Gakwonsa Temple and Oeam Folk Village

Aaaand I'm back! I haven't blogged in awhile because we haven't gone anywhere for several weekends. We've been putzing around at home. I didn't feel like I had anything remotely interesting to write about. But on Sunday we went to two wonderful places!

First, we met our friends about 45 minutes south of here in Cheonan at the Gakwonsa Temple. It turns out its a Buddhist temple built to pray for the reunification of North and South Korea! I have never been to a Buddhist temple before so I'm really glad we went because it was absolutely amazing. Its a serene setting at the foot of a mountain.

These stairs going all the way up to that cone thing at the top is one way of getting there. We drove.

The cherry trees are blossoming!

 
The entire grounds smelled of incense. We even saw a few monks walking around carrying large bags of rice. One of them, who we came in contact with, was an elderly man with such a sweet smiling face similar to the Dalai Lama. He cooed at Jonah and said something in Korean. It was pretty thrilling. I think its amazing that they let anyone off the street come into their special, sacred spaces. We climbed the stairs to the main temple, took off our shoes outside and opened the large wooden doors to go in. The first thing you see is the giant altar with three golden statues (not sure if they're all Buddha or what) and the incredibly detailed designs painted and cut into the walls and ceiling. The ceiling is probably three stories high.

The main temple

The front altar

The three frames against the wall are lit candles.

Food offerings: fruit, tofu, cakes, etc.

I have a feeling I wasn't supposed to be taking pictures, but it was just an itty bitty phone camera! There's no way I could explain all the details and even my pictures don't do it justice. There were only a few people in there at the time and no monks, so I hope they didn't mind. Later on, I heard a monk chanting inside so I went back in to listen and this time did NOT take any pictures. He was sitting on the floor sideways to the altar and reading/singing words from a page. He would intermittently ring bells and tap a hollowed out gourd with a stick while he was chanting. The air was chilly, his voice was loudly echoing and it smelled like incense. The whole thing was just really interesting and beautiful.
We walked up a short trail to see this bronze Buddha.

Lanterns blowing in the wind

This is just a small amount of the roof tiles they have stacked up everywhere. Each one has a hand-written prayer on it by a visitor.

I'm not sure what this structure is for but the horizontal line in the middle is a log that they pull back and release to hit the bell in front of it. I wish we could have heard the gong!

As a Westerner, it can be disconcerting to see what I think of as the Nazi symbol. But in Buddhism, the swastika is a symbol of good fortune, among many other things. Plus, here the symbol is lying square and the arms face counter-clockwise. The Nazi symbol is turned on its side and the arms face clockwise.

Toby and I had to go to use the restroom and opened a door to find this. I was prepared to "go native" but he backed away saying, "NO I don't want that!" We tried a few more stalls and finally came to this...

Oh, thank heaven! A regular toilet!

A little bouquet from me boy.

So that was the Gakwonsa Temple visit in the morning. Next we drove about 30 minutes to the Oeam Folk Village. It was built around 500 years ago and some of the homes still have families living in them, operating the farmland and carrying on the same traditions like wine-making and thatched roofs. 

Our first stop was lunch at one of the little restaurants on site.

This little cutie is a sweet potato dumpling filled with smashed beans and fried. It was soft and crunchy and such a nice sweet/bland change from the spicy, lip-burning, nose-dripping food we always eat. (It hurts so good, though.)

Spicy, lip-burning, nose-dripping cold noodles with greens. The other bowl is more spicy greens in cold broth, but a slightly different flavor. And then a bowl of some kind of warm broth. Aaaahhhh, so good, whatever it is.

No permit crossy this bridge!

The rock walls curve around each house and street. They're at least 5 feet tall and about 3 feet wide of rock standing in a straight pile. No mortar!

A real thatched roof that they re-do every few years.

Enjoying the ride.

Pots of fermenting bean paste and kimchi.

Its pretty now but I'm told it will be stunning this summer when everything is green and lush.

I'm so glad we got out of the house and did some touristy things again. We were all exhausted from a long day of walking and exploring more of Korea's special places. And to top it all off, we saw this elderly couple on our way home, driving right alongside cars on a four-lane highway...

Oh, Korea!

Driving in SoKo

From what I can tell so far, despite what the driver's ed book says, the rules of driving in Korea go something like this:

Green = Go

Yellow = Gun it

Red (within 3 seconds) = Keep going! DUH!

Red (4 seconds+)* = Its ok to stop now, but you're kind of a wuss.

Exceptions:
Stupid Reds (country roads, two-way intersections, any intersection with one of the two traffic cameras in the country) = Don't ever stop. Duh.

*If you are a taxi, big rig or bus, keep going by whatever means necessary, whether that be 1) plowing through the brush on the shoulder and turning left in front of stopped cars,  2) swerving left into oncoming traffic and turning right in front of stopped cars, 3) weaving in any direction necessary to go the way you want to go, or 4) sliding sideways through the intersection like a derailed train.    FOR THE LOVE OF KIMCHI, JUST. KEEP. GOING.   RED LIGHTS DO NOT APPLY TO YOU.    YOU ARE ABOVE THE LAW.    NO OTHER LIVES MATTER.    THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT WILL CEASE TO EXIST IF THE DIRT IN YOUR TRUCK IS NOT DUMPED WITHIN THE NEXT 10 MINUTES. GOOOO!

Parking: wherever the h-e-double hockey sticks you want and in whichever direction is most convenient.

Women: drive as slowly as possible in the left lane with left blinker flashing. Just before car behind you starts to pass, crank wheel firmly to turn right. Car behind you should know that left blinker flashing indicates right turn at any time. Duh.

Men: you might as well drive blind-folded. As far as you're concerned, you're the only car on the road.

Special note for taxis and buses: No need to break for animals, small chil...eh, just don't break.


Everything I have said is true, but driving here isn't nearly as crazy and scary as we've been told, even in Seoul. It's mostly pretty tame and I've been in much crazier "normal" driving conditions in places like France, Italy, and Greece - all good food places - must be in a hurry to eat.

The moral of this post is to LOOK BOTH WAYS when walking or driving. Don't take red lights for granted. You never know when the bus from Speed, which could just as well have been some happy Korean city bus making the rounds, could be blazing a trail of flames headed straight for you! Safety first, kids.

Lil' ol' Update

Things have been going purdy well on ye olde Korean home front. We have a nice routine going, which, for the boys and I, consists of play groups at a gym a few days a week, Toby going to preschool three afternoons per week, and the occasional story time at the library. I'm doing Zumba twice a week, which is something I neeeeeever thought I'd be in to. I think it's working for me because the instructor is awesome, it's a huge group, its close, it's free, I know some of the other gals that go and Marc gets home in time for me to get there. I have no excuses, which I'm really good at coming up with (wink). Marc rides his bike to work and then takes a longer route through the rice paddies to get some exercise on the way home. I'm also *very* gradually working on two certifications which are taking forever because I can't sit down for two minutes together without Jonah climbing all over me or Tobin asking 21 questions. In fact, the only reason I'm able to write right now is because Marc is Skyping downstairs, which is distracting the boys, and I sneaked upstairs. It's a matter of minutes before the boys realize I'm not down there, which, according to them, may or may not mean the end of the world as they know it. (It's nice to be needed, isn't it? -also from Anne of GG) On the weekends we try to go somewhere new or at least go for a long walk outside, plus continue the process of organizing and putting things away. Oh, and don't forget about the weekly "massaging my way through the next three years" thing! Anywho, its a nice routine and I think we're all pretty happy with the way things are going. But let me bring it down a notch, as I'm inclined to do: we're all pretty happy with the way things are going...considering we're living in prehistoric Pyeongtaek, 6000 miles from anyone we know, can't get Chipotle, In'n'Out, Trader Joe's, decent Mexican food, blahdy blah blah...But, for what it is, it's actually really great. And our car arrived in Seoul! Marc took the train up to get it. (Aaaaaand Jonah is now crying for me - gotta go get him.) I realize now that driving Linda for the last two months has contributed to significant hearing loss and back pain. Linda is LOUD and steering her requires the use of every muscle in my back, butt and torso and sometimes legs. She doesn't take bumps well and there are a lot (like, a lot) of potholes and random speed bumps that come out of no where. I'm serious. We could be out driving on some long country road, minding our own business, when - KABLUNK KABLUNK - we all have whiplash from going over some sneaky, camouflaged speed bump. So it feels like we're out on Safari everyday, but instead of rhinos we have to watch out for possessed bus drivers, so I badly need a chiropractor but there aren't any here!! Oohhhhh woe! Driving our car again felt like riding on a magic carpet. It was quiet, smooth, and the steering wheel...TURNED...at my command. We ascended those nasty speed bumps with the grace of a waterfowl riding an ocean swell. We simultaneously sighed with relief. Our modest Mazda 5 feels like a Rolls Royce! It looks like we'll have to sell ol' Linder. (I like the British pronunciation of certain words. Ahem.)

All the locals here in rural Pyeongtaek are out in the fields burning things, presumably part of the planting process,  and sowing seeds. Rice planting looks like tedious, back-breaking work. The other big crops around here are chili peppers, onions, strawberries and a few other things I'm not sure about and its all done by hand. The other thing is that every square inch of available land has something growing on it. If there's a 1 ft. x 4 ft. plot of dirt next to the road, its got food growing on it. The latest is that we're starting a garden of our own! This is probably my fourth or fifth attempt. Every year when we move I have to give my plants away so I've never been able to see anything through a full cycle. We've also never had a composter (who knows why!) but that's all changing. Yesterday we got some supplies.

Yea! Rotting food waste!

The nature gives you relaxation and composure. Stay in the nature.

Whatever the opposite of being helpful is is Jonah's middle name. I still love you, baby.

We got the barrel for compost and Marc drilled some holes in it. I realize now that the compost we're making won't really be ready until next year's planting, so we can't use it for the soil this time, but its gettin' goin'. And my friend, J.D., told me that all the seeds here are probably all GMO-mutant-freak seeds, so next year I will order some heirloom seeds from her catalog in time for spring planting. We also got some big shallow bowls that are sold all over the place here. I think they might be used for preparing kimchi and/or farming. Dunno. More holes were drilled into those and then filled with some small pebbles for drainage and soil.

Collecting dirt and leaves for the compost bin from the lot across the street.

Planting the strawberry and lettuce starters.

We'll probably get several more of these once my seedlings can be transplanted.

Some herbs, watermelon, cucumber and tomatoes getting started.

Instead of a green thumb, I have the opposite - the Thumb of Death. Whenever I start a little garden everything will be green and bushy for a few weeks and I'll be so proud of my skills, then, inevitably, one by one, they all shrivel into plant skeletons. I try to follow instructions but it seems that no matter how much or how little water, food and sun they get, everything just wants to curl up and die. Is it my breath? But I thought they liked close-talkers! Why do plants hate me? Hopefully this time we'll do something right and have a decent harvest. Maybe the Korean soil or water will work a miracle since this is farm country. The only thing I'm concerned about is monsoon season. Some of the things we're planting aren't supposed to get that much water without time in between to drain and dry out. And I'm planning on going home this summer for a month. Aiiiii it's always something. I hope these plants don't commit suicide on me. I really want to be a more self-sustaining-urban-farmy-type. Being in one place for three years may actually give us an opportunity to be that way for awhile.

Once Jonah's non-helpfulness outside became so appallingly destructive, I let him play with bubbly water in the sink, until he abused that privilege, as well, by spraying water all over the kitchen. But ain't he cute?

P.S. Its taken me hours to write these few paragraphs because in between the lines I've made lunch, did dishes, broken up fights, wiped a few bottoms, put down for naps, answered a multitude of questions, removed Marc's deodorant from Jonah's mouth and rediscovered for the 821st time that a quiet toddler is never a good thing when I found Jonah covered in my mascara (British pronunciation).

My Grandma Dori

On Thursday, March 14, my grandma, Doris Mae Hewson Brand, passed away peacefully next to her youngest son, John. The last several days of her life she was with a family member around the clock. I'm so happy my family could do that for her and I wish I could have helped and been there too.
I think we all have grandparents or other people in our lives who we love so much, who mean so much to us and who we know so well that we wish we could describe everything about this person so that everyone else will know and understand them the way you do. So you can probably understand that there's no way I can adequately do justice to my grandmother in a few paragraphs. I don't even want to try. It won't come close to who she really was. You won't ever know the funny way she pursed her lips, how one word out of her mouth in a certain tone had years of inside-jokiness behind it, or the details of each story from her life that she proudly told over and over. But I know all of it and those are the memories that stay with me and continue to make me smile and laugh.
Not even my boys, who are a part of her legacy, will ever really know how she was, but I will do my best to share her stories and give them an idea of the unique specialness of their great-grandma and grandpa, who died about 7 years ago. I'm so lucky that I got to grow up knowing her at her best, long, long before she lost her spark and changed. Actually, I take that last part back. She changed but she never lost her spark. Even when she didn't know who or where she was, she still had her sense of humor. She was absolutely hilarious.

Always stylish and smiling

L-R:Rick, John, and Robert.  There were few things my Grandma loved to talk about more than her "THREE SONS".

Does it get any more glamorous?

She married my Grandpa, the most refined gentleman that's been a part of my life, after meeting him at a dance at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego. They moved around the country dozens of times for his career in the Navy. She loved that life even though she would be home alone for months at a time with three young boys while my Grandpa was flying planes and helicopters on and off of aircraft carriers. She was a brilliant artist. Her specialty was colorful jungle scenes of parrots and tigers that you swear could pounce off the canvas. Her style and personality were equally colorful. She always wore vibrant patterns, big jewelry and bright coral lipstick. ALWAYS.  When we were little my sister and I would stare, mesmerized, as she did her lipstick application ritual. First, the primary coating in one shade of coral. Blot. Then the second coating of a slightly different shade of coral. Blot. Press lips together. Then purse her lips into a heart-shape and shift her eyes to look at us looking at her.
Her home glittered with crystal, gold and fine china and was adorned with an eclectic array of items they collected from their many travels around the world. She was also a volunteer tour guide at the Salk Institute in La Jolla for 37 years (and she wouldn't let anyone forget it).

I was their first grandchild.

Circa 1982

Grandpa Extraordinaire

On her couch, basking in the glory of the pin curls she put in my hair the night before. How I loved having curls!

I just WISH I had a picture of her wearing her fabulously enormous "signature" glasses.

Nose to nose, eyeball to eyeball. Always laughing.

They adored each other til the very end.

I'm so happy to have this photo of her with my boys.

This may have been the last time I saw her when I'm pretty sure she still knew who I was.

Grandma Dori was the dazzling life of the party. She could make anyone, whether a janitor or the guy bussing a table, feel special because she was truly interested in talking to people and making them laugh. She leaves behind her three beloved sons, their wives, five grandchildren, 4 great-grandchildren and plenty of nieces and nephews. She lived a very, very good life. I'm so lucky to have had her for a Grandmother.