Travel Log Korea from the begining and onward

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Well, actually, no, that is not correct. The correct name I believe is Boeyo,
but I'm not positive about that either. So I spent yet another weekend on buses
leaving at the ridiculous hour of 5:00 am from my apartment to catch the 6:00am
bus to go to Seosun to visit Sam. Fortunately I was awake because I had not
gone to bed yet as the welcoming party for Wilf ended up running a little long.

So off I went arriaving in Seosun and hanging out. We went to see a very
excellent movie at a DVD bong called Gloomy Sunday. This was a German movie
about the song. And, it was a doozy. Highly reccomeneded (not for kids),
excellent movie. The plot was very dense, the characters amazingly developed,
it was really a spectacular film.

So after that we mostly hung out in Sam apartment trying not to be cold because
the heat was gone and he and his roommate have not come to an agreement about
getting more heating oil. Aside from that I eventually crashed around 10:00pm.
and slept till 6:00am the next morning. At that point I decided I wanted to do
more than just sit around Seosun, and Sam and I contrived a plan that would
take us back to Daejun where I would catch the bus back to Daegu by way of
Beoyo where Korean National Treasure #287 lives. So we were off and running,
only to discover that there wasn't a bus where we wanted to go till noon. So
being adventurous we jumped onto another bus going sort of in the same
direction and after a couple of transfers and waiting in a newly constructed
but quite empy bus stations (where I managed to win a small toy dog in a very
strange game machine) we were finally in Beoyo.

We were greated in Beoyo by the site of a yellow egg shaped Anime type
character giving us the thumbs up. I was informed that this was in fact a
representation of Korean National Treasure #287 rendered into freindly Anime
form. We walked from the station to the museum were I was in a for a real
treat.

We walked through thousands of years of Korean history starting in the stone
age, walking through the bronze age, taking a dip back a few thousand years to
visit the paleolithic era, and then on to see Korean National Treasure #287.

Alright, so what is Korean National Treasure #287? It was uncovered in the
early 90's (what a day to be an archeologist) and it is an amazing, intact gilt
bronze incense burner. It's is really exquisite. It's about 18 inches tall and
very intricatly carved to represent the mountain of heaven. It has various
iconography. It was really impressive to look at. Supported on a dragons nose
(the dragons coiled in a circle at the bottom) holding up the mountain of
heaven with numerous peaks and a phonix perched on top. To have been on a dig
that day. You can see a picture and more information here
(http://www.heritage.go.kr/eng/museum/nat/06/01.html). For a small amount of
money you can purchase a minurature of it, for $60 you can buy a functional
version about half the size and for a meger 1.2 mil you can own a life size
copy in bronze.

Aside from Korean National Treasure #287 you can also see some very interesting
poetry from all the different periods of Korean history. Most seemed to be made
with coils. We were also able to see a mock up prototype of a kiln which was
shaped sort of like a foot. The fire was lit where the toes would be, and as
the kiln angled up towards the ankle you have the pots stacked with a vent at
the top to make the heat rush through it. Very interesting.

After all this excitment we jumped onto a bus to Daejun, arriaving in a station
on the wrong side of the city. Jumped into a cab and headed over to the correct
side of the city where we had Pizza at Pizza Hut, which is we both believe the
first time we have sat down together in a Western Chain resturaunt to eat
Western food, which was kinda fun. Sam commented on how barbaric western food
was really (and delicious) and then we were off to sleep. This morning we
caught our respective busses back to respective cities, and now it is just a
little after noon and I really should get to work.

Cheers,

Sara



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