Korea foundation fall field trip

"Swallow" is the name of our new kitten. She is cute, but a bit of a wacko at times, biting your ankles in the middle of the night, stuff like that.




Hi everyone! John here. This week I went on a field trip with the Korea Foundation (who is supporting our time in Korea.) Most of the Korea Foundation fellows came along. It was great.

Here's me trying my hand at the whole close-up-of-a-weathered-object-that-others-might-overlook thing. It's from Hahoe, a village in Northern Gyeongsang province. Hahoe is surrounded by a dramatic bend in the river.


This tree is over 600 years old, and is considered a minor deity by the villagers. People come and write wishes on little slips of paper and tie them to the twine fence surrounding the tree, and to the tree branches and leaves within reach.

Here's the traditional Korean house, in Andong city, that we stayed in the first night.

Below is the room we stayed in. The floor was very hot. Too hot. I felt like I was being cooked.













it felt great to rub my hand on this buddha's belly. I'm at Jijiksa temple, in Gimcheon.
T0 the left is a traditional Korean breakfast. It looks suspiciously like Korean lunch and dinner: kimchi, rice, soup, and little plates of veggies and fish and whatnot. Below, is buddha followed by a thousand disciples. If you look closely, you can see that one of them is a standing baby.
the picture below was taken at Yeongju Sosuseowon, a private Confucian academy where they studied Chinese literature and Confucian philosophy. The inscription on the rock means "respect." It was written at a time of political intrigue and factionalism. But after they carved that in the character, everyone treated each other with... you guessed it.
To the left is one of our lunches. It's bulkogi, beef marinated in Doenjang (Korean miso.) Accompanying it on the table are little dishes of kimchi, raw garlic, hot peppers, and things like that.





This tree is also really old, about 550 years old, in Yangdong village. Yangdong was recently (two months ago) declared a world heritage site by UNESCO. It's quickly being overrun by tourists like me. We wandered in and out of yards taking pictures of everything while they made dinner and did homework. It was weird. But the village is amazing.


This is a set of steps made of rough stones. I see a lot of stairs like that in Korea. It's a cool aesthetic, but it must be hell on the old and limited of mobility.






















The alien with the sunglasses and surfboard and the alien with the mark of the beast on her forehead just love Korea.








These statues guardians of the Buddha, typical residents of the second gate at a Buddhist temple in Korea.

Sorry about the pictures being in random order--- I put them on in order, but they came out all weird. No idea why. Hopefully it looks ok on your computer.