Weekend Adventures!
Oh man, I hate it when I write at least a page and then my puter pops up with something that loses the whole thing!
kay, I'm composing on my gmail cuz it saves drafts quite frequently in case something happens. Grrrr!
So I was trying to describe my weekend trip. John and I decided to go exploring and went across town to see the temples there. After a long trek, we arrived to see a crowd of Koreans in full hiking gear as if they were going camping seriously for a week! There was a very modern store in the middle of nowhere that sold all the hiking gear you would ever need. Vendors appeared out of no where. Some selling silkworm larvae steamed or some other shell like bug that I'm sure you suck the guts out. Yummy Korean snacks. Ewww! The silkworm bugs are really quite neat looking...big fat, and striped like a bumblebee! They're yellowish brown and black too! Ha. Imagine that! The smell is putrid though.
There were people walking by with full backpacks, and we passed some music blaring from somewhere till we figgured out that it was people who had their music blaring from their walkmans on full mini speakers!!! What the....??!!! Apparently that's the accompanyment to going hiking. Some people had these bells with them that rang with them. Quite cute. A lot of them had retractable lightweight 'canes' or walking sticks with them. They were quite useful if they were really doing a steep climb. !! The 'climb' was a paved road wide enough for a full size buss to go through. Uhuh. In the middle of this was a museum that so so incredibly modern it was stunning. I've got pictures of that too. Wow. Apparently this location was where a famous artist and architect lived. His name was Uljin or something. I've got to look it up. He looked very traditional with a long goatee and stuff. His tomb was at the bottom of the hill, and this musseum was where he lived or soemthing. Very cool. Right across from it was a river with Japanese maples all red and orange. Quite beautiful really. And all the way up there were the coffee machines and vendors of anything that would sell. My gosh, there's no escape from the vendors!
And so we went downtown after and went to see a movie in a DVD room. Now, let me tell you Canada needs to get hooked up on this! You could make some Major cash doing this I think. Hmmm.. You go in and choose your movie to watch, then go and give it to the guy, and he brings you to your private room and gets it rolling on his wall of DVD players. You get a huge lounge sofa or chairs, and a projector and 8'x6' screen to watch your movie on! Surround sound, and apparently you can fix your chairs to vibrate with the sound! NICE! It only costs 5 bucks...the price of renting one in Canada! Or less... This is the way you watch movies! You could fit about 4 or 8 Korean people in there if you wanted. Ahem again.
So then we went to hang out with all the other foreigners at some 'western' place that played Eminem! What? again!!! This place always cracks me up somehow. I love the wierd mixtures of stuff. makes me feel more creative. Or gives me new ideas anyway. I think they think the epitome of 'Western' is western style! Imagine that. Maybe not..but that could be! That makes more sense to me!
So then last night I met this girl Karel from montreal who invited me to come with her to the sauna today (Sunday). So that's exactly what I did. John came along too. I walked an hour to get there...it was good on the exercise anyway. We went up to this building, went up the stairs, (everything seems to be up stairs in some building that you'd never know was there!) and went into this gorgeous lobby. All dark wood that I really have to figure out what it is. The smell is so fragrantly woody! After paying the woman at the reception and recieving your tshirt (pink for girls and blue for boys!) and shorts and towels, you go into the womens or mens side, and go into a small locker room. There were lockers that fit only shoes! You pick up your key from there, and then go into another room that has 'hallways' with the corresponding locker number and that is the regular larger size, and there's your locker complete with hanger for your jacket and a hanger bar in it. IT's all wood, and the floor that was a golden marble took my breath away! IT's so gorgeous there! Then you strip down...yes...naked! And go bring your shower stuff and go into a large bath room that is amazing to walk into. It's just like paintings of naked people all lounging and showering. Beautiful really. So there were standup showers againstthe back wall, and rows of sitting showers with handheld showers and women and their children and babies bathing away and lounging around. WOW. Big round hot tubs in the centre of the room, and cold pools in the back of the room with more showers. A sauna at the other corner of the room. A laying down area with grass mats below it. A room off to the side that had an open door so we could see 'massage' tables' with women giving major scrubdowns to other women laying there. It looked amazing. Now why hasnt the western culture taken this on? I dont know, but in my personal opinion, I think there should be places like this. Now I finally understand how the Asian women in public pools behave, because of this! Of course!
Man, talk about a run on paragraph!! Sorry, can't help it. Anyway, we had our shower, then got dressed into the shirt and shorts that actually fit me!- and went upstairs to the saunas. The wood stairs werwe amazing to start...and then we got to the room with the saunas were. BREATHTAKING!!!! The columns in the middle of the room (about 3 of them) were crowned with wood mouldings, and the columns themselves were covered in bright stones! Amethyst and jade and some other stones in black or white or purple or bright pink. WOW! THen the saunas themselves were like joined igloo shaped! They had a wooden door with a round window in it, round windows around the sides that you could see. There were three of them with different digital displays of how hot they were in progression. The first was 31 degrees, the second 49 or so, the third 65-70, and the last room that wasnt igloo shaped was 72 degrees. It was amazing. But then we havent even gone in yet! When you go in, the marble floor is the same gorgous yellow/beige color with white in it....then the walls were covered with all the same amethyst and jade adn white stones. They ceiling was a big amethyst star, and then other patterns. There were large circles about 4" to 10" across of slices of colored rock. IT looked like you were in a gem cave or igloo! I felt like I just went to heaven or something! IT reminded me of that cathedral in Baraka for those of you that have seen that movie. Oh, and in the 3 room that was 65-70 degrees I did a bit of yoga and wow!!! I really did it in a sweating hot room and it was amazing! I didnt think I could do it but I did!
So, after sweating away we went back to the showers (Karel and I) and showerd all up again, and then went to the hot tubs for a few minutes. By this time I was soooo hungry! So we went and got kimbap which is sushi rolls in Japanese. Yum. Complete with the standard small bowl of kimchi and yellow pickled radish. Oh, and Korean miso soup. Yum.
Back home for an hour. My foot is killing me. Now I'm watching Korean music awards. And they love their choreography dances and breakdancing that's for sure. ALL the guys are killin me in their funky hair and funky suits. EVERYONE wears suits! NICE! That's more like it! And they (the guys) arent afraid to look a bit what we might call feminine. It's great. One guy had a dark blue suit on with a light pink shirt under and a purple 'mock turtleneck' or silk scarf wrapped around his neck. WOW. SO cool! Oh man...and I just saw a 7' foot Korean on there! Wowzers...with blonde hair like mine! Ha haaaa! Amazing. Koreans are sometimes quite tall...around 6'. Interesting.
Kay, that's enough for now! Whew! Here goes another week!
--
"Travel is fatal to narrow mindedness...charitable view of men and things cannot
be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime"
-- Mark Twain
Seek freedom and become captive to your desires.
Seek discipline and find your liberty.
|
