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Dinner at
Prof. Lee's
Korean Folk Village
Trip to Gyeongju
Monday, July 17
Notes for work I planned, but never did:
http://maps.google.com/
?ie=UTF8&t=k&om=0&ll=37.590933,127.027906
&spn=0.009505,0.014484
make a map of campus
map of korean: http://www.aacircle.com.au/images/korea-map.gif
AM: exercise: 45 min 3.5km 111kg
started sorting pictures from museum
it's pretty easy -- almost all are blurred,
misaligned, or too dark
PM: went to Bandung for dinner with Prof. Lee (SH). He took us to visit
EMart. Formerly Walmart, bought out by the folks that run
Shinsegae departmetn store. Allegedly the daughter of Samsung founder.
So it goes from Sam Walton to Sam Sung.
The to see a neighborhood where rich people lived. Still apartment-ish
arrangements, but only two-three stories and only a few units per
building.
Prof. Lee's apartment was astonishing in its size. Much bigger than the
king and queen lived in in the old palace. White and beige. No rugs.
His wife, a pediatrician, served a wonderful meal: kalbi beef, candied
fruit, zucchini,
cellophane noodles, cucumber salad with jellyfish (chewt, not slimy), a
marvelous codfish soup, the spinach-like vegetable we had for ourselves
then other day, cold fruit soup, and watermelon for dessert.
We saw there kimchi fridge. It also had the remains of the watermelon,
so S surmises that it not only keeps cold, but also humidifies to
prevent vegetable dryout.
It has continued to rain since the morning I mentioned it. There has
been serious flooding. Television coverage is about the same as the US.
Inerminable pictures of flowing water and "Ain't it awful, Mabel!" sob
stories. Certainly the featured citizens are in a heap of pain, but
where is the perspective. Millions of citizens are continuing as usual.
Tuesday, July 18
Spent most of day sorting through the bus tour pictures.
Went shopping.
Korean class after dinner. S liked it much better because we started to
get into phrases one might use. She is interested in taqlking to
people. I am interested in reading things. We are fundamentally
different.
Exercise after class. 45 min; 3.5km. I have exercised at least
every other day, but haven't been noting it. So far I am down about 6
kg, although the first three kilos were just a bunch of water loss.
Wednesday, July 19
Went to the Korean Folk Village near Suwon. Quite nice. Saw farm
buildings, city hall, pottery making, wooden wares for sale. I bought a
pair of go bowls.
259 more pictures to be gone through. Sigh.
Thusday, July 20
This morning I goofed up. I rewrote a copy of the powerpoint S's
lecture for today. That was okay. Telling her I had done it was stupid.
She took a brief look, didn't like what she saw, and berated me.
Justifiedly. I took a walk around campus and bought a fritter at Dunkin
Donuts. That was okay. But then I ate it. Not a good idea. Negated all
the benefits of the walk.
Today I'm going to put up the pictures from the museum and days
following. My problem has been that I have been trying to invent new
technology. My new approach is to use my old technology.
Desiderata for picture pages:
- The page should show small images
and clicking one should show a larger version.
- The page of small pictures should
let me intersperse text between sections of pictures.
- When viewing large pictures, each
should have the caption and buttons for Next and Prev.
- Screen management should be easy.
When a separate window is used, screen management requires shuffling
between two windows. On a laptop they overlap awkwardly.
Options for showing large images:
- separate window used for all large images
- a new separate window for each large image
- expand in place
- have a place above (or below) the little pictures where the
big version is shown
---
What I have done today is to build another tool. I've enhanced genhtml
so it can expand values for arbitrary variables; these can be defined
either through reading files or on the command line.
Bex called. She is well. Her team had a scrimmage last night and she is
psyched. Soon her image will be on www.cincinnatirollergirls.com.
Right now she is the only one on her team to strap on an ammo belt
during games, but she expects others to follow.
Friday, July 21
In the last few minutes, I have finished the code and template that
will put Prev and Next pointers in the picture files.
Now I need to
- make captions for all recent pictures
- revise Makefiles to do it all with one 'make' command
- put out the current status
---
Now I have finished the captions and written the whole thing to the
web. Sadly, the Next and Prev buttons did not work and I haven't time
to debug. But all the pictures are out there. I am UP-TO-DATE on the
pictures. Hoorah.
We are off now for a weekend in Gyeongju. So pretty soon there will be
another big backlog of pictures. And so it goes.
---
(writing Sunday night) We took the "KTX" express train to Daegu and a
local from there to Gyeongju. The express train was amazing. We were in
first class and shared amenities almost up to first class air travel.
Our seats reclined; music was piped in; beer and snacks were
distributed; newspapers were provided; each row had one seat on the
left and two on the right. Verrry comfortable. No classical music
though. And we had to pay for all snacks. 4k for a can of
mixed nuts.
I started taking pictures of the country-side, expecting most of them
to be just a blur. After 30 or so, I realized that I had room for
"only" 400 pictures and it had to last through Sunday; so I stopped. As
it turned out, I took 435 pictures.
The local train was not quite as good as a Seoul subway. S tripped
getting on the car and opened a cut that dropped a lot of blood. She
remained in high spirits and suffered no ill-consequences.
The hotel was apparently a far cut above the one the same group had
shared the year before. They were pleased to find that there was hot
water all the time. Rooms even had free computers and huge TVs. We
slept well.
Saturday, July 22
(writing Sunday night) Gyeongju was the capital of the Shilla empire
(668-935 CE). So the area is rife with old palaces, tombs, and Buddhist
shrines and temples. Although cremation was adopted, following Buddhist
practice, tombs and shrines were erected around the remaining remains.
Tomb's for the most important people are buried in boulders and dirt.
Today they are largely grassy knolls. Much as dot Southern England,
especially around Stonehenge.
The group was ten people. For Saturday we went our several ways,
agreeing to meet for dinner. S and I opted for a bus tour that took us
to five sites and a lunch. The brouchure cited a 10k fare, with lunch included. Reality
turned out to be a 14k fare with lunch extra, at 10k each. It was a really good lunch
with a fish stew and all the trimmings. Sites visited:
- Goereung Tomb. This site is a few old statues and a grassy
knoll. Nicely situatede, with a fine view across a valley. Many school
children were visiting and some gathered round me hoping to have their
picture taken. I obliged and they delighted in looking at the result on
the back of my camera.
- Seokguram Grotto. We arrived at this site just before noon,
the time for the sounding of the gong. The monk doing the deed did a
little dance for each bong. A hanging log was aimed at the striking
point on the gong. He swung it back and forth. As it got closer to the
gong, be pushed it aside to avoid hitting the gong with a partial
impact. For the last back stroke he was literally on one foot with his
arm stretched all the way back, ready to begin impelling the log on its
final swing. -- After suitably enjoying/photographing the bonging, we
walked the half kilometer on a wide path to the grotto. Here we joined
a short queue and walked by the glass shielding the Buddha and his
sculpted guardians. Despite signs, many were snapping away, so I did,
too.
- King Munmu's Underwater Tomb/lunch. A short bus ride later
we were on the coast and settled in for lunch, the aforementioned fish
stew. We were seated right on the beach within sight of King Munmu's
tomb. As far as we could see, the tomb was just a little rocky
outcropping a hundred yards off-shore. It was a beautiful spot to enjoy
lunch and some post lunch photo-ing. I even got asked to pose with
another bunch of young girls. They were shooting nus with their camera,
and I was able to persuade them to shoot us with my camera as well.
- Gameunsaji Temple Site. Turning back toward Gyeongju, our
bus took us to the former site of the Gameunsaji temple. All that
remains is two old pagodas, of which one was under maintenance and
hidden inside a tent. The temple floor beams were visible and showed
that grooves were used to keep one set of beams in line. The site
overlooked a bunch of rice paddies. I took many shots of these.
- Golgulsa temple. Walking up the steep path from the bus
someone noticed a glass enclosure on the hillside at least a hundred
meters above us.
A
Chinese philopsophy scholar from Penn state
asked if we were really going up that high. I joked that we were. No
joke. We actually were supposed to climb that high if we wanted to see
the Buddha. So we did. Spectacular view. Plenty of pictures. I was a
tad late getting back to the bus and had to run for it. But I was glad
I had gotten all the way up. My exercise program paid off; I wasn't
really winded. What I was, however, was sweaty.
In the evening we dined at a small Korean restaurant featuring
pork cooked over charcoal right at our table. Delicious, if
fattening. Afterward the Pinch family wanted to do Karaoke, so S and I
tagged along. The style in Korea is private rooms, so we had a room to
ourselves and were able to not drink and to pick whatever songs we
wanted. It was fun, even if it seemed to me I was usually singing in a
monotone. We slept well again.
Sunday, July 23
Our plan for the day was to visit the National Museum in the morning,
pig out at the Hilton buffet in the afternoon, and catch the 3:20 bus
to Seoul. And that's what we did.
Everyone else decided to walk to the museum. Not a good idea: over two
kilometers. Ten-fifteen minutes in a taxi. S and I rode and spent our
stamina wandering around the place. The emphasis was justifiedly the
Shilla empire. We saw many of the same srts of artifacts as at the
National museum. Though little about Hangul.
The best part for my money was Anapji Hall. This Hall focuses on one
palace, the one at Anapji pond built as a pleasure garden by King
Munmu. Indeed, the pond itself was purpose-built at the site as part of
the project. Many artifacts were preserved by being underwater and are
now on display in Anapji Hall. The focus on one palace gives the
artifacts a setting so they are not hit-and-miss as they are in a
regular museum exhibit. The building even includes a huge model showing
what the palace must have looked like in its heyday.
One plaque stated that: "A historical record of Silla mentions that
King Munu (r.661-681) made a pond [in 674] in the royal palace and
planted flowers and raised exotic animals and birds. The pond is the
Anapji Pond. The current name of Anapji, which means the pond of geezse
and ducks, was given in the Joseon period (1392-1910). During the
two year excavation and investigation of the pond in 1975 and 1076,
more than 33,000 artifacts including tiles, metal objects, potteries
and wooden strips with writing have been retrieved. The artifacts from
the Anapji Pond have great significance, as they are items used in
daily life during the unified Silla period." Another plaque adds that
in 679 "a palace was built for the crown prince and names
were given to the gates." A later entry reports that in 881,
"King held a big party in honor of officials in
Imhaejon Hall, and at the height of the merriment, the king himself
played geomungo (string instrument) and the officials at the right and
left sang." Might have been fun to be there.
Among the other exhibits I was struck by one showing weights for a
fishing net. These are little rocks with holes in them. I was struck
because somewhat similar rocks are on display in Vancouver, where their
purpose is announced as being unknown. Perhaps they too were for
weighting fishing nets. One argument against this is the fact that the
British Columbian artifacts have TWO holes each. A second negative
argument is that the net conjectured as being so weighted was quite
small. Not really enough to feed any significant number of people.
Other exhibits showed
that chopsticks and the 12-animal zodiac go back at least to the Shilla
Kingdom (and probably much further). "Don Quixote" even put in an
appearance as the model for describing harness parts. In the gift shop
I found a reproduction of him, and--surprising even myself--I bought
it.
The Hilton buffet was much like a Hilton buffet anywhere else.
Fattening. There were a few uniquely Korean dishes like seaweed and
little fish. There was also sushi. After lunch Trevor Pinch and his
8-year old daughter and I went bike riding for a half hour. Great fun
and enough exercise to work off half of one of my too-many desserts.
The bus ride home was an express with only a single rest stop. Again
quite comfortable. The one negative was the television that played
constantly throughout the four hour trip.
We traveled through the "plains" of Korean where the food is grown. I
was able to appreciate that as undesirable as the rain might be for
photographers, it is great for crops. Everywhere was a lush and fertile
green. Considerable ingenuity is needed to grow enough food in a
country that is forty percent mountainous. The "plains" I mentioned are
mostly just five-ten kilometers of valley between mountains. Every
available hectare is given over to growing things. There is some
question as to the future. Women are reluctant to become farmer's wives
and are moving instead to Seoul. So there may come a time when there is
no one left to work what farms are left. Presumably big agri-business
will move in, as it has done in the States. However, the relatively
small size of farms and their constricted nature will make it difficult
to reap the benefits of large farm equipment and mass production
techniques.
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