I have been having a lot of Korean adventures, but what I haven’t been doing is remembering to come blog about them. I usually wait for a comment or two on each post before doing another one, so the lack of activity has made me bad about posting… but I will try to do better about getting one up every other day or so as long as someone is still out there.

The wintry view of Mireuksa Temple in Busan up on Geumjeongsan Mountain.Hello Again Everyone!!I had been to Mireuksa Temple two times in the past, but it had been four years since I last went during Buddha's Birthday. And even though the temperature was -9 degrees Celsius up in the mountains, nothing would stop me during my vacation.Mireuksa Temple (미륵사) is named after Mireuk-bul, the Future ...

And after five years?  What then? The minute someone sits down at a keyboard, sets an f-stop, or turns over a fresh page in a sketchpad and tries to describe a place, it’s already a little bit gone.  Unavoidable and just fine really.  It clears the way for new records, allows for comparisons (maybe even lessons or conclusions), and staves off obsolescence for at least a few magazines and pap ...

The extremely ornate pagoda from Samgwangsa Temple in Busan.Hello Again Everyone!!Another interesting aspect to the Korean pagoda is the varying number of tiers that make up the height of the pagoda. And like all things related to the pagoda, the tiers also have a lot of symbolic meaning attached to them.First, it must be stated that hardly any Korean pagodas have an even amount of tiers to its he ...

A long-time opponent of zoos, my up-close experience with wild animals has been somewhat limited.  A trip through SE Asia years ago provided brushes with iguanas, water buffalo, and the ubiquitous gecko, but sightings of elephants or tigers evaded me; I refused to visit them in camps, wary of bearing witness to animals who underwent training for the sole purpose of entertaining humans.  Wild cre ...

On Friday one of my best Korean pals, Lindsay (who writes a mean blog of her own) , and I went off in search of an owl-y adventure. And Seoul provided as with the perfect spot… the Owl Museum!

Homigot Re-published with permission from the author. Check out The ...

Over the recent Lunar New Year holiday, Ian and I had the chance to try out some traditional Korean folk games. I’ve profiles a few before: like Jegichagi, the Korean hacky-sack, and Neolttwigi, the seesaw jumping game,  but the game we are going to talk about today is Yutnori. Last Lunar New Year I showed you this picture:

A look inside the cave that houses the 8th century Amita-bul statue at Mitaam Hermitage.Hello Again Everyone!!While out on a Sunday drive, I decided to finally visit the last of the major temples or hermitages listed on the Yangsan city website: Mitaam Hermitage (미타암). For various reasons, the most notable being the distance from where I live, I had yet to visit. And it almost seems as thoug ...

If someone were to blindfold you and then drop you off at the intersection above Gongdeok Station, you could be forgiven for thinking you were in Gangnam and not Mapo-gu.  The neighborhood is starkly different from the much more modest nearby areas of Aeogae and Daeheung – massively more developed, a forest of brand new steel and glass towers with streams of heavy traffic moving along the wide ...