Aftermath of a Korean Divorce

Hey Everyone!

Just a quick post today! A few weeks ago we were walking around our neighbourhood and came across some interesting garbage.

A short explanation of the Korean garbage system - if you don't want it in your house anymore, put it on the street corner. There is no specific day of garbage pick up, they come pick it up many times throughout the week. Household garbage goes in special pink bags that you can buy at grocery or convenience stores. Recyclables go in any other kind of plastic bag (this includes cardboard, plastic, bottles and cans). Compost goes in special sealed plastic bins.

And personal memories?? You can just throw them on the street and hope that someone takes them.



I'd love to hear the backstory on how this divorce went down. But on the bright side, Neil and I now have some beautiful Korean portraits to decorate our little apartment!

Just kidding.....but I have considered visiting one of the several photo studios in our area to have our family portrait done. It seems an obligatory part of Korean lifestyle.

Busan Aquarium

On the weekend we had the chance to explore some new areas of Busan. Our favorite area was the Haeundae district. It features the Haeundae Beach and has a lot of personality. The streets are full of people from all over the world and, unlike the rest of Korea, individuality seems to be a positive in this district.

The best part of the Haeundae area is the Busan Aquarium. It is host to several different types of aquatic life. You can even go swimming in the shark tank - if you fork out the cash for it.

I must have taken about 125 pictures in the aquarium - as I started snapping I realized that I love taking pictures of sea creatures - apparently I'm going to have to give scuba diving a try and get a good underwater camera!

When you first enter the aquarium you see the penguins - very cute.





I also loved the fact that they are the "Jackass" species of penguin.

The crabs and shrimp were cool.





My favorite shrimp were the ones that look like men with crazy big mustaches.



A scary huge octopus - he never came out so I have no idea exactly how big he was.



The jellyfish were cool - the moon jellyfish were great because the light in the tank kept changing, so the jellyfish would change colors.







And we found Nemo!



He was with Dory!



We got to see a big turtle - he was amazing - I wasn't able to get a super good picture of him because he went by so quickly.





And we saw many other fish, including a freaky looking guy, some beautiful tropical colors and some lumpy orange guys.







But my favorite sections were the sharks and the stingrays.





Maybe it's a good thing we didn't pay to swim with the sharks - it was scary enough on the outside of the glass.





And the stingrays just rocked. I love this picture because they look like ghosts!



And I love the little fish that swims along with the stingray!





Unfortunately the aquarium ended on a low note. Right at the end, as you are about to enter the gift shop, they have two enclosures that could not have been more than 10' x 10' in size. One had two female lions and the other had two tigers. They were such small spaces and the animals were just lying in the corners - they looked so sad.

To make matters worse, some lady kept knocking on the plastic glass in the left corner of the tiger's enclosure, where one of the tigers was resting. After a minute of her knocking the tiger got up from his corner. I swear he looked right at me - I was standing in the right corner - and he looked absolutely depressed. He then slowly walked to the right corner and curled up with his mate, who was already asleep there. It broke my heart.

Then the lady came over to where I was standing, and pushed me aside so she could continue pestering this tiger. Neil, seeing I was upset and that this lady was a jerk, grabbed her arm and told her to stop. Of course, since she was Korean, she didn't understand and just laughed in his face, and continued to laugh as she walked away. Apparently having a humane attitude to animals is funny.

I understand that the culture here places a different importance on the treatment of people and animals. In this culture humans are the top species and animals are here to satisfy our needs, be that as food, entertainment or a pathetic substitute for a child that we dress up in ridiculous costumes (I'll write more on the Korean fashionable pets another day). But I will never be able to agree with those beliefs, and I will never feel okay about seeing animals mistreated in such a way.

But that's enough of my rant. I can honestly say that 99% of the wildlife in the Busan Aquarium appears to be very well taken care of and it is an excellent place - well worth a visit should you ever find yourself in Busan.

Happy Seokga Tansinil!

This year May 21 was the celebration of Seokga Tansinil, or Buddha's Birthday in Korea. His birthday is celebrated each year on the 8th day of the 4th lunar month. Our boy Buddha is 2,634 years old, based on a birth year of 624 BC. In South Korea, Buddha's Birthday is celebrated by hanging colorful lotus lanterns in temples for the month of May. On his birthday many people visit the temples to pray and light a lantern.

We visited Busan for Buddha's birthday to visit the very special Beomeosa Temple. Beomeosa Temple translates to "Temple of the Nirvana Fish". This temple was built in 678 and has a very special story on the origin of it's name.

The mountain where Beomeosa is found is said to have at the summit a golden well which never, ever dries up. The water of this well is believed to have very special magical properties, as one day a golden fish came from heaven to play in the well and has lived there ever since.

The temple has been reconstructed twice - once in 1602, after it was burned down following a Japanese invasion in 1592. It burned down again only years later in 1613, this time in an accidental fire.

To get to the top of the mountain where the temple is found we take a bus from near the Beomeosa metro station. Since it was Buddha's Birthday we were in the company of hundreds of Koreans. The lines were extremely long and the heat was excruciating, but I channeled my inner Buddha to find calm and nirvana. This allowed me to keep my cool while I watched groups of old Koreans cut the mile long line and nab a spot on the bus before everyone else. After a 30 minute wait for the bus, and a sweaty, claustrophobic 30 minute bus ride to the top we were finally there.

The first thing we were greeted by was vendors, selling a variety of things, from small knickknacks and toys, to traditional Korean rice cake and cotton candy. There were also candidates for the upcoming elections shaking hands and kissing babies everywhere.









The temple itself was beautiful. There were brightly colored lanterns hanging everywhere, with tags on each. I believe that people can buy a tag and write a wish for their family on the tag, to hang from the lantern. They were not lit yet, as it was not dark.





As we wandered we came across many small temple rooms, where people would pray to various images of the Buddha. We weren't able to go in, or take pictures of these small rooms, as it didn't feel right to interrupt the worship. Although I did attend Buddhist temple on occasion with my family when I was young, I never really learned much beyond the basic bow - and the warning not to play with my o-juzu beads in temple.

Apparently other foreigners had no problem posing for cheesy pictures in front of the prayer rooms, or having their pictures taken with monks like they were seeing Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. It was definitely a strange dichotomy, with some people there to have a special religious day and others there to sight see.

There was a small stage, with some women playing traditional music. I assume that later in the evening there would be more of a ceremony on the stage, when all the lanterns would be lit up.



The temple also provides lunch for all visitors to the temple that day - which is a staggering number of meals. We didn't partake in the meal, which is a traditional lunch of rice, vegetables and chili sauce - bibimbap.

It was great to see a traditional, historical sight on such a special day. I look forward to visiting another temple in Busan, which is built into the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean, but we will save that trip for a day when it is less busy.

Oedo Botanical Gardens & Haegeumgang Rocks

Okay - just to preface this post - my title implies that we visited the beautiful Oedo Botanical Gardens and somewhere named Haegeumgang "rocks" or in non-street lingo, is pretty fabulous. So just to clear up any misconceptions before we continue, I mean rocks in the literal, geographical sense. We're talking some big freakin' rocks. Okay - on with the post.....

On Children's Day we took a day trip down to the south end of Geoje Island with a bunch of foreigners. Our mission - to see Oedo Botanical Gardens. The Oedo Botanical Gardens are located on a small island just south of Geoje, and the entire island is devoted to these gardens. So we hopped on a ferry with about 20 other foreigners, 50 Koreans and headed out to sea.

On the ferry we got to see many "igneous" rocks as our resident geological expert Jimmy put it. We also got the experience of being completely ignored by the snack cart -however being as the "snack cart" consisted of dried squid the length of your arm we were okay with that.

Before docking on the island, we took a side trip to the famous Haegeumgang Rocks - the pride of Geoje Island. They're pretty cool - for big rocks sticking out of the ocean. Everyone on the ferry climbed out onto the sides of the boat (which were about 1.5 feet wide) to look at the rocks. We were excited because we were close enough to touch them with our hands. That was before we realized that we were about to attempt a three point turn using a cave that was narrower than the boat. Our excitement of touching the rocks quickly turned to a combination of wonder and fear as we watched our ferry driver pretty much ram the side of the ferry into the rocks. Thanks be for the yellow foam balls that line the side of the ferry. Something we have learned from Korea - you can feel safe ramming any kind of transport into something as long as you have some kind of foam bumper pad protecting it.

Here you can see part of our adventure attempting to enter the cave.



After our dramatic run in with the rocks the rest of the ferry ride was pretty anti-climactic. We arrived at Oedo Island and had 1.5 hours to explore before we were due back to the boat.

The island really is beautiful, with over 3,000 different species of plants, all weeded, trimmed and shaped within an inch of their life. The only way I can describe this island is if someone middle class all of a sudden became a billionaire, bought an island, went on a shopping spree for random Greco-Roman statues, put together a hodge-podge of architecture features from various time periods and combined it with a bunch of gorgeous flowers to make their island look "classy". That being said, it was certainly beautiful and I enjoyed standing on my make-believe terrace overlooking the ocean and imagining that I was some sort of Disney princess.

Here are some of our favourite pics of the island.




















Along the way we came across a statue garden titled "Hope of the World". Our eyes were then met with a variety of statues in a variety of compromising positions - not to dissimilar from the more graphic scenes of Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. Apparently mass orgies are the hope of the world.






After our day on the island we climbed back onto the ferry. This time we got seperated from our group and spent the ride back to Geoje in the company of many drunken Korean men singing and dancing along with the Korean pop blasting through the speakers. Apparently we missed the bar on the botanical island, or someone forgot to inform us that this was BYOB.

Next weekend we are heading to Gyeongju. This is a city about 3 hours north of us on the mainland and it is where the capital of Korea was during the Silla kingdom for over 1,000 years. A lot of history. Get your learnin' caps on.