the kindness of strangers

On the weekend Becky and I got to go to one of the largest temples in Korea, Beomosa. The day was warm and sunny, and so without the thought of rain we were on a bus heading toward the site. There were two options in terms of how to get there. Our final destination was the temple, but I think the journey there is just as important - so we hiked. One of the coolest things about Korea is the kindness of people. It amazes me. As Becky and I tried to decipher the map that was right beside the bus stop, we made the decision to walk instead of bus. Just as we were trying to figure out what to do, a Korean woman who works at the UN memorial park cemetery here in Busan started talking to us. The next thing we know we are getting a history lesson as we scale this huge hill. It was great - gotta love strangers.
So anyways, here's a few pictures of the day.

This fire pit here was on the top of the hill/mountain. If you've ever seen the Lord of the Rings, when they are lighting the beacons on top of the mountain to signal for help, well then you'd be familiar with the purpose of this place. Used about a hundred years ago, this place was used to send smoke signals to allied villages with messages of distress. Those villages in turn would light their own beacons and communicate back. Awesome.


This is a sweet view of Busan; the city in the valley.

Becks and I, posing 'like the Asians do'

This is Becky and our volunteer tour guide and the steps leading down to the temple area.


One part of the temple (it's a pretty big place)
For more pictures of this place click here.

curiosity + free time = random adventures

This must be random adventure number 81... these events seem to happen often (I kind of look for them).
So I'm biking home after getting my first ever cell phone (I'm excited anyways..) and I ended up taking the long way home and biking past the soccer stadium. As I carry on down the road and approach the subway station, I'm distracted to see the amount of cars on the street, and the streams of people flowing toward the stadium. I thought to myself "Alright! There must be a game tonight!"
So using my very small vocabulary of broken Korean to ask someone if they spoke a bit of English, I found this one lady who did. She was among hundreds who were heading towards the stadium, which was shooting out spotlights as if Star wars was being filmed inside. I thought "ok, I'll check it out". Why not? By this point I knew that it wasn't a soccer game from the screen just outside the stadium. It showed a singer of some kind, so I thought I'd go have a quick peek. This lady who I was walking with led me past police officers, who questioned her on who I was. "Photographer", she said. Apparently I was shooting this event (but I left my camera at home! Man!).
Anyways, we went and sat in the front row of this stadium which was almost completely packed. The only seats available were to the sides of the stage, where no one could see anything anyway. "Is this a concert or something?" I asked her.
"No, this is the Busan Franklin Graham Festival"
...ok. So, not soccer... or a concert. But it was a pretty cool experience to just go and see the fireworks, the laser light show and the tens of thousands of people that were there to support Mr. Graham. I was kind of torn at this point as to whether I should go or stay. I wasn't really interested in the bands or what Mr. Graham had to say, but I did want to stay out of curiosity with what was going to happen.
Overall the night had some noteworthy moments. One was when Franklin Graham told everyone to turn on their cell phones (and hold them up as if they were lighters). They turned off the lasers and spotlights, and there seemed to be more cell phones than there were stars in the sky. It was incredible to see! Another cool moment was when the choir started to play. It was a 5,000 person choir, singing hallelujah. Again, it was pretty cool.
So the night was interesting to say the least. I booked it during the altar call, but not without noticing the balloons that everyone was given, using them as if they were pompoms. Biking away from the thousands of Christians listening to Franklin Graham, I thought of all the random events that seem to happen. Is this what it's like to live in a big city? I think all you need is an open mind, and some free time. Anything could happen.
... Maybe they'll hold some kind of hockey tournament here... It could happen...

Pilgrimage pics

I've finally (I know it's been long overdue) added a bunch of pilgrimage pictures to my facebook! For those who don't know, I went on a 100km hike from Melrose, Scotland to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, England last May. Here are a bunch of pictures that I took. For the first half of the trip click here. For the second half of the trip click here. And yes I do accept comments :)

What a million people looks like..

Unfortunately I don't have a wide enough lens to capture the shoulder to shoulder comfort that I watched the fireworks in, but maybe you could imagine. The annual Busan fireworks festival was this past weekend, and Becky, Dan, Ashley and I got to witness the spectacle first hand. It was a two day event, with the first day showcasing traditional dancing followed by a lazer light show, while the second day held even more dancing and demonstrations with the ever awaited fireworks display to cap it all off.
Although on the Friday night (the first night) I missed the lazer show due to teaching, I did get to take in the sights at Gwangalli beach.
The music was... tough to judge because my ear is trained by Canadian music, and not Korean, so we'll say that the music was 'different'. It was really amazing to be there though. One guy came up on stage and played a type of jazz horn, or something, and just went crazy on this little horn, hitting crazy notes (I actually thought he sounded horrible.. but that was just my ears..).
The following night was the main event, the fireworks. It was estimated that about 1.3 million people would be showing up; .3 million for the Friday night, and 1 million for the Saturday. Well, when the four of us finally arrived on a jam packed subway (I was squished against the door), we walked toward the beach with the police directing all of the people. When we finally got to a place where we could see the bridge, we could no longer move. We were completely out of room, but... we could see, and that was more than some people.
The fireworks display went on for about 45 minutes, and was incredible. There were green lasers and spotlights, the whole shebang. Although it was crowded and we didn't get that great of view, it was still worth going down there and experiencing it first hand. Who knows, if they have another one and I have the option of watching it on tv or seeing it live, I think I'd still choose the latter.

Check out all the cellphones in this one! As soon as the show started they took 'em out! So funny!

For more pics, click here

masks and modernity: an epic battle

This past weekend was the annual Kim and Joe's "take the foreigner's somewhere cool" trip, and I've gotta say, it was awesome! Let me set the scene... forty-three foreigners, one bus, and a lot of american beer.
Just to back it up a bit, "Kim and Joe" is a recruiting agency here in Busan. They work for English hagwons or academys here and look for foreigners to work for them. Becky and I chose to go through these recruiters because they... are just great. They are down to earth people who were just real with us. They are not like some others that often seem faceless to those searching to find a job. These guys even have facebook!
Anyways, the weekend excursion first took us on a boat trip that toured around this river, highlighting specific rock faces and special places. After that we headed out for a 'hike' to a place called Mt. Sokri. We were led up a paved pathway leading to an ancient park where monks used to live, work and pray. It was such a cool place, with artifacts that were hundreds of years old. Here are some pics:

This Buddha statue was massive. Covered in gold leaf.


At the entrance to the village

The architecture here was just incredible

Walking through this little area was breathtaking yet frustrating as well. It was fantastic to behold artifacts that are called 'national treasures', but beside all these treasures were good ol' human comforts: vending machines and little vendors. In my eyes, these places that are selling the cheap 'made in China' crap taint the authenticity of this place. That and the vending machines have a little covering over them done in the same style as the ancient buildings. It just made me disapointed in how we've preserved the precious things in our past. We are quick to sell out, thinking that it is better to make some cash and provide the comforts of home rather than upholding the integrity of the area.
Anyways, the next day we headed out to Hahoe village, a place that was a little less harmed by the modern culture. This place is famous for its Mask festival. For more info about that click here (just click 'English' in the top right corner). I loved this place. This was the minor stop on the trip home, but I liked it so much, I couldn't leave... Becky and I stayed the night in this little... traditional hotel, i guess, called 'minbok'. It was about 15,000 won (roughly $15) each for a night, and it was cool!
Just before the group from Kim and Joe's left, we all got to see the traditional mask play. It said in the brochure that everyone should see the mask play before they die or they will not get to enter heaven! whew! So, as Becky and I were watching this play, there was a part in it where the person who played 'the fool' called people up to dance with him. Here's Becky and I in front of a few hundred people, instantly becoming celebrities. Here we are dancing:

(photo by Kyle Carnes)

The village was incredible, and Becky and I got to see authentic Korean life before they became detached from their roots (maybe I'm too harsh by saying that they've sold out? I'm just disappointed). I'd go back in a heartbeat. In fact, I'm organizing my schedule so that I can return on a weekend or something. Such a good place. For an even more detailed version of this weekend, click here for Becky's blog. You can also find more pictures of this weekend on my Facebook account here.

No Impact Man

Can one live in this world while making no net impact on the environment? Can we live without creating trash, without electricity, without putting toxins in the water? Of course, us merely being alive has an effect on the environment, but on more of a philosophical level, can we live with our net impact on the world at 0?
I know that in my current situation, that would be very hard to do. Recently however, I have been inspired and persuaded to venture a little closer to that road. There is this blog site by writer Colin Beavan that documents a year long experiment that tries to answer this question whether a human, in a modern society, can live without producing any negative impact toward the environment. The site is called "No Impact Man", and it has recently been influencing me a lot.
His philosophy is simple: live life in such a way that is "eco-effective". To describe this he gives the example of Menominee tribe of Wisconsin who have lived off the land, cutting down mass amounts of trees for sale. Yet, with over one hundred years of cutting down trees in the same area, they have ended up with more trees now than when they first began. How? "They have figured out what the forest can productively offer them instead of considering only what they want to take from it." By cutting down the weaker trees, and giving room for the larger trees to grow, it actually helps the environment; almost like grooming it or something.
Humans however, are not following suit. Beavan argues that largely every other species lives with this eco-effective mindset; they just do it. He writes,

Lions neither starve themselves nor gorge to the point of wiping out the gazelle population. Instead, they promote the health of the gazelle herd by culling its weaker members and preventing herd overgrowth which in turn prevents overgrazing of the savannah. Animal waste does not poison the ground but fertilizes the soil so that it can produce more vegetation for the animals to eat. Bees feed on the pollen of flowers but far from damaging them they provide the crucial service of pollinating them.

Can humans live like this? Is it possible to live without killing the planet along with everything else that calls earth its home? I submit that it is possible, and I think that this No Impact man has some great ideas. Check out his site, I definitely recommend it.

My Chu-sok

... Otherwise known as the Thanksgiving holiday here in Busan, Chu-sok fell on September 24th - 26th. Such a good time for a holiday because that gave everyone a five day weekend. Sweet. Yet during this time, most Koreans were off visiting family, and having special meals. Because us foreigners could not join in the festivities, we decided to have our own special meal to celebrate the Korean Thanksgiving. We searched for turkeys, or duck, or some kind of giant bird that would still fit in my toaster oven, but with no avail. All we could find were chickens, so that's what we settled on. Here's a picture of my awesome toaster oven with the birds inside.

It's tricky living in Korea without having much connection to things going on back at home. Bringing everyone together for a thanksgiving meal helped lessen that feeling of separation from our own culture. Held at Becky's apartment, those attending were Adam and Leta, Becky's co-worker Ann, Becky and I. Ann brought the mashed potatoes, Becky made the veggies with cheese sauce, and Adam and Leta brought the dessert. Overall, it turned out to be a great time (I was impressed with my toaster oven... I didn't know if it could do the job!).
Living out here in Yongdo (an area in Busan) where there are few foreigners, and few people who speak English, life can seem lonely if I don't get out and do stuff. I'm beginning to see more and more the value of friends and family. I know there's that saying that 'you don't know what you have until it's gone', and I think it's quite true. Living at SSU I was close to friends; even if I didn't go visit them I knew that they were right there. There's something comforting in knowing that people you care about are nearby. Community is no longer that dreaded 'C'-word that is over used and annoying, but has become an important aspect to my life. The Thanksgiving meal was a great way to bring us all together, even just for a great meal. Before this blog turns into too much of a hallmark card, I'd better leave it at that (I really just wanted to show off the chickens!).