OCTOBER/NOVEMBER/DECEMBER
IN BUSAN
Typhoon Chaba hit the shores of Busan on October 5. At Haeundae Beach, pictured below, the waves were huge. As ocean water covered the sidewalks, winds were strong and rain heavy - a frightening scenario for those living right on the coast.
There was a lot of property damage, many tiles, bricks, fences, and sidewalks destroyed. Fish frantically flipped and flopped on the streets. Where we live in Dongnae-gu, about 10 miles from the beach, the winds were fierce and the rain pounded down, but it calmed down when the storm passed.
Some parts of Busan had more damage. Cars were caught in precarious places and couldn't get out before flooding took over the parking lot and structures surrounding it. The Mission President instructed all missionaries to stay inside their apartments. Around 2:00 p.m. it was decided that it was safe outside, and missionaries returned to normal life on the streets!
HALLOWEEN PARTY
Halloween really isn't a holiday here, unless there are some American missionaries who want to make it a holiday. In this case, our ward (Oncheon Ward), and the Geumjeong Ward got together and put on a terrific Halloween party for all ages.
Mija and Olivia in foreground. Missionaries were in charge of games, cake walk, bowling, and pinatas.
Vicky brought a little friend who wanted a "Batman" face painted on him. He loved the unlimited candy and treats.
Tommy, on the left, attends our English classes. He brought a friend.
There were lots of games, pumpkin pinatas, face painting, and candy!!!
Picking up candy after the smashing of the pumpkin pinata was fun...and dangerous!
I was in charge of Halloween cookie decorating, which was a big hit, especially with Olivia! It would have been impossible without Whitney's visit, since she supplied me with Halloween cookie cutters, food coloring, colored sugar, and sprinkles of all kinds. One girl picked up the orange sugar and said, "What's this?" They had never seen sprinkles before. The bat and pumpkin sprinkles were especially fun. I don't think they have a word for frosting. They kept calling it "sauce".
Yea for Halloween! Yea for Whitney!
AUTUMN TIME AND HAEINSA
Autumn is my favorite! It is gorgeous here in Korea, and everyone loves the colored leaves, the harvest, and one of their biggest holidays, Chuseok, similar to Thanksgiving. Families get together for a celebration - they play games, dress in traditional clothing called Hanbok, eat traditional food, and spend time together. It lasts three days.
We saw this apple orchard on a little patch of land at the foot of a mountain as we began a Saturday morning hike. The apple trees were covered with nets. The leaves on the trees were almost gone leaving the branches bare except for the exquisite red apples, fully ripe, waking up covered with dew and waiting for the sunshine. The little family sold the apples from their farmhouse.
Haeinsa Temple - one of the "Jewels"
Haeinsa Temple is one of the "must see" items on our to do list. I was so excited! It's about 2 - 3 hour drive, almost impossible to get there using public transportation, so I wasn't sure that we would ever get there. We were so fortunate to be asked to accompany our friend Connor (English class) and his wife.
It was a cold day but beautiful blue sky and sunshine. The pathway to the temple has a cemetery on one side. The black column has writing on it, telling about the monk who is buried there. The white bell-shaped structure in the background is a stupa, or a depository for Buddhist relics. They may be something that was owned or used by a famous monk, a piece of bone, or clothing.
Turtle/dragon at the base and other creatures on top of the tombstone...maybe more dragons. Walking up the path leading to the temple is always interesting. Every structure is placed in a perfect location according to its purpose. The walkway is beautifully planted with trees and flowers, and there is always a stream by its side.
Pagoda - a sacred structure honoring Buddha, other important monks, or ancestors. Pagodas often contain ancient precious relics.
The pond, usually situated directly before the first gate of the temple, symbolic of cleansing oneself before entering the holy place.
People heading to the First Gate
Bryan and Connor past the first gate
Bryan and Connor past the first gate
I love the angles of the roof lines against the angles of the mountains.
The main prayer hall
Exquisite hand painted detail on the doors of the temple. The Lotus blossom is a Buddhist symbol shown in most Buddhist paintings, on sculptures, and included on any depiction of the Buddha.
Bright colors and tiny brushes
JANGGYEONG PANJEON - What's that?
The building that holds the Tripitaka Koreana - What's that?
The most complete collection of Buddhist scripture in the world! It was hand carved onto wooden blocks between 1237 and 1248. Monks at the temple spent years carving the intricate Chinese characters out of wood. If they made a mistake, they had to start over on a whole new wood block.
Only monks are allowed to handle the wood blocks. There are monks guarding the blocks 24 hours a day to protect against fire, water, weather, or thieves. There are over 81,000 wood blocks. There are no errors on any of the blocks. This is an example of a Chinese character:
All in all, there are over 52,000,000 Chinese characters on the wood blocks. Each wood block has 23 Chinese characters per line, and each woodblock has fourteen lines. The carving is so flawless and so regular that some people believe that one person must have carved all 81,000 wood blocks. Other scholars estimate that about 1,000 artisans carved the wood blocks, and that the project took years to complete. One of the wood blocks is shown in this display case:
The woodblocks are stored in four different buildings. The buildings are designed to have the perfect humidity, temperature, and ventilation. In over 800 years, the wood blocks have not suffered flood, fire, rodent or insect infestation. They have been maintained in perfect condition. Only monks can go inside to guard them or check on their condition. The rest of us may look through these wooden bars at the incredible Buddha scripture library!
Courtyard and pagoda
As we walked down from the temple, there were many vendors selling things - souvenirs, Buddha-type beads and brass statues and bells, and food. The salespeople, mostly older women, came early in the morning to set things out, and then sit there all day trying to make a little money. These are a few:
Clockwise from top left: black beans, white beans, some kind of root dug out of the mountain, and a red fungus that grows in the forest. Who knew that you could eat it?
In the picture below I Spy:
dried sweet potato strips, dried beet strips, dried anchovy snacks, some dried spongy thing from the ocean, hot hot hot chilies, many types of beans and grains, and ginseng root! The root is said to have "magical" properties, and is also said to look like a little human figure.
Lower left corner - looks like a big grey sea shell, but is really another forest fungus - edible! Pine cones - maybe for pine nuts, or pine gum?
The autumn leaves were exquisite!
Even the departure gate was beautiful - notice the two extra large roof tiles opposite each other on the top of the roof.
As we got closer, we could see the intricate painting under the roof and on the posts.
I was not ready to leave, but everyone else was...
The next stop was lunch - traditional sit on the floor Korean bi bim bop - rice (bop) with a bunch of toppings.
This is what the table looked like when we were finished eating - lots of food!
We drove around the countryside looking at farmland. There were a lot of greenhouses where crops are grown through the winter, and the flat rectangular fields are rice.
This little village is Miryang, where Connor grew up. He told us that the first electricity in Miryang was in 1972!
We spent about two hours driving home and enjoyed the scenery and the company tremendously. One more stop before we go home: Out to Dinner! They had made reservations and were excited about this restaurant, so we pretended to be hungry and went on to the next adventure. The outside of the restaurant was made from rock in kind of a free-form hobbit-like shape, apparently similar to some Korean traditional structures.
Upon entering, there was a portrayal of Korean country-like kitchen, food, and serving and cooking implements. Korean farmers wore wooden shoes!
Inside the restaurant, the walls were not straight, no right angles. There were little plastic slip on shoes for everyone to wear. It was so charming!
On the black plate in front, take a very thin slice of raw sweet potato (middle). With chopsticks, put little bits of the various shredded items on the sliced potato, then roll up and eat! On the square white plate behind it are rolled up buckwheat pancakes with some sort of filling.
I Spy Again
Do you see the square plate with stuffed shrimp? Their eyes are looking at you! Behind the shrimp is a blue/grey plate with black jello strips covered with shredded carrots and peppers. Any food that is black is usually mixed up with squid ink. The salad in front was great - the purple dressing is black crushed sesame seeds.
We were so thankful for a wonderful day and generous friends.
AROUND BUSAN
APARTMENT INSPECTIONS AND SCULPTURE
One of our jobs in the mission is to inspect the apartments of the missionaries. Some problems are neglectful, or messy, and some problems are dangerous. Our job is to check out every missionary apartment - on the lookout for unsafe conditions, and make note of needed repairs. First stop, Elder X and Elder Y. Right away, we noticed that they were both wearing wool overcoats. Why? Their heater only works in one room. They decided to wear their coats and stay in the one room that is warm. The room that is warm is not the kitchen, and is not the "living room" where they sleep at night. The kitchen has another problem - no light. They have a light fixture with three fluorescent bulbs in it. As the bulbs have died out, they have tried other bulbs but now the light fixture is broken. They eat and cook in the dark.
The clock is not set at the correct time. Why? It needs a new battery. They don't care. They are focused on missionary work. They work hard, they stay to a schedule. They don't notice that it's dark and cold (note the bunny slippers). Their "table" is just the piece of wood on top that is strapped on to two book shelves (notice the yellow tape). They are fine. They are happy.
I love missionaries.
After visiting several more apartments, we headed for home. We are on Geoje Island. It has 100,000 people and they commute each day over one bridge, so that it takes a car two hours to get to work on the mainland. A few years ago, they built a tunnel that goes down into the ocean, and UNDER the ocean floor. You have to pay a toll to use the tunnel (about $1.00), but it saves the commuter over one hour. I was a little scared to try it, but kind of excited too! Here's the approach - Gadeok Tunnel:
At first, it looks like a tunnel.
Then you begin to descend, and notice that the walls and ceiling of this tunnel are extra heavy-duty. Just as you think you see water coming through a crack, you begin to get worried - you come out on top! AMAZING!
You are on a really cool bridge - over the ocean this time!
Engineering miracles!
Busan engineering is exceptional - Busan also is a city with a lot of beautiful, strange, weird, and super sculptures. Choose your favorite:
In the middle of the street is this sculpture - I snapped it as we drove by.
Lego storm troopers with Santa hats! What could be more festive?
This could count as sculpture - Sister missionaries, when asked if they had tested the smoke alarm lately said, "Yes, in fact we were cooking something and burned the entire bottom of the pan and the smoke alarm worked very well!" Whatever they were cooking turned into kind of a sculpture.
SUPERMOON
November 14 - We won't see another moon this bright or this close until 2034! We haven't seen a moon this close to earth for 68 years! This Supermoon time is a very special time - very unique, and fleeting. So is our mission to Busan, Korea. We will probably not be on a two year mission in Busan, Korea ever again! We will never be here with the same Mission President, or the same missionaries. This is our opportunity to pray, read, study, and serve others 100% of the time. We can help the missionaries, we can improve ourselves by working hard and having a positive attitude. We can make our little tiny part of the world a better place. We can turn our thoughts outward to, "How can I help?' rather than inward, "Me, me, me!"
I am so thankful for this time - precious - SUPER.
