Pat and the protest

Here we are in Seoul and, true to form, Pat found a protest.

Another temple

During free time on 21 June, We visited a marvelous temple at Ssanggye. Rather than creating a lengthy entry about it, I’ve written a page about the site; it includes links to photos.

Fan show

Upon arrival in Changwon, we settled into the Hotel Avenue (can’t find a Web site for it) and then strolled the neighborhood to find a snack and see what we could see. We elected to visit the nearby Sungsan Art Hall (slightly outdated info at this link) where we saw a juried show of paintings. In adjoining room a man beckoned to us to see a show of fans and kites.We were the only people in the room with ~50 objects on display. As I sat in a chair at the center of the room and looked about, the man engaged me in conversation. Although he wasn’t fluent in English, he had enough vocabulary and courage (much better than my Korean and mettle) to ask where we were from and how long we’d been in Korea. I asked him about the kites.

As we were about to leave, a young woman (Sally Kim, we think) came to the entry to the gallery and spoke with us in excellent English. She explained that the man with whom we’d spoken was one of the artists. Pat asked about her favorite fan in the show, and it turned out to be the work of the man hosting the show. He is Park Woo Yeoul and Mr. Park offered to pose with us at the fan Pat liked. So that’s how we came by this photo.

Ms. Kim explained that she’d studied eduation at SUNY Pottsdam and was in Changwon tutoring English. She passed on her e-mail address so that we could send Mr. Park a copy of the photo. I’ve sent it to Ms. Kim.

Hahoe Village

Thanks to Wi-Yung Kang and Kun Rhee, on 19 June we got a tour of a Hahoe village showing the traditional living situation of old Korea. The image here links to a set of other images about our tour of the village.

Deagu University

We took the KPX from Busan to Dong Deagu on 19 June to meet with Professors Kun-Yong Rhee and Wi-Yung Kang at Daegu University. They were wonderfully gracious hosts, getting us on the calendar of a top administrator at DU, securing a guided tour of a museum, feeding us a nice lunch, giving us a tour of DU’s Braille Library (an excellent facility for serving people with visual impariments or blindness), and then guiding us on a visit to Hahoe folk village. I hope to post a note about the visit to the folk village soon, but for this entry I focus on our time at DU.

Egrets

Tuesday the 19th, a train trip (KTX; very nice) from Busan to Dong Daegu and then a drive further along the Andong River provided lots of opportunities to see egrets in the rice fields. I got no photos nor could we identified which egrets we saw (Jane? Sammy?), but there were many. There’ll be reports about the sights and such once I can stop long enough to record them.

Beomeosa Temple

Nestled into a large draw between fingers of Geumjeong Mountain near the north side of Busan, Beomeosa Temple (AKA “Pomosa”) is a marvelous little treasure spot. It’s architecture reflects the influence of different of monks for over 1000 years, each of whom used different techniques, some that seem to slight variations and others that seem to be innovations. The grounds also include memorial markers for historical figures, each borne by a tortise that has a different countenance (many looking rather fierce).