LOCAL TEMPLE

LOCAL TEMPLE

I was taking a friend around the local hiking spot I had discovered not too far from my work (referenced here) when we stumbled upon a temple. 

Maybe 2 miles from where I live

These aren't that rare, on the contrary they are quite common, but there's nothing quite like the first time you find a temple, especially when you aren't looking for it. It's a special thing, and without sounding too spiritual you can feel a holy air in your environment. A temple usually has about 4 to 5 structures, of which I know little about.

The picture below though is something that almost all temples have, which its opening gate, which is said to be Buddha's Gate to Enlightenment. I'm not certain, but I think the stone totems to the left are burial markers.

Gate

The following are photos of interiors and exteriors of some of the buildings in this temple of which I do not know much about.

Temple grounds

Gold Buddha surrounded by bowls of fruit.
Hanging from the ceiling are paper lotuses

Temples are not a place of stagnant history. It is a place where people will come to pray. They will put down a pillow and bow to the Buddha statue. On Sundays a monk will chant and the chants will play over the loudspeakers throughout the temple grounds. They offer temple stays where you can stay the night and do things like enjoy a tea ceremony and make paper lotuses. When I we visited, some people walked up to us and gave us free rice cakes.

Woman praying to a stone Buddha statue.
Paper lotuses hang from the ceiling.

Later on, on a different day, with a different friend, I hiked to the top of this small, hilled hiking area and got some decent views of Changwon.

NC DINOS AND LONG BEERS

NC DINOS AND LONG BEERS

The NC Dinos are Changwon's minor league baseball team. Next year they head up to the pros. So to create interest, all NC Dinos tickets are free. The hilarious thing is that you still need to go to a ticket booth, get your free ticket.

The minor league atmosphere was similar in many ways. Except the NC Dinos had an awesome cheerleader and some guys banging on drums. What made the game even more fun was that each player had his own cheer. So new player at the plate had a coordinated cheer that accompanied the player. My favorite was Eminem's "My Name Is" but instead of saying "Slim Shady" we all shout PARK MIN OO!  One more hilarious things, when you buy a can of beer at the convenience store in the stadium, they give you a plastic bag (where else am I going to take this thing other than my seat?)

Drums and cheerleader

Kelsey (see here for reference) and I were a bit star-struck by the cheerleader.

I spotted some other foreigners from across the stadium (not hard) and I went over to introduce myself. They were also recently new to Changwon, Jordan, from Michigan, and Brad from Victoria, BC. They live as roommates in Palyongdong, which is a further-away neighborhood in Changwon. We all went up to Palyongdong to get some long beers where Kelsey's boyfriend Lucas met us (see here for reference).

Getting silly at the Dinos game.
Pictured (l-r): Jordan, Brad, me, and Kelsey

The long beers place had 3 sizes. Naturally we all went with King.

We then tried to invent silly challenges, such as drinking with only one hand. I spilled all over myself, I was no good at it.

We then went to what was described as a Western Bar, which turned out to have a Western theme.

They gave us the popular bar snack of popcorn, seaweed and soy sauce. What you do is you wrap the popcorn in the seaweed then you dip it in the soy sauce to give if a nice salty taste.

CONGEALED BEEF BLOOD SOUP & OTHER NEW KOREAN FOODS

CONGEALED BEEF BLOOD SOUP 

& OTHER NEW KOREAN FOODS

I tried suhn ji (congealed beef blood soup) for the first time on a Saturday night at like 3AM from essentially a food truck. I didn't know the brown meat in the soup was congealed beef blood. I assumed it was tongue. It was brown, porous and crumbled easily. With the soup and everything with it, all in all not bad. I've actually ordered it since.

suhn ji - congealed beef blood Soup

I tried the very popular desert called potbingsu. Its a bowl of shaved ice and red beans and a sweet sticky mochi-like ricecake. (no dairy) Then you mix it all together. I think you would like it. You heard it here first- this is going to overtake Pinkberry as the go-to thing. When this comes to America people are gonna freak out over it and overcharge the crap out of it. (Note: Just found out they have this in NYC and DC)

potbingsu

This is hae chjawhn gku. This is a breakfast food. The picture was taken at breakfast time. Hae chjawn gku is a fish based soup and is commonly referred to as hangover soup. It was good. That big bowl of rice is for adding to the soup to thicken it up. Other soups and other places they sometimes give you a raw egg that you crack in the near-boiling soup they give you to thicken it up too.

haechjawn gku

These are "ice noodles" its a cold soup and literally has crushed ice floating in it. I wasn't a fan don't like cold soups.

ice noodles

And lastly. The only food that I have spit out in Korea: beondegi, which are steamed silkworm pupae. I thought they would be crunchy.They weren't. They were squishy and it was disgusting.

BREAKDANCE COMPETITION IN CHANGWON

BREAKDANCE COMPETITION IN CHANGWON

A coworker invited me to a regional breakdancing competition where dancers could compete for bragging rights and prize of about $300. Her boyfriend was in one of the competing troupes.

The opening act was a dance troupe, not competing, that incoroprated lots of "popping and locking" and used a variety of American pop music with likewise hilarious accompanying dances. Songs worthy of mention: LMFAO's "Shots," Afroman's "Because I got High," and "Mortal Kombat." All had accompanying dances to match the music, miming throwing back liquor and marijuana inhalation and the side effects of each.

These were our MCs for the evening. They kept the mood light and told (seemingly) hilarious jokes.

Before the tournament began, we all stood up for the Korean national anthem. Note: They don't remove hats when they do the national anthem. They also literally bowed to their corporate sponsors.

There was a swath of single B-Boy battling with very impressive moves. These guys could bring it like none other. They are strong, lean and just chiseled. The judges were break dancers themselves, one of which was sponsored by Red Bull. 

And then at the height competitive hip-hop fueled excitement they then sucked all that energy right out with a cheesy crooning ballad singing woman. Ballads are kind of slow R&Bish songs with a lots of synthy instruments and chimes and etc. It sounded like a Disney princess songs. Remember we are at a break dance competition. Her last song was "It's Raining Men."  The crowd couldn't get enough of it.

Ugh

After the one on one battles they went into team competition, where 5-on-5 teams competed against one another to climb the tournament ranks. 

We watched my coworker's boyfriend's team. They didn't go very far though. It made for awkward conversation when he came to join us because they very clearly got killed by the other squad. They ended up leaving early as did I.

INDEPENDENCE DAY IN JINAHE

INDEPENDENCE DAY IN JINAHE

I had the day off on a Wednesday a few weeks ago because of Korean Independence Day so I rode my bike to neighboring Jinhae. Jinahae is along the water, but has no beaches. It’s all industrial ports

Here are some photos from my cycling tour of Jinhae:

Korean War Hero Statue

Through happenstance I met a fellow American cyclist. His name is Tom and he is hard-knocks New Englander and a Fire Chief on the Jinhae Military Base. We rode around, met a friend of his, a guy named Brian from Florida, rode around some more, and got dinner and drinks in Jinhae.

Tom and Brian

I tried to get on the base, but was denied access because I lacked my passport.

Denied.

 While waiting for dinner I spent about an hour walking around the Jinhae NFRDI Environment Eco-Park.

 

Later that night there was a free performance of Grease along the water. The dialogue was all in Korean but the songs were in English.