MT. CHEONJU & CHEONJU TEMPLE

MT. CHEONJU & CHEONJU TEMPLE

Mt. Cheonju is within Changwon city limits. Changwon has several nearby mountains as do most Korean cities.

 

About 400m up the 2.5km climb. There's Cheonju Temple. Again this is similar in a lot of ways to the other temple I have visited in Changwon. I do like the color of this one though.

Cheonju Temple

Temple Grounds

Paper lotuses hanging from the ceiling

Golden Buddha with food offerings

A view of the large bell

Me in front of the  large bell

I continued up the mountain where I found public workout equipment. As if the hike was not enough of a work out. This is not uncommon on hikes in Korea. The guy in the navy shirt had just finished working out a bit.

Working out on the mountain

I came across a sectioned off strolling footpath with a variety of assorted stones. What I learned was, according to traditional medicine, different stones/arrangements had different ailment alleviating properties through the pressure points on your feet in a way that was linked to your internal organs. The idea is similar to acupuncture or acupressure. I've seen these footpaths in a few places in Changwon.

Feet-organ map

As I climbed higher I got some beautiful views of the city.

I made it to the top. There was a small little pagoda gazebo. I stayed there for a little while and headed back down. Stopping by the temple again at sunset and staying there until dusk.

I'm not sure if it turned out, but at this time
the moon was rising. It was very peaceful.

I have since returned to Mt. Cheonju with some foreigner neighbors from my apartment building.  There are two couples, Ryan and Candace from Southern California and Dan and Emma from Scotland. We went on a very rainy hike all together.

Pictured (l-r): Ryan, Me, and Dan

On this hike we got to see much more wildlife due to the weather conditions. 

I caught a frog!

We made it to the top, stormy weather and all.

Very, very wet

Pictured (l-r): Ryan, Candace, Me, Dan, Emma

NUBIJA & CHANGWON BIKE CULTURE

NUBIJA & CHANGWON BIKE CULTURE

Nubija is the city-run bike share program that is available to all of Changwon's citizens and foreigners holding an Alien Registration Card. All you need is a cell phone registered in your name and 20,000 Won (about $20) and you will be signed up with Nubija for an entire year. You can rent a bike for up to 2 hours before having to re-dock it at any of the 264 Nubija docking bays across the Changwon-Jinhae-Masan area (Jinhae and Masan are included in Nubija since they are incorporated Changwon city). If you keep it for more than 2 hours they call your phone.

Nubija docks

All you do to check one out is touch your little electronic key to the stall, the light turns from blue to green, and you're set. To return your Nubija you just insert this extended knob that's attached to the bike, directly into the stall, the light turns from green to blue, and then you just walk away.  

Checking out a Nubija: just touch and go

I signed up with Nubija, even though I have my own bike, because I wanted to keep my bike in good condition for traveling. Nubija is also a little more comfortable to ride and can handle terrain better.

I'm a big fan of this system and the bikes. They have 7 gears. A lot of people complain that many are in poor working condition, but to find a high functioning bike are you have to do is a quick spot check of a few things (tires, brakes, seat) and you'll be fine.

Pictured (l-r): Newer model and an older model 

Perhaps my favorite thing about Nubija is that people actually use it. Old people, young people, men and women, businessmen and children. The city actually uses them and embraces them. Changwon has an excellent biking infrastructure with bike lanes and bike corridors, which are sections of road sectioned off with a curb specifically to protect bikers.

We <3 Nubija

There is a definite pride Changwon takes in its bike system and infrastructure, and this can be seen all over the place in Changwon. Changwon seeks to be the greenest city in Korea by 2020.

Bike Art

Bike art

Bike art

Changwon is also home to a velodrome, a stadium with the sole purpose of housing bicycle races. 

Changwon Cycle Stadium

In the same stadium there is the Changwon Bicycle Culture Center. The have some memorabilia and some history about bicycles and biking. They also have a bronzed foot of Lance Armstrong that was made when he was here for the 2008 Tour de Korea.

Field Trip at Changwon Bicycle Culture Center

The Nubija head office is where I went to sign up for Nubija. When I signed up they gave me a map, in English, of where the 264 stalls across the city were located. Below is a picture of the other city-bike share bikes from other cities in Korea. I forget the other ones but one was from Seoul (They aren't very common, or popular in Seoul though, in fact the only place I saw them was outside of the World Cup Stadium).

City Bike Share Bikes from other Korean cities

Nubija Office: Beautiful two wheels happy companion

Right now happens to be bicycle awareness month. So outside the velodrome they have bicycle classes that you can practice riding your bike with other learners in a group. 

Bicycle class

Also, here are some pictures from my favorite bike shop in Changwon called Bicycle Mart. Its three stories high and home to some of the sexiest bikes I've seen in Korea.

The bald guy in blue is the owner
 and speaks decent English

JIMJILBANG

JIMJILBANG

Jimjilbang is a Korean spa and public bathhouse. There are two sections to a jimjilbang. There is the communal coed section and then there are the sections that are separated by gender in which you are fully nude sitting in hot tubs and saunas with other fully nude people of your gender.

In the coed section, its a heated room, and they give you these sort of pajamas that you wear and people just sort of hang out, watch TV, surf the web, chat or even nap. Jimjilbang is a cheap solution to a motel if you're short on cash and just need a few hours of shuteye. They are open all night and usually cost about 5,000 to 10,000 ($5- $10). It's a fairly common practice. Although I have a funny story that I heard from a friend who stayed the night in a jimjilbang in Itaewon (referenced here; again home to "homo hill" and "hooker hill) that is not quite for all audiences. If you want to hear it, let me know and I'll email it to you.

From here on out I can only speak to my experiences at the one time I've gone to jimjilbang. It made it easier that I was with Koreans (who knew what they were doing) so I just kind of followed suit.

When you walk into the lobby there are rows and rows of lockers just for your shoes. You put your shoes away before you go anywhere and they give you a little key. By the way, this jimjilbang I think was particularly nice.

All for shoes

I did not do the common area thing, I went straight to the gender separated public bath part. First off when you get in, yes, you are seeing naked people. Naked males of all ages including children, old people, everybody, and its just one of those things that you got to get over quick.  The men's section was not just hot tubs and saunas. They had a barber shop section where you can get a (clothed) hair cut and a shave. There was also a little convenience store place where a clothed shopkeeper could sell you (clothing optional) things like a candy bar or a Coke. So I watched these naked guys walking around, standing in line, and buying things from this little store (Lord only knows where they kept their money...). 

Anyways there's the locker room area, you undress and then you walk freely in the buff to the various pools, showers, saunas, feet scrubbing stations and balconies that the jimjilbang has to offer. Supposedly the different pools, depending on the temperature, and or the wood or oils used, hold different medicinal properties for healing different ailments.

So I sat in a few different pools. The hottest one I sat in was 111 degrees (I didn't sit long). I went out on the balcony to enjoy the view. I didn't go into any saunas. Some jimjilbangs, not this one, had a cold room that's like the opposite of a sauna. I also did not feel like I was attracting a lot of attention which I felt relieved about, not only for being white, but for being particularly hairy (most Koreans do have much body hair). But either they were forcibly not looking, or they just didn't care, either way, I'll take it.

All in all I felt terrific after my jimjilbang. I had been slogging all day and after my jimjilbang  I felt amazing afterwards. Once you get over the nakedness, it's not that weird or uncomfortable. 

WILD NIGHT IN DAEGU

WILD NIGHT IN DAEGU

My friend in Changwon, Walker, taught in Daegu last year. Daegu is the 3rd biggest city in South Korea. It is big enough to warrant having a subway, they are home to the baseball league champions Samsung Lions and it is also the hottest city in the county. Walker goes to Daegu a lot because he has some friends there, so I tagged along with him

We took the train there and arrived at the station.

Daegu Train Station

We then took the subway to get to the center of town

Daegu Subway

We then walked around Daegu a bit. First stop: Get some shwarma at the local Turkish joint. I got mine with hummus in it. I haven't had hummus in months.

Going to chow town

Then we walked around the main downtown area. 

Street art in Daegu

I saw this hilarious business. Here is the business model: a bunch of photo booths where you and your tween-teen Korean girl friends can go and take pictures of yourself. 

We also walked around and did some local sightseeing. There is a bar called Bus Bar which is an old bus that has been converted into a bar. Next to it is a cool bar called Buddha. Later we went to "cell phone street"which is a street that is nothing but cell phone shops. And then we stopped by the stage in the center of town and watched a small performance being held.

Bus Bar

Entrance to Buddha Bar

Cell phone street

Rooftop View of Cell Phone Street

We met with Walker's friend Matt who took us around to some cool foreigner bars around Daegu. 

(pictured left to right) Walker and Matt.

Since Daegu's population is so much bigger than Changwon's there are a lot more things to do. There is nightlife, including nightclubs, and many more foreigner bars. Changwon has maybe 3-4 and Daegu has something closer to 10.

The sign says: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

We then started our night out. We went to a bag bar, where they give you your cocktails in a zip-lock pouch kind of like a Capri-Sun. They shake the liquor and the mixer in the bag to blend your cocktail.

We walked around. Met some people saw and did some interesting things.

So that's a picture of a dead cobra with a dead scorpion stitched into its mouth. This guy Jeff from Oregon had bought a bottle of liquor while he was in Vietnam with this thing in it (because how could you not?). They were celebrating that night because they had finally finished this bottle of terrible liquor so they then could smash it to see if the snake/scorpion was real. Turns out it was. So they were going around Daegu with this thing in a cup and taking it out to scare Korean girls with it.

Walker and I went out to club, left around 4AM. It was so late at this point that it wasn't worth looking for a motel. So we went to a DVD Bang. A DVD Bang is a viewing room where you pick your DVD you want to watch from the store inside, and they put it on a big screen with big speakers and there's like the bed/couch kind of thing. It's basically a place for young people to make out.

Anyways, Walker and I get to this DVD Bang at like 4AM. we just need somewhere to sleep for a bit, so we just want to find the longest movie we can fall asleep to. So I take Avatar off the shelf and it was a done deal. I was asleep immediately

Our nighttime accommodations at the DVD Bang

We make up to the booming DVD menu on loop at like 8AM or whatever, and we both agree, that it's time to leave Daegu.