Jjimjilbang

The sign above is ubiquitous on almost every street in Korea, the almighty Jjimjilbang. A jjimjilbang is essentially a public bath house. If you're cool with stripping down to nothing in front of strangers (see: 30-50 naked Korean men) it's a fantastic place on so many levels.

Most importantly, it's a nice one or two hour place to relax. The drill code is this; you walk in and pay the receptionist approximately 5,000 won ($4.00 USD) and she will give you a key. You put your personals in a locker and receive a key to said locker. If you're planning on staying a while you will get a uniform, which is a set of loose fitting clothes to hang out in after the bath experience. There is no check out time, you can stay as long as you'd like. In fact, many people stay the night here because it's cheap and they also offer mats and pillows to sleep on, usually by a hearth that heats the hot pools, (there's been a few late nights where I've done this).

Once you've paid and you walk in (naked), you'll usually take a shower to clean up, which is similar to most western public pools. After that, you will find a number of different pools. Some of which are scalding hot, and other are very cold. They also have the traditional steam sauna to add to the mix. The best rotation, I've found, is to go from scalding hot to ice cold, and then to a steam room, and then back to cold. The rotation between hot and cold stimulates blood circulation, and actually provides a sense of euphoria (confirmed).

These places are open 24 hours and are everywhere. It's a great place to relax and hang out at or also really effective at battling a late night. The western conception of bath houses, at least in my own experience, are that they are gay or weird stuff goes on inside them. Not so in Korea, families come to these on the regular, even couples go on dates.

After you're done hanging out in the pools you put back on your uniform and head inside. A legit jjimjilbang will offer many other amenities, such as: fitness rooms, massage rooms, health and medicine spas, snack bar... hell, you can even grab a beer and watch some television after you're done relaxing. For the price and how great it is, it's money well spent.

Hey Britney, how's Korea?

Friday was Teacher's Day (check out the SK entry) here in Korea. Teacher's Day is a national holiday where the school staff just basically takes it easy, teaches no class, and eats cake and ice cream all day. Pretty sweet deal. I found the letter pictured above on my desk after school. I think the girl was so shy she crossed out her name and instead went with the fail-safe Britney Spears angle. That totally made my day.

I teach one adult class per week and is by far my favorite class. The class consists of 15 middle-aged Korean housewifes and college students who are trying to brush up on their English either for job advancement, personal enrichment, or just foreign curiosity. It's great because I bring in a news article, usually a current event that affects both of our respective cultures, and we just chew the fat for an hour. Anyways, for Teacher's Day they came in with a huge fruit cake and we all sat in a circle eating cake with chopsticks.

The adult class is more interested in Western culture than learning about pronouns and prepositions so they just ask me questions and are totally in awe at my responses. For example, the drive-thru is a foregin concept for them, as is fast food. Korean cuisine takes great pride in their 'slow food' approach to cooking. Meaning, if it's fast and easy to prepare (with the exception of kimbap (my favorite)) it probably isn't worth doing at all. So, the whole idea of ordering a full meal and having it in your car 3 mintues later is absolutley mind-boggling to them.

It's funny, it's really hard to see America or Americans from an objective view when you're living there, meaning, it looks a lot different from the outside. Being in another country and listening to people's ideas and stereotypes on somewhere you've lived your entire life is very interesting, to say the least. My friends here who speak about these stereotypes always say how surprised they are that I'm not this or I'm not that. No Min-ho, I'm not a McDonald's-eating, shotgun-toting, bible-thumping, crass and vulgar person 24 hours a day-- only half that. I love comparing and contrasting Western and Eastern culture, it's entirely interesting and probably my favorite thing to talk about here with native Koreans who have never traveled or studied abroad. I'm trying to debunk the bad sterotypes one person at a time... not all Americans like McDonald's and Britney Spears, in fact, they both suck.

Boseong Green Tea Festival & Naganeupseong Folk Village

The weather has been fantastic the last two weeks here. Clear blue skies and warm weather makes for good site-seeing on the weekends. Left Gyeongsangnam-do on Saturday and headed west to the Jeollanam-do province for the annual green tea festival in Boseong. I was told this location produces over 80% of the green tea consumed in Korea. I wasn't too big into green tea before coming over here but it has really grown on me and is a great alternative to the insanely huge amounts of instant coffee consumed here. They even had green tea frozen yogurt, which was surprisingly VERY good.

Boseong was beautiful. No other way really to describe it but to just show the pictures.





This was taken outside of a tea shop up in the mountains.

Same location. If you look closely you can see people working in the tea fields.


Same tea shop, different view.


The rows of tea leaves were very symmetrical.







They had a bamboo forest nearby as well.


When the wind blows through the bamboo the moving stalks make very cool sounds.


The lighting inside of this area was great.





We stopped in Suncheon on the way to the tea festival at an old folk village called Naganeupseong. The entire village is enclosed by city walls that were constructed to ward off Japanese pirates. I think it may have worked, the city is still standing and I dropped by on Saturday.








I wonder what his crime was?


I wish I had more information on this gem, really. This adds a whole new level to corporal punishment.




I bought some tea at Boseong (it's really good). If anyone wants a box, let me know!

Seong Ju Temple

Saturday was Buddha's birthday in Korea. This day is a national holiday and each year millions flock to Buddhist temples all over Korea to celebrate the event and pay homage, pray, etc. About 15 minutes out of Changwon is the Seong-Ju temple. This particular temple has a long and detailed history but it is believed that a high ranking priest named Moo-Yom first built the temple during the Silla dynasty over 1000 years ago. In 1592 it was burnt down but in 1682 they began reconstruction.

A group of us hiked deep into the mountains on Saturday to go experience the event. It was pretty awesome being part of something so old that has endured centuries of war. The location itself, hidden away in the mountains, gives a very peaceful and serene vibe- hard to explain. I wanted to take pictures of inside the temples but didn't feel comfortable doing so while people were praying.





Picture of one of the central pagodas on temple grounds.


There was a pretty big line of people waiting to pay homage to a shrine. They were all chanting, it was amazing.


Some of the many decorations they had up for the event.


Another shot of the procession right before it began.


Sign above one of the main temples.


The photos do not do any justice to the intricacies of the designs.


Another shot of the procession before it began.


Many small Buddha's that people have brought to the temple over the years.


Lanterns for the event. They had a tent set up where you could pay to have your name written and then you would attach it to one of the lanterns.


Another shot of one of the main pagodas. Again, I didn't want to be that typical America tourist and go take pictures inside uninvited so I settled for these instead.


One of the statues outside of temple grounds.


Some of the artwork that was on display.


They had many of these types of statues.


Huge elephant located on the trail up the mountain.


Small building that housed the Seoung-ju bell. More info on that below.


Sign outside of the bell tower.


Many of these ancient stones had carvings in them. I'm guessing these stones have seen a lot over the years.


If you look closely you can see more small Buddha figures. This particular little shrine was really impressive.


A small pond right outside of the temple grounds.


Same pond.


At the top of the trail they had these drinking places. It's essentially a run off of mountain spring water that is safe to drink. It was very good after the hike up the mountain.


The stacks of rocks you see represent wishes, I was told. My friend from Liverpool accidently knocked a small stack over, he will be feeling the wrath of Buddha soon I'm guessing.


Another shot of the rock stacks.


Another huge animal on the trail up.

Picture from of the mountains from the temple grounds. It's completely isolated from anything else around and mountains surround it on all four sides.


Shot of the stairs up to the main area.


Got a pretty good laugh out of this. "Yo, I gots to bounce". Funny thing was is that she was in her 50s, at least.

The mountains we hiked up into for the temple.

It was a really great experience seeing a temple for the first time. A large part of Korea is still Buddhist so their are still temples everywhere. I hope to see more again soon.