India, Nepal, and Thailand

I'm finally getting around to updating this blog.
With everything that has happened in the last year, I'm really behind!
In January 2008, we took a three week trip to India and Nepal.
We stopped in Thailand on the home.
It was an whirlwind trip as you can imagine.
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Kolkata (formally spelled Calcutta.)
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Ghandi's bed, New Delhi
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You know it - the Taj Mahal. It was crowded and I got
sick on the broken down train on the way back to the city.
Definitely not the highlight of India.
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Bodhgaya, India
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My friend Sung Ae, who helped me so much in Korea.
She's standing in front of the Mahabodhi temple in Bodhgaya.
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This was the view from our porch in Varanasi, India.
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Varanasi, India
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Varanasi, India
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We flew over the border to Nepal.
I love the fourth item listed.
I guess I can't go through the green channel at customs in Nepal.
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Boudhanath, Nepal was so beautiful and welcoming
that I can't wait to go back.
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The stupa at Boudhanath, Nepal.
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Thailand
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Updates.

As you can see, we've been really busy traveling around the area. This weekend we just hung out at home. We finally got some furniture, no more sitting on the living room floor! So now things really feel settled, and the apartment feels like home.

My classes are going pretty well. The highest grade of middle schoolers are the toughest. They'll be done in a couple of months, so they've got senioritis big time. Who can blame them?

Oh yeah, and the big news is that an Indian restaurant is opening in town! We've been counting the days, and finally were able to eat there tonight. It's so nice to have an alternative to rice and kimchi!

That's it for now. Enjoy!

Field Trip

These shots are from a field trip I took with some of my students at Hallim Middle School. We went to Hwawang Mountain.




The trail was beautiful, and the view from the top was spectacular. It was rough for a lot of students. To go from sitting at a desk most of your waking hours, to hiking nearly three miles up, with no switchbacks, somehow just doesn't seem fair! You can imagine their outbursts when their teacher wizzed past on a rented motor bike!




At the top, the students spread out across this old fortress wall. The wall is thought to have been used off and on, as needed, since the Gaya period (about 1300 years ago.)

No, this isn't sushi. This is Kimbap. It's a very popular, quick meal - all of the students had this for lunch - every single one. It's pretty much the equivelant of a sandwich - seaweed and rice, wrapped around any number of fillings...

The teachers had an enormous amount of food in their bags. We had our picnic together, and supplemented it all with some food from the little food stand set up at the top of the mountain!

The mountain is known for its grasses. They are burned once every three years to promote new growth.

This year's Blog Action Day has an Environmental theme. So here are some ways I thought of to be more environmentally friendly in your everyday life:

Take the extra few minutes to dine-in instead of taking your fast food to go. It really doesn't take that long to eat, and you'll be saving all sorts of paper, and packing materials.

Use reusable shopping bags, or reuse your old bags before recycling. Okay, this is a huge thing with me. (Prompting my sister to say to me once, "What, you're anti-bag now?") Think about it. You buy something. It goes into a plastic bag, just for the three minutes it takes you to walk to your car, and then the two minutes it takes you to unload it from your car. And how often do you get a bag for one or two items, that could just as easily be carried?

Eat fresh foods as much as possible. There is far less processing and packaging involved with them, which results in less waste all around. (And you'll have more energy too :-)

Take a few minutes to find out the recycling rules for the program in your neighborhood. Maybe you could be recycling more everyday.

Take a few minutes to find out the recycling rules for the program at your job. Maybe you could be recycling more everyday.

Carry a reusable coffee mug or thermos for use at coffee shops everywhere.

Carry a reusable water bottle.

Pusan International Film Festival

PIFF is the largest film festival in Asia. Movies were featured from all around the world. With a dizzying number of films, it was a little overwhelming to try to plan for the event. In the end, I just woke up that morning, went to the festival plaza, and saw what was playing that day, at that location. We ended up seeing a Japanese anime called, "Vexille." It wasn't the absolute best movie I've ever seen, but it was just fun to see a movie on the big screen and be able to understand it - thanks to English subtitles!

Jinju Lantern Festival

This was quite the event with dozens of lanterns (some from other countries) scattered up and down the river.

Gyeongju

We took a trip to Gyeongju, the capital during the Shilla dynasty. This city is known as "the museum without walls" due to all of the artifacts and ruins scattered across it. We had a really nice time, though it did get rainy on us!

Our first stop... the entrance to the enormous temple complex called Bulguksa.

A peek inside the largest temple on the grounds.

Water like this is frequently available (for drinking) in mountain areas.

From Bulguksa, we hiked about two miles up the mountain. We reached Seokuram Grotto - a restoration of the original grotto located here. The grotto contains a large stone buddha statue. It was a little disappointing to find that we couldn't enter the grotto, or take photos. So we had a look through the glass viewing area, and then headed back down the mountain.

The grotto is in that little hill just behind the building on the left. It was really misty
toward the top of the mountain, as you can see in the photo.

A woman in her raincoat take a photo near an enormous
funeral mound in the middle of Gyeonju. We got to go inside one.
Think pyramid, with dirt and grass over the top...

More ruins (I think.)

Lotus stems.

This building was built as part of the World Culture Expo Center. It was hard to get a decent photo, but the shape of a pagoda is cut right out of the middle of it.
It looked like you could take an elevator up to and observation deck near the top.

Amusing...

This guy just wouldn't stand still for my photo!
Top: DUMP HIM Bottom: www.dumphim.com

This was the first time I had seen ginseng in such massive quantities,
and being sold out of the back of a pick-up.

My co-teacher (who was driving) couldn't even see that there
was a light here, until I pointed it out.

Breakfast set.

Notice the last flavor.

Yes, this arcade game is full of candy.

Pizza often comes with some kind of sauce all over the top.

The holiday (Chuseok - "Korean Thanksgiving") special at Baskin Robbins.

Plastic spaghetti.

Plastic food on display.

The machine on the left is a popcorn dispenser?

Roughly $18.00 for one of these containers of Quaker Oats.

Mmm... yummy chocolate cheese. I'm not even kidding you. - If you look
at the enlarged picture, you may see that this says "Choco Cheese"
in English above the Korean (which says the same thing.)