our last day in korea was bittersweet. i was looking forward to going home and relaxing a little before having to go back to work. though i love korea and of course my family (as noted in previous posts) maintaining the level of respect, etc that is required by cultural laws always prohibit me from feeling 100% at ease. i never want to offend family especially when they spent so much time showing us love.

note the large box i have in the picture on the right. my uncle bought us seaweed. LOTS of it. i thought i was going to have to declare or even get taxed on some of it. thankfully not. some friends in nyc got to share in the bounty and the bulk of it went to my mom to help dispense to other aunts.

before leaving, joseph took the time to take pictures of the more communal areas at my aunt’s home in Bundang (a suburb of seoul about 45 minutes via bus). there are two half baths. one with a toilet, and sink, another with a shower head and sink.

my aunt’s family live in a good area and are basically surrounded by a local park, so that means no more development in their specific neighborhood. one day joseph and i actually decided to walk up the park, but too bad we forgot to take pictures. maybe next time

this concludes the korea posts. definitely going out with a massive fizzle instead of a bang. if you want to see more pictures of our trip they’re here:

http://gallery.agapeshack.com/main.php/v/Backup/Vacations/2008_Korea/

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Post tags: blog, food, joseph, korea, korea trip, koreans, memories, theresa

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day9 of our korea trip was a trip to GyeongJu.  Joseph had read in the travel books about this place as the place to go to see Cherry Blossoms in korea. I briefly mentioned it to my uncle and next thing you know, that’s where we were headed.

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Unfortunately, the day we decided to go it rained. Most of the days we were in Korea it didn’t rain. Just bad timing I guess but the views and the drive was still great. just look at some of the pictures above. plenty of trees to look at and just a beautiful place to be.

since most of korea was about food, for me at least, i must also share about the food we had there. for lunch my aunt had planned to take us to a very popular and good restaurant, but once we got there it was ridiculously packed. the way was far too long, and since we had planned to see a bunch of things that day we went to another place next door.

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needless to say, they thought the food wasn’t that good. i didn’t really mind it. i think i’m too used to korean food that is just mediocre. My mediocre is the equivalent to bad in korea >_<.  i’ll skip on describing the mediocre food. not worth my time or effort

next up was a trip to one of the oldest buddhist shrines in korea. by now it was pouring. my uncle bought us each a plastic poncho and thankfully they had some umbrellas in their car. one of the nice things about doing touristy things while it’s raining is that there are so few tourists it almost doesn’t matter

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Joseph was able to sneak this blurry picture in before we got into any trouble when told we weren’t allowed to take pictures of the shrine. you can sort of make out the gold buddha behind the pillar.

the rain made us all a little miserable. walking around the dirt paths, in the rain was not ideal. our pants were soaking, we were cold, and the risk of falling while walking up the hills and stuff was much greater than we would’ve liked. so we left shortly thereafter. maybe one day joseph and i will go back when the weather is more manageable.

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like the korean fried chicken, these gyeongju-bbang pastries were a trendy food for a while. it’s basically a thin flour pastry filled with redbean paste. it’s a not too sweet, small dessert. i’m not a big fan of these types of desserts. mainly because i don’t really like my redbean to be on the drier side. still tasty tho. i think joseph had a few.

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next up was a museum. it’s now been way too long for me to remember the name of the museum, but it’s the main one in gyeong ju. here we saw more statues, and old relics. it was also a nice break from the pouring rain.

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the highlight of the day for me was dinner. look at this spread! all these little dishes took up the entire table. fish, meats, pickled veggies, stir fried this and that. plethora to choose from. a great meal to end the day.

here’s a nice little aside:

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all of us in the states complaining about gas prices, can now stop. in korea this WAS the price of gas back in july (only a little into the rising gas crisis we’re going through now). it’s about $1.60 per LITER. that equates to about $4.50/gallon for the cheapest gas. i’m curious as to what the gas prices in korea are now. i’m imagining my aunt’s family in korea taking the bus or subway instead of their 2 huge audi sedans or the gas guzzling volvo. ok.. yeah..probably not likely.

hopefully my next korea post won’t take 2 months to write =P

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Post tags: beautiful place, buddha, buddhist shrines, car, car one, cherry blossoms, chicken, family, food, golddirt paths, gyeongju, joseph, korea, korea trip, korean, korean food, koreans, lt, lunch, mediocre food, museum, nice things, pickles, pillar, poncho, rain, subway, sweets, tourists, travel books, umbrellas

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