Where are Tinus and Barrie?

First post not written on a bus, but in our comfortable guesthouse room in Gyeongju. But more on this cozy city later, first I’ll reflect on the ‘meh’ I felt in Busan compared to our temple stay, and overcoming language barriers.

Busan, more like Boo-san and experiencing the life of a Buddhist monk

So Busan was not my favourite city in South Korea. We spent four nights there and upon arrival I was quickly regretting staying that long. First of all, I really don’t care for beaches and that is one of Busan’s main draws. That’s my bad. But mostly I just wasn’t feeling any personality or character from the city. It felt like Miami meets Las Vegas meets generic high rise apartments city.

Me being optimistic about Busan on our SUPER fancy bus ride there. If only airplane seats reclined this much!

The buildings above are what a large part of Busan looks like: generic towers. These had the redeeming quality of bearing my name.

But of course, there’s cool things to find anywhere, and we did find them in Busan. One of my favourite things was the beautiful Igidae Coastal Trail.

Gorgeous! But not as magnificent as this resourceful king coming prepared to a hot walk with an electric fan in hand.

In the exact same spot, we were pretty much jumped by a group of geriatrics demanding “Picture! You model!”. Yes, yes of course.

The other reason I am very happy we went to Busan, was the beautiful United Nations Memorial Cemetery and its adjacent park. The entire grounds are so lovingly set up and taken care of.

On the grass behind the Netherlands sign are graves of Dutch soldiers that fought in the Korean War. In the memorial building, I spotted the name, of a project colleague. I texted him and confirmed his great-uncle is buried there. Sometimes history is not as long ago as it feels…

The park next to the cemetery has a walking path featured in many Korean parks: one that invites you to walk on it on bare feet. Supposedly it has many health benefits.

Look at Hay being super healthy! And the lady behind him being so healthy she might have passed away from too much health.

Lost and found in translation

Of course, being in a country that has a totally different alphabet and people with varying levels of English is sometimes confusing.

We often use the app Papago to upload images and have it overlay the English translations on the Korean text. But sometimes I am not sure what’s happening.

Apparently this menu has rice roll and rice roll and rice roll. And I love the poetry of “It’s a long time ago / a piece of cloth.”

This was next to a ladies room, so I wondered what it said.

Okayyyyyy, I feel totally safe now.

When we visited the —very beautiful!— Haedong Yonggungsa Temple in Busan, I spotted this wish leaf:

I don’t know why Kokoro decided to go with English for their wish, but after giggling for a second about the spelling mistake I felt strangely emotional. You know what: I too want Only Goods Thinks For Kokoro. I hope they find what they’re looking for. Let’s all have a moment to think about Kokoro.

After Busan, we stayed at a temple for one night. There’s a nation-wide Temple Stay program in South Korea, where you can immerse yourself in temple life for a bit. We only stayed one night, at the Donghwasa Temple, but it was lovely.

In the video above and picture below, you can see the beautiful forest and mountains surrounding the complex.

One of the activities in the Temple Stay program is having tea time with a monk. Me, Hay and two other guests spent about 45 minutes chatting about all kinds of things. At first, the monk spoke through a translator, but after a few sentences he overcame his shyness and spoke English with us directly.

He said he studied Business at the University of Seoul and was mostly preoccupied with making money and chasing girls. But at some point, while working at a monastery, he felt a calling and decided to become a monk (like his father and his grandfather). Now, he focusses on sharing Buddhism with the Temple Stay guests.

A couple of times during the conversation, he couldn’t think of a word and from the depths of his robes fished out a giant smartphone to find it. I loved the seeming contrast, that actually helped further the conversation. It may be a platitude, but he exuded so much joy, serenity, humour and calm at the same time, that I left the Temple Stay feeling inspired.

In our temple clothes. Picture taken by the lovely Korean man that I luckily and gratefully sat next to during morning prayer service at 4:30AM, in which I was too groggy to precisely remember the bows we had to do and I could just follow his lead.

The usual randomness

I have to disappoint at least one person (Herbert, sorry!!), but I haven’t found more public displays of the weird children’s game where it looks like they’re all shoving their heads in each others bums. I do know now it’s called Buck Buck, if that helps.

Anyhow, South Korea has TINY toilets for children. The first time I opened a stall door and saw one I thought there was something wrong with my eyes.

To give you some extra perspective on how small they are, here’s a pic with my foot. Granted, I have giant feet, but still.

Coffee places here have something called a Crungji, and it’s basically a 2D croissant without the flavour. Or really any flavour at all.

As my lovely colleague Maria commented, it is very hard to find good ‘Western’ food (mostly bread, cheese). But we both really wanted a change so we had a burger and fries. And it tasted heavenly!

Look how happy Hay is!

If only all men were as confident in their masculinity as this Croc-with-a-tiny-bow-wearing stud.

A disappointing interactive experience of a bus crash. We were the only tourists AND the only adults in this science museum in Busan by the way.

It matches well with this Traffic Safety Prayer Pagoda.

Another dating site selfie in the making?

The film museum in Busan has many interactives, including one where you can superimpose your face on a film poster. Nothing to be afraid of, I am just an innocent school girl!

Ok, I am tired now after writing all this and will go to bed soon. But I’m not as tired as Hay was when we had to get up at 4:15AM to attend the Buddhist prayer ceremony! I think I’ll zonk out just as he did after doing the 108 bows.

I am already so excited to share the pictures I have taken in Gyeongju! Pretty legendary stuff. See you in part four!