I just woke up and it's sunny and clear. I'm betting that Abe will go see the stone Buddhas today.
View from my window this morning
I am back in Seoul now. it's 8:38 p.m. and I had a very good day. As I mentioned above the weather is Busan was clear and relatively dry and no wind. Typhoon Man-yi sucked a lot of dry cooler air down from Siberia or something and it was beautiful.
I checked out of the hotel at around 8:30, but left my big duffle bag with the bellhops. Then I walked over to the chapel in Oncheon-dong. It took about 20 minutes and along the way I stopped and got some photos of a memorial to Dr. Woo Chang Choon. He was a Japanese educated Korean who returned to Korea in 1950 and became world famous as horticulturalist.
Statues at Woo Chang Choon's memorial
The memorial is right across the street from the Ocheon chapel and is the best place to tell taxi drivers to go, because they know the memorial, but most don't know where LDS chapels are. The chapel serves two wards, Oncheon Ward and Tongnae Ward. It's also the Korea Busan Mission home and the president's house is right next door. I served in this area on my mission, but back then the church had just bought the building from a preschool and it still had the signs up. There was a major remodelling in the late 1980's.
Oncheon chapel today
Oncheon chapel in December 1980
I met Sister Yi Myeong-shim at the chapel. She was my houselady when I served in Yeongdo from May through November on 1980. She was baptized during that time and her husband began taking the discussion. He was baptized in the summer of 1981. He is now in the bishopric. They have one daughter, who is finishing up high school and getting ready to go to college.
I met several missionaries at church. Elder Grady and Draius are the assistants to the president and live in a small apartment in the back of the mission home offices. Elder Draius's name when it's written in Korean writing looks like his name is Elder Dry Ice. The elder's assigned to the ward are Elder Weston and Elder Pak Myeongjin. Elder Pak taught the Sunday school class. There is also two couple missionaries, Elder and Sister Davis (I think) who have been herer since April and are maintaining the mission office. They don't speak Korean, but are learning.
After church I went to Sis. Yi's home for dinner. She is a good cook and often cooks for the missionaries when they arrive in the country from the MTC, for zone & mission conference, and when they leave to go home. I gave them two big 5 lb. bottles of honey I brought from the US. Apparently it's really hard to get real honey in Korea. They catch people all the time who are mixing up water, sugar, coloring, corn syrup and beeswax to make fake honey.
After that I went back to the hotel and met Abe. He did, indeed, hike up to the stone Buddha's and almost got lost, but a nice elder gentleman who was hiking took him and showed him the way. He said the temple was stunning and has promised to email me his photos, and I will post them here when I get them.
My duffle bag being significantly lighter than when I arrived, we took the subway down to Busan station and got our 4:30 train back to Seoul. The train was fast, convenient, efficient, and nothing interesting happened.
It's back to work tomorrow, but it was a good vacation of sorts.
I don't have an odd sign today, but I do have photo I took from my hotel window. I stayed in a 4-star hotel which is on the fancy end. This place was right next door. It's a company that fabricates doors and walls. In the US you would build this on the edge of town and it would be sprawled out over several acres. Here land is expensive and there is little or no zoning. I assume the place was always on this spot and as the neighborhood built up, business got busier. Since they couldn't afford more land, they built upward. The noise was a bit annoying.
Today it was back to the grind. I taught both classes in the morning and afternoon and then came back to the apartment. Not much to report, really. The weather is clouds and light rain. It's not very hot, rather pleasant actually. However, it is still very humid. So climbing the hill makes one sweat a lot.
I opened the package from Evan. He had a present for me, a fanny pack to use while I hike.
He also had lots of photos; both prints and lots of digital ones on two CDs. The CDs also had some videos taken with his digital camera.
Evan's companion, Elder Williams, as Santa Claus (notice how the kids bow when they get their gifts)
Plus he is sending home a suit that used to be grey, but is now brown and even orange.
I put lots of photos from Busan on my KU website at http://ku.pomosa.com. Not much explanation, however.
Here's a photo of the "Bridge of Love" at Yongdusan Park in Busan. Sis. Phillips may remember getting caught in the rain here in 1983. It wasn't called that back then.
July 17 (Tue), Korea's Constitution Day
Today is a holiday in Korea, Jaeheonjeol or Constitution day, and there is no class. It is rainy and most of the museums are closed, so I will be staying home and reading. I've been working on Evan's photos from his mission and have gone through them twice. I've posted some of them at http://family.pomosa.com/mission_photos.htm. I've also gone through my emails and web posting from the past two years while I was here at KU and have organized and posted those at http://kerk.pomosa.com/. I put some new photos up there as well, ones I thought we pretty. And I posted some of them to my account at Panoramio, http://www.panoramio.com/user/524133. All that should keep you busy for a few minutes.
Despite my best intentions, I was unable to stay in my apartment today. I went down the hill to buy a bottle of soda and the rain had quit, so I went for a hike. I strapped on my new fanny pack, put in a bottle of water and my camera and headed up the hill.
The hill we live on is named after the temple down at the bottom, which is called Gaeunsa. The Koren National Tourism Organization says, "It was built in 1396 by the great monk Muhak-daesa, who was a private tutor to King Taejo of the Joseon Dynasty". King Taejo was the founder of the dynasty and known as Yi Seonggye until he became king. He grew up during the Koryo dynasty in which Buddhism was the state religion. Anyway, the "sa" means a Buddhist temple, and the hill behind it is called Gaeunsan, where the "san" means mountain. I went up to the top of Gaeunsan on my hike. There is a sports complex there including a soccer field, swimming pool and lots of paths for walking.
The soccer field at the top of Gaeunsan
I was hoping to get a good view of Bukhansan which is the mountains to the northwest, but the peaks were all covered in clouds. The best I could do was the photo below.
Bukhansan viewed from the soccer field on Gaeunsan
From here I walked north along a pretty path through the woods. It's used by people for exercise; they walk up to the path and then walk along it stopping at various exercise stations to do push-up, sit-ups, and such. There are also parts of the path with different paving meant to stimulate your feet over which you are supposed to walk in bare feet. From the point at the end of the path you get a good view of the valley leading away to the north toward the city of Uijeongbu. This part of Korea is very densely populated as you can tell from the panorama below.
View from Gaeunsan, north is on the left and east on the right
I walked down a narrow, steep path to the bottom of the hill from this point. It was very pretty; a thickly wooded area with the occasional open spot usually sporting a pavilion to sit under and having a good view.
When I got to the bottom I walked through an apartment complex. I saw the sign below on one of the buildings
Turns out there is a regional office for the Korean Scouts here. They were closed for the holiday, but I will go back when they are open and see if I can buy some patches or other scout stuff as souvenirs or collectables for the scouts in our ward. From there I walked around the hill to its east and then back up over a ridge and down a little to my apartment.
View of today's hike using Google Maps
Today's oddity is from my missionary son's photos. I don't know where he took it, but it's good. It looks like it was printed on the side of a glass or bottle. Koreans think foreign words are exotic and don't really care all that much about the meaning. Kind of like all those T-shirts you see in the US with Chinese characters on them.
I watched sumo this afternoon again. We get several international channels on the TVs in our room: German, Russian, French, Italian, British, Spanish, and three channels in Japanese. One of these broadcasts the sumo tournament in its entirety.
Sumo is divided into several divisions. The top division is fixed at 42 wrestlers in five ranks. The highest rank is yokozuna and it is the only permanent rank; once you are yokozuna you will never be demoted. The other ranks are all merit based and if you start losing tournaments, you get demoted to lower ranks. Right now there are two active yokozuna and both are Mongolian. One has been at the top of the sport for several years. His ring name is Asashoryu. The other was just made yokozuna last month and this is his first tournament as such. His ring name is Hakuho.
Sumo holds six tournaments each year that count for the rankings. Three in Tokyo at the Sumo Hall (January, May and September) and one each in Osaka (March), Fukuoka (November) and Nagoya (July). I've watched the Nagoya tournament for the past three years while I'm in Korea.
This year Asashoryu lost his first match of the tournament and Hakuho has gone undefeated. But today there was a matchup between the two remaining undefeated wrestlers, Kotomitsuki (who is sekiwake, two ranks below yokozuna) and Hakuho (who is the new yokozuna). It was the last match of the day since the yokozuna always wrestle last. Asashoryu and Hakuho take turns being last. Asashoryu won his match against Ama, a fellow Mongolian, and is now 9-1.
The final match was supposed to go to Hakuho, but he lost. So now the leader in the tournament is Kotomitsuki who is not even supposed to contend. The two yokozuna are tied at 9-1.
Cell phone video of the posturing that goes on before the actual wrestling
Cell phone video of today's final match
Today started out beautiful. No clouds, clear, low humitity. But it got hazier as the day went on. I went to my office early and got lots of work done. Then I went and taught my classes. I teach Introduction to Macroeconomics from 11:50 to 12:30 in an auditorium in the old business school building. I have a half hour off for lunch and then I teach Money & Banking from 1:00 to 2:40 in the much newer LG-POSCO building. I think I like the older building better as a teaching venue.
After class I decided to do a little sightseeing, so I rode the subway downtown to the City Hall station. One of Seoul's five major palaces is just west of City Hall. It's called Deoksu Palace and is best known as being the residence of the last kings of Korea before it was annexed by Japan in 1910. There are the traditional Korean-style buildings, but also a western-style palace that was built in around the turn of the 19th century (1890's - 1900's). It is currently under rennovation and covered in scaffolding.
Here are some of the photos I took today:
The courtyard in front of the main hall, Junghwajeon,
where the government officials used to line up before the king by ranks
Details of the steps up to the main hall. The king was
carried over these decorations in a sedan chair.
The king's throne inside the hall
A water clock from the 1400's
After visiting the palace I came back to the apartment and watched the last half hour of the sumo tournament. Yesterday's big winner, Kotomitsuki, who defeated the yokozuna, Hakuho, went up against the other yokozuna, Asashoryu in the final match today. It took a while, but he lost. So now all three of the above are tied for 1st place at 10-1. There are four days left in the tournament. The final day is Sunday.
Nothing much to report today. It rained most of the night and all day. Normally Thursday would be the last day of classes for the week, but since Tuesday was a holiday, we are teaching tomorrow to make up for it.
Since I have to write something, I guess I will write about somebody from Deoksu Palace yesterday. In the middle of the park at the palace there is a statue to King Sejong.
Statue of King Sejong at Deoksu Palace
Sejong was born in 1397 and was the grandson of Yi Seong-gye, the founder and first king of the Joseon Dynasty. His In Korea the kings are known by the names given them after they die. So Yi Seong-gye is also known as Taejo. As a child, Sejong was known as Yi Do. (Koreans give their family names first and their given names come last.) His father was King Taejong, the third king of Joseon. Sejong was actually the third son, but according to the royal records his two older brothers quickly realized that Sejong was most qualified to be king and deliberately acted in rude ways to get themselves removed from the line of succession. Apparently it worked, because when King Taejong abdicated in 1418, Sejong was crowned king.
Sejong is best known for the invention of Korean writing, known as hangul. Prior to its invention all writing in Korean was done in Chinese. For official documents it was all done using Chinese grammar and vocabulary. Chinese and Korean are from completely different language families. Chinese is spoken in tones where the pitch changes meaning, while Korean is not. Many Korean sounds do not occur in Chinese and visa-versa. For common writing, people attempted to write Korean sounds using Chinese characters. Sometimes the characters were written for their meaning and not their sound, but other times they were written for their sound and not meaning. There were many of these haphazard systems and they are known generically as idu. For the most part they weren't very successful. The Japanese took a similar approach and the two scripts used in Japan today, katakana and hiragana, are both based on simplifications of Chinese characters.
Rather than reform idu, Sejong opted to create a completely new system of writing that was not based on Chinese and intended to accurately express the sounds of the Korean language. It appears he developed the system with the help of an inner circle of scholars and did not consult the ministers of state. The latter were not too keen on the idea of a writing system that anyone could use; their jobs depended on them being among the few elite who could actually read and write. Chinese writing is not phonetic like hangul or the English alphabet. Instead, it uses thousands of characters which all have different meanings.
Hangul was introduced in 1443 and officially published in 1446. Hangul was designed to make it possible for everyone to read and write, not just aristocrats with enough free time to learn thousands of Chinese characters. Concerning the letters, the original hangul document states, "A wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days."
Examples of how thing were written in old Korea, the phrase is "I
am a Korean"
For a time hangul did not fare well. But eventually many kinds of popular literature were written in it. When the Japanese annexed Korea, using hangul became a form of protest and resistance.
King Sejong was also know for his military accomplishments. He invaded the Island of Tsushima between Korea and Japan and occupied it to keep it from being a base for pirates. He pushed the Manchus out of what is now northern North Korea and established borders roughly the same as those North Korea now has with China and Russia.
Sejong died in 1450 and was succeeded by his son, Munjong.
The Korean government is planning on moving the capital from Seoul to a special city further south. The new city will be known as Sejong City.
Depending on how I count it, either today or tomorrow is my half-way point for the summer in Korea.
We had class today to make up for Tuesday's holiday. Many students did not come to class. I am convinced the method we have of keeping roll is fatally flawed, but I don't know how to fix it. Maybe just stop taking attendance altogether.
We had the annual president's dinner tonight. It threatened to rain, but ultimately there were just the occasional sprinkles. The air is very, very humid and it will probably rain tonight and tomorrow morning. This will throw a monkey wrench in our plans to hike to the top of Baekundae, the highest peak in Bukhansan Park in the north part of Seoul. If it's raining at 7:30 in the morning, our planned departure time, we will likely go elsewhere. Last week was enough hiking in the rain for me.
Not much else to report. I am now reading Basilica, by R. A. Scotti. It's a history of the building of St. Peter's in the Vatican during the 1500 and 1600's.
Teaching assistants at the president's dinner tonight
I added a photo to last week's weblog. It's of the North Gate of the fortress on Geumjeongsan. It took it in the mist and rain with my cell phone.
In Sumo news today. There were three wrestler's tied for the lead with one loss each. 1) Kotomitsuki, the local favorite, who is only sekiwake (third highest rank); 2) Asashoryu, the long-time Mongolian yokozuna, and 3) Hakuho, the new yokozuna also from Mongolia. Yesterday, Hakuho survived a very close match with Kaio, an ozeki (2nd highest rank). It looked to me like Kaio won the match on the replay, but the judges ordered a rematch and since Kaio had injured his leg in the first fall, lost quickly to Hakuho. Today, Hakuho was up against another ozeki, Kotoshu, who is from Bulgaria. And this time he lost for real. Since both Kotomitsuki and Asashoryu won, that leaves the two of them tied for first place.
Asashoryu, Kotomitsuki, Hakuho & Kotooshu
The yokozuna get to wear the fancy rope belts
Currently there are 2 yokozuna, pictured above. There are 3 ozeki: Kaio, Kotooshu & Chiyotaikai. There are only 2 sekiwake: Kotomitsuki & Ama. Ama is also Mongolian. The fourth rank is komsubi and there are 2 of them: Tokitenku and Aminishiki. The rank below that is called maegashira and there are 17 subranks there with 2 wrestlers each. The ranks are filled out to make up a full complement of 42 wrestlers, so there is only one guy at rank 17. The whole division is called Makuuchi, literally "behind the curtain". In the maegashira ranks, wrestlers with willing records (8 wins or more in the 15-day tournament) rise in the ranks, while those with losing records fall. Promotion in the higher ranks is more complicated, but still based on wins and losses. Only yokozuna are guaranteed they will never be demoted. When yokozuna stop winning, they are expected to retire. Kotomitsuki needed to get 12 wins this tournament to be eligible to be advanced to ozeki and he got number 12 today. One more interesting little cultural fact: whenever a yokozuna loses to a non-yokozuna opponent, the crowd throws their seat cushions toward the wrestling floor. Asashoryu lost to Aminishiki on the first day and the crowd went wild with the cushions. Since then the other yokozuna, Hakuho, has lost twice, but the cushion throwing has been much more sedated.
Schedules for the tournament are set a day in advance, so we don't yet know who will be matched against who on the last day of the tournament. However, if there are two yokozuna, they traditionally face off in the final match on the final day of the tournament.
Today there was light rain in the morning. I checked the forecast on TV and the internet and both called for rain and fog in the morning, cloudy in the afternoon. The hiking group met at 7:30 a.m. to go climb Baekundae, but I opted out. I don't like hiking in the rain and even if it didn't rain much, the clouds and fog would mean you wouldn't be able to see anything from the peak anyway.
I went back to bed and slept. When I went out this afternoon I met Bill Ethier, who went with the group. He came back early because there was light rain and the trail was very slippery. So I don't think I made a bad decision.
In the afternoon I took the subway over to Samseong station and walked about a half mile to Bongeunsa. Bongeunsa is a Buddhist temple that was founded in 794 during the Shilla dynasty. It moved about a half mile to its present location in the mid-1500's. Most of the buildings were destroyed in a fire in 1939 and those that survived were heavily damaged during the Korean War. The one building to survive all this is the one holding 3000+ wooden printing blocks carved with the text of the Flower Garland Sutra.
The temple was originally out in the countryside. Even after the capital of Korea was moved to Seoul, it was still sveral mile away and across the river. But as Seoul has grown in the past decades it has slowly engulfed the temple. Now Bongeunsa sits in the middle of one of the trendiest neighborhoods in Seoul, Kangnam, which means "south of the river". It is just north of the huge COEX mall which has a world-class aquarium and about a million and a half shops for teenage girls.
Main courtyard of the temple
Roof of the main hall with the towers of the COEX mall complex in
the background
The temple is obviously doing well. There were major renovations going on and the buildings had some very nice artwork painted on the exterior walls.
Series of murals of the outside of the main hall from the life of the Buddha
Buddha's mother dreams of his birth. He is a white elephant
before being born.
Buddha is born and immediately walks and speaks.
Buddha sees an old man, a sick man, and a dead man.
Buddha's flees his father's palace.
Buddha fasts and mediates for years.
Buddha is tempted while meditating.
After enlightenment, Buddha teaches his first followers.
Buddha dies surrounded by his disciple monks.
I posted some of the good pictures from the temple to my account at Panoramio, http://www.panoramio.com/user/524133. And a bunch of others at http://ku.pomosa.com.
After the temple, I took a taxi back to my neighborhood and went shopping at Gyeongdong market. Then I rode the bus back to the foot of the hill and walked up.
Cell phone video from the taxi
Sumo was on this afternoon. Tomorrow is the final day. Hakuho lost again, so he is mathematically eliminated from contention. Kotomitsuki and Asashoryu both one easily. So they are both 13-1. If they finish tomorrow at 14-1, they will have an extra match against each other for the championship. They already met once and Asashoryu won; Kotomitsuki's only loss of the tournament.
This page was last updated July 29, 2007 05:13 AM Korean Time
