("No chance, no way, I won't say I'm in love." - Meg (from Hercules)
*-*-*-*-*GyungJu Weekend*-*-*-*-*
I will run out of words before I truly describe the wonders that we faced this weekend. On top of feasting with top-notch Korean Gourmet and sight-seeing and traditional Buddhism temples, historical museums, and beautiful parks we got to spend some quality time with two of the graduate students from the CE department at KAIST.Day 1: dawn breaks too early for us
The alarm went off in Annika and Allie's dorm. It's time for a new adventure, and as Goofy describes "away from it all." In my case "it" defines research and Daejeon. Hey, it's always good to have some time to breath and enjoy the air outside. Unlucky for me, I have been accustomed to sleeping late, waking up later, and researching much later. Well, tough luck for me, this Friday night it's 7 am wake up time, hustling my butt out of bed, out of the dorm, and out to run to the CE building in order to meet up with the rest of the group. Yes, fun run.
All of us fit into a Scooby Doo Mystery Machine (well, it wasn't painted). GyungJu is about 2 hours away from Daejeon. The exterior of my window displayed moving green mountains full of a fluffy layer of trees, sometimes an interesting bridge design, and an ever-going sky full of gray clouds. I remember thinking how it would be if I could be a giant, slowly moving my palm over the extending layer of trees on the mountains just to feel the roughness on my hand. Sigh... and then I feel asleep.
Sometime later we noticed an interesting structure. At first we though the structure had a silhouette of a tree cut out in the middle! So, I shook my head and looked again. Hey, yes it was true! How interesting, a funny big structure allowing a flow of air through it.. interesting. And here I am being paid to research on ways to decrease the wind vibrations on a building.. silly people. (As a side note: I'm actually researching on earthquake control, but it fit saying I'm also doing wind control.) Anthony started trying to get a good picture while the car continued to move. Soon we realized we were about to stop for lunch. Now we had time for a picture.
The first lunch at GyongJu was.. very impressive. I will add pictures to show the food. This was the first meal since I've been here that had a fried whole fish-- yes, with fins, scales, eyes, mouth and everything else a fish is meant to have. The traditional way to eat Korean food is serving many small "plates" (like sample food) around the table and you share it with everyone else. Now, there was a small holder that contained mini fish-ies with eye balls and everything! A side dish! You can imagine how far away I had that dish from me. Everyone was given an individual red, boiling soup. The lady didn't warn me though that there was a surprise inside: two dead, red shrimps. Well, I ate only the tail (with the skin too). I think Shen and Jin Yul ate the entire thing.The journey began at a stop at a pre-planned power plan tour, other wise known as the Wolsong Nuclear power plant. It was very highly secured. I had to bring my passport to prove my citizenship. Intense. We were shown the inside of one nuclear reactor. It made a lot of noise and it was about six or seven times of me in diameter-- that's all I remember. Oh no, there was this air-blowing metal tunnel we had to walk through to get to the control room. Why, you might as? Well, here's an expert that has experienced that same question (and I answered it too). This silly metal tunnel gets rid of any electrical charge you might be carrying because that will remove the possibility of having a "shock" inside the control room, which could damage the materials and instruments they have in the room (since they were claimed as "delicate" and "expensive"). We took a picture with the man that took us around the power plant.
A quick, funny story about the place. Before we entered our tour showed us a small museum dedicated to the history of nuclear power. Anthony pointed a this model in the middle so I went to investigate. The tour guide saw I wasn't paying attention, so he called me out. "Excuse me, come here and take this quiz for us. Okay, How many people in your family?" me: "six." Him: "oh wow, big family" and he touched the screen for a "six" written in Korean. "how many rooms in house?" me: "um 4 I think" him: "oh wow rich girl!" Laughter while he touched the screen again. "how many cars?" me: "umm well, (counting fingers) one, two, ... four." Him: "oh wow really rich girl" laughter again. "Well, look here, this says that in order for you to equalize the amount of carbon dioxide you put into the atmosphere you would have to plan 1350 trees. So, you should start planting now... or you could give me one of your cars!" Let's just say I will join a tree-planting group when I get to College Station. :)
Enough with that, let's skip ahead to the traditional Buddhist temples that contain sculptures of Buhdda. Yes, that's right. The first place we went to was Gyeongju National Museum. When we entered the first thing I saw to the left of the main building was a huge bell. This was the divine bell of King Seongdeok. "The bell has a beautiful silhouette and elegant decorations including apsaras and lotus blossoms. The inscription on the bell says that the sound of the bell enlightens the beings." While walking around, I saw various old stone images of buddha dancing, dragons, and other creatures. There was a small building that had pots, roof tiles, and more. In another building I found many pictures of Buddha-- plates, little silhouette, semi-sculptures, etc. There were two models of the re-built temples and its room for us to view from a skyview.
After the museum, we had an excessive amount of delicious Korean food (as we were served THREE courses, each coming as we finished our plates) for dinner. Oh the food never stopped that weekend. The fish was a definite favorite of mine- besides the taking out the backbone part.
Later that night we visited a park called Anapji. It has an artificial lake with three small islands. I took my time to enjoy the sceneries; well, mostly because I was utterly exhausted. The lights coming out of each small Korean building had a beautiful reflection on the water. So many people rushed through, trying to get people to take pictures of them with the background as the lake and the reflections. I didn't use my camera because I left it in the car. At this point you must remember that I barely had conscious of where I was, since I had slept so little the day before our departure to GyeongJu. 
Well, let's just say, I had fun standing with the other students while I asked them to take pictures of me. Oh, and this is where I also confirmed that the noise coming out of our room was frogs. Ughh I can't wait to leave and never hear them before I go to sleep.Finally, when we got back to the hotel we all stayed in the boys room. The boys ordered some chicken in order to watch the world cup game comfortable. Brazil was playing Portugal that day. What a boring game, but hey it's not like it was an important one. They were both advancing anyways. Anyways, I didn't try the chicken, but the guys decided to buy something like 3 liters of alcohol. Shen was gone after the game ended.. Matt, well he stayed awake and babbled on about how he didn't understand why the girl in the movie had to get a consent about fixing her teeth at the dentist because he had gone through three dentist surgeries.. and blah blah blah. I didn't understand, I just nodded. After the game we watched a movie on T.V., and finally we were off to bed in our own rooms.
Day 2: Temples
Seokgulam Grotto
Waking up at 10 am, meeting up with the boys, and getting stuffed again on the van: we were off to drive through a road that continued to curve and curve; it seemed endless. I became car-sick (nauseus) throughout the entire ride. Finally, we were walking up a slope towards the famous cave temple. It was "constructed in 751 by Prime Minister Kim, DaeSeong. Seokgulam Grotto is certified as one of world's best Buddhist shrines with Bulguksa Temple." It was very interesting to see. Of course at Buddhist temples you cannot take many pictures. In fact, you are not allowed to take pictures. Well, I found ways in some temples to take pictures. Not this one though, so no luck on that. But, you can always google it and see how it looks. I'll give you a hint: it's incredibly large and covered with gold. Good luck.
Bulguksa Temple
After seeing the Seokgulam Grotto we drove to this other temple, where I switched my sb drive with Anthony and gave him my camera since he had ran out of batteries and I didn't want to be in charge of the picture handling. This was somewhat of a misunderstanding to Anthony. He suddenly went berserk and started filling his memory card with random unnecessary pictures! Well, it pleased him so I suppose it was all right.
This is on the back of my ticket: "Erected in the 15th year of King BeopHeung of Sinra some 15 centuries ago and later rebuilt by Prime Minister Kim DaeSeong on a much larger scale. In the 16th century, Daeungjeon, Geukrakjeon and Jahamun were saved from war fire by the Rev. Damhwa and his disciples. The restoration for the other burnt wooden buildings were completed in Dec. 1972 for 3 years construction."
The thing I enjoyed the most was the rock pyramid by a temple. Supposibly, when you add a small rock on top of another rock you say a prayer. There were hundreds of rock mountains! I put one rock up on a mountain that had already been started.
I almost forgot about the "cemetery park"! Our last stop at GyeongJu was the park with green grass-covered mounds! Yes, these were old tombs of Kings and Aristocrats. We entered one tomb of .. a king.. and got to see how the other tombs looked like. There were also some recreated artifacts like the king's crown and gold necklaces, except all of the real ones were at the museum we went to the first day. I uploaded a picture of the real crown earlier.
Oh, and after all of the wonderful Korean food, Korean traditions, and Korean temples the grad students took us to a McDonalds. Yes, typical, fast food, cheap, and tasteless McDonalds. Well, I shouldn't be so harsh on them.. it has saved me several times when I wen crazy from eating so much Korean food. Okay fine, theoretically if I EVER went crazy from too much Korean food. This time I ordered a Big Mac. Yup, nothing better than a good o' fat in calories burger. mmm mm those taste so good.
The trip was a lot of fun. It was a good break from all of the studying and reading we've been doing so far. Sorry for such a late blog. This should've been posted 2 weeks ago!
-Allie R.
The thing I enjoyed the most was the rock pyramid by a temple. Supposibly, when you add a small rock on top of another rock you say a prayer. There were hundreds of rock mountains! I put one rock up on a mountain that had already been started.
I almost forgot about the "cemetery park"! Our last stop at GyeongJu was the park with green grass-covered mounds! Yes, these were old tombs of Kings and Aristocrats. We entered one tomb of .. a king.. and got to see how the other tombs looked like. There were also some recreated artifacts like the king's crown and gold necklaces, except all of the real ones were at the museum we went to the first day. I uploaded a picture of the real crown earlier.
Oh, and after all of the wonderful Korean food, Korean traditions, and Korean temples the grad students took us to a McDonalds. Yes, typical, fast food, cheap, and tasteless McDonalds. Well, I shouldn't be so harsh on them.. it has saved me several times when I wen crazy from eating so much Korean food. Okay fine, theoretically if I EVER went crazy from too much Korean food. This time I ordered a Big Mac. Yup, nothing better than a good o' fat in calories burger. mmm mm those taste so good.
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The trip was a lot of fun. It was a good break from all of the studying and reading we've been doing so far. Sorry for such a late blog. This should've been posted 2 weeks ago!
-Allie R.
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