Last day in Changwon part Two

After our lovely afternoon sojourn at the temple we returned to a meat fest at one of the local Korean BBQ joints followed by an outing to a Karaoke Bar but not like anything I have been to before. First the dinner, this was your typical affair where each table has a few cookers built into it.

 There are several types of cookers and earlier in the week we went to one that had just. Flat ceramic hot plate. But tonight's place was the real deal, a sunken sloped metal plate sitting over a bed of charcoals which must have had some way of raising Nd lowering heat because there were also buttons on the table for that. But it really was charcoals because they removed them once we were done eating.

our table was a pork table, you had to pick, so it was thick slices of what looked like bacon but then as it cooked they came along and cut it up with the biggest pair of kitchen scissors I have ever seen. If I hadn't been leaving the next day I would have gone loking for those. We had our own cooking lady for 4 of us, me and three tall guys, and once  the meat was cooked she would just pile up morsels in front of each person. We each had many small sauces in front of us and the ubiquitous basket of leaves, or green bread as our table liked to call it. All delicious, Sara you would Have been in heaven.

Just as things were winding down a call came through for a Karaoke outing and of course I was not going to pass that up. But I have to apologise as I have no pictures, My camera does not work well in poor light and I did not have my phone. There were many people taking photos so some may come my way but at this stGe I am sort of happy that I have not photos. 

Marlene from the Phillipines and I were the seniors with all the other young ones and the local Korean girl SeongBo was our guide. Our first group was all girls and our destination was a Karaoke club where you have your own small room with screen and remote to select your songs and you can sing and jump around to your hearts content. There are video clips that go along with each song and these were a bit freaky, but after a while you just stopped watching those. Aziza was with us and she turns out to be a Karaoke addict, I kid you not. Marlene and I were on the same page so pushed for a few Burt B songs and although the young ones did not seem to recognise the titles they knew the songs when they came along, but Marlene and I were the stars for those numbers. After about an hour there a small crowd of the men folk found us and after a few more songs we relocated to a more up market Karaoke joint where the room had extras, more comfortable seating, strobe lights, a box of Crazy wigs, a dancing Dias (no I did not get up there but others did), snack plates and beers. I have never seen anything like it in my life. Most popular song of the night that went across cultures and ages and gender? YMCA. So ended my last night in Changwon.

The temple

Last days of workshops are always unpredictable, everyone is tired, it is never certain that whoever is running the workshop will keep things moving and will finish on time, some people always leave early especially in these settings where people are flying back home in all directions. But my last session was in the morning, so that is all I was concentrating on.  Once that was finished I could just listen and tidy up my notes and drink KoreanTea. Luckily there were no marshmallow cookies provided on the last day. Best of all we finished early. There is a very lovely Buddhist temple in the foothills in Changwon that I had visited on my last trip here, only about 20 minutes by car from our hotel. Our Host Mr Suh was going to take me there the next morning but as we had time in the afternoon he suggested fitting it in. We quickly found a few others to join us, Aziza from Oman, mikoki from Japan and Nico from Indonesia along with three young Koreans and off we went.

This was a supurb treat. 

The temple is called Seongjusa Temple and the site itself has been a temple for some 2000 years!!! But I think the oldest building there now is about 150 years old as the older ones were destroyed in one war or another. The buildings have very ornate roofs which you will see in the pictures. They have recently built a small shop near the entrance with a traditional roof design. There are only a small number of tradesman who have the skills required for these rooves and they require a lot of materials also, so Mr Suh told me that the roof alone for the new shop cost $200.000US.

as we parked near the shop there was a bus with a sign that said Japanese Soccer Team and as we were approaching the shop the team was making its way down the hill. Aziza who is crazy for photo opportunities organised a photo with the young team members who were mystified but willing. 

When you enter the temple grounds there is a small pond full of Lotus plants, a natural spring with cups so you can have a drink and then many rocks covered with small rock temples and small statues that people have left there as tributes to their family. These are just scattered around on all of the surfaces. When you walk up the hill there is a main courtyard with a range of buildings all around and the tree covered hillside behind, so very beautiful, filled with nature sounds and very restful. 

Some of the buildings are temples and these have three doors, one in front that is only for the Buddha and the two side ones that are for visitors. Yes you leave your shoes outside but once inside although the atmosphere does what all churches do, you can talk, sit lay down and most importantly take pictures.  Other buildings include classrooms, a restaurant for visitors and some living spaces as I think there are some resident monks or nuns.

The interiors of the temples are really colourful And intricately painted and there are many small shrines around the room with the large Buddha facing the front door. 

You can pay to have a roof tile painted with the names of your family or a prayer and these are then used to replace tiles on the roof of the buildings. This somehow seems a bit nicer than the family name on the brick but I guess it is for a different purpose. There is one picture in this collection which is just the Koreans, Mr Suh, his helper Seong Bo and two young Korean boys who were just helpers during the week. They have rushed around after us all week so I hope they have a nice weekend and a light workload next week.

Food and friends

Ok, you know how they say everyone has a twin in the world? Well buzzie I think I found yours. He is in the with me and Roy Gardner from Florida. He was here this week with us at the workshop and his name is Badar al Balushi and he is from Oman. He is a question guy, like you, although he did not say "Now let me ask you this." but everything else was freakishly similar. I told him he had a twin in Spokane Washington and he new exactly where Washington State was as his friend had been there fishing a few years back! Oman is a new member of Ramsar and he and his colleague Aziza, who was also a lot of fun, were definitely an important factor in the spirit of the group this week. Oman is one of the wealthy U.A.E. countries, with about 80% of their economy based on oil. One of our topics this week was poverty eradication through sustainable management of wetlands. They were sure to remind us all week whenever the topic was referred to that during that session they might have to rest be ause they did not have any poverty in Oman. this was getting lots of laughs by the end of the week. But although they are a desert country on the Gulf, they do have wetlands and they do have mountains. Sounds really interesting. As they said good bye to us last night Aziza gave each of us a 100 note in Omani money, enought to buy she said a couple of pieces of gum, for when we arrived in Oman. 

Another thing that people have been taking pictures of all week are signs with misspelled words. I only managed to grab a few, so there is one below from the hotel bar (not Little Joes Foreigner friendly bar, which unfortunately we never got to). We had a bit of fun with it thinking of all the possibilities for the mispelled word and how it might change the message. only two meals here, one is my breakfast, a selection of pickled things kim chee style, and the other our indian meal which was a very hot and spicy chicken  marinated in green chilis and other green things then baked in a clay oven. very yum.Getting to the end of the week now, maybe one more post after this then I will be home.

More workshop

Just so you don't think it is all perks and food, the workshop is continuing each day. Anyone who has been to workshops will know that post it notes are heavily used to collect ideas from participants. Once they have pulled things out of their heads to write on the notes, then some lucky person gets to sort them into categories so that something can be done with them. This is usually done as part of the workshop. But the worst job is left to the person that has to record what is on the notes. Early post it notes were all yellow, remember those days? But now they are all colours. Post it notes were used many times during the workshop and you will see poor Marcela recording.

Yesterday at lunch I walked to the super market instead of going to the restaurant so managed to het a few more photos of things around town. The supermarket I went to is called E-Mart and it is a few stories, groceries on the bottom floor and homewards on the next floor up, etc. the supermarkets here are lovely, lots of home style cooked food and of course Kim Chee. Here and there you will find veggies that we do not get at home, today I saw giant mushrooms on sale. At the super market there was also a Baskin and Robbins so it am sharing the sign with you to so the kids can see it.

Trip to Hwapo Wetlands

On the morning of our third day we took a break and piled into buses for an excursion to Hwapo Wetlads Centre and Junam Wetlands centre. Sorry pictures are in reverse order as the first pictures below are us at lunch, will come back to that. 

As is their way they had a welcoming committee waiting for us at Hwapo, the older version of the boys dancing troupe, same outfits, similar dance, quite amazing to see these older fellows throwing their bodies around but very magical to see it outside. Dr Joo, our host, said they were local residents. You will see in one of the pictures a banner announcing our meeting, which was prepared and hung just for our visit!

The place is supported by the government but run by an NGO group and they were lovely. You can see in one of the pictures a Hwapo Guide trying to teach a Tricky Korean word to Aziza from Omani. We had a short inside tour and a short outside tour here before doing the group photo on the stone steps.

Next stop was Junam Wetlands which is surrounded by rice paddies and great areas of lotus plants, Some of the lotus areas are grown for the flowers and other areas are harvested for the roots or rhizomes which are good eating. Along the road there were small stalls selling produce and this lady was cutting and selling the lotus rhizomes, she was quite happy to be a star in our photos. next it was off to lunch and you will see that we LL sat at the tables for short people. We also had to take out shoes off so in one of the photos you will see the shoes on a shelf by the door. We each had to nominate rice or noodles and that determined the dish we were given. I chose the rice and you will see the dish in a big silver bowl, egg on top and you add in all the different kim chee and sauces to your liking. There were also some dumplings to follow, don't remember running into dumplings in Korea on my first two trips here but these were yum, with a darker dough, very delicious.

Comments coming in.

For the first time I have comments coming through via emails in my email box, too exciting, from Buzzie and Chrissie and from Anna, so I will try to answer a few of those.

 Restaurants, yes they have chair seating and floor seating, the low tables are not just for short people. Chopsticks, the Korean ones are metal, and they are a different shape, flat and rectangular at the top tapering to square at the bottom and overall way thinner. I really like them. They always come with a long spoon. I thought this was for the soup you always get but I think it is for serving yourself out of the communal dishes that come along. Alcohol, it is beer, beer and beer. A couple of times there was a few bottles of wine near the door, but I was not going to be the only one that asked for one of those. At that dinner hardly anyone opened those bottles. The local beer I have had is Hite and we have managed to get to one bar where we ordered a pitcher, and what a pitcher it was, plastic, double wall for insullation, held 10 Small beers. There is a big craft beer thing going here too, started by a westerner I think, but I doubt we will get close to one of those. However,  few of us have our sights on Little Joes Bar which is around the corner and the sign says Foreigner Friendly!

Food, the long green things that were in the first restaurant photo are peppers, you just add them to your food or eat them along the way. They also often serve a plate of raw onion to be used the same way as the Chili. Western takeaways, not too may of these visible. Marcela found a Starbucks today but I have seen none I. Our drives in and out of town. It is said that western takeaways have been trying and failing to bust into the Korean market for 25 years. Think of any of the big name US chains and likely they have been here and fizzled, in spite of the fact that many have found a foothold in neighbouring Japan. So it is curious that in recent yeArs the On The Border chain has started to have some success and there are now 6 in 6 years and plans for more. Does On The Border do fajitas? I could imagine the Koreans going for that because they do like the wrapping up your food in something, especially if the Korean chains through in some Kim Chee!

Paul, if you are reading this, you may have difficulty with the food here, but the photography opps are many and you could probably live on those little marshmallow things and beer.

Was that you Flynn?

Mum and Dad Starrett have you been keeping a close eye on your youngest son? I could have sworn that I saw him on Monday night in Changwon!! They held a special dinner last night for us and once everyone was inside and sitting down they brought in a troupe of young dancers, all middle school age, who were dressed in traditional costumes with these rather elaborate hats that had long ribbons attached to a wire. They had drums and symbols and the dance was very noisy and dynamic because as they spun around they also swished their heads from side to side so the ribbons were going all over the place. The thing was one of the dancers looked so like Flynn Starrett. Have a look!