’ll take more motivation to do any more day or weekend trips.
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