May 21, 2011 김수로왕릉

Today was pretty chill because Dr. Peterson is still away.  We visited 김수로왕릉 King Kim Suro's tomb.  We couldn't go up close like the other tombs because it's blocked off but we were still able to see it and the surroundings around the tombs.  This tomb is more cooler than the other ones because Kenwood is the descendant of him and so it adds something to the visit.  Otherwise, it wouildn't be as cool.  It would still be cool but Kenwood makes it that much cooler haha.

We had a free day so we just relaxed and had dinner together.  As much as we love sightseeing and getting our days worth, some days of taking it easy are amazing; but not a lot of the days.

May 20, 2011 Meat Wasted :-)

Today was pretty fun because we got to spend the day with the students at 인제대학교 Inje University.  They're so great; they've been such great friends to us.

Since Dr. Peterson has been gone, he gave us a list of things we have to see while he's away.  We went to the 김해미속박물관 Gimhae Folk Museum.  It was very small and a bit disappointing because everything we saw there, we've already seen at a different museum.  We hung out with 심태용 Tae Yong who haha funny enough, took us to the 국립박물관 National Museum.  The outside was really cool because it was black stone.  The museum focused a lot on the 가야 Gaya kingdom and one of the features of the 가야 Gaya kingdom is that they made use of a lot of iron ore and so they had the outside of the museum reflect that.  Because this museum had many similar things to the other museums we saw, it wasn't mindblowing because we've seen it many times already.

국립박물관 National Museum

Study Abroad family potrait. 

After the museum, we took lots of pictures because 심태용 Tae Yong loves to take pictures.  Here's a couple that he took.

Asian family portrait!!

They had a park nearby with teeter toters in front.  We thought it would be fun if we could launch people on them.  We did it with Benjamin and he went really high.  Then everyone got an idea, if Benjamin could go high, then I could go even higher.  If you're like us or not so smart, then you're thinking this will turn out good.  If you think it's a bad idea, you were right.  Here's what happened:  You have me on one side and Stephen, who's double my weight on the other side.  Photos are courtesy of Rachael and video is courtesty of Victoria.

I will not be offended if you laugh because right after this happened, I was laughing so hard.

Stephen felt really bad that I fell so he bought me an iced hot chocolate at a cafe where we all got some drinks.  I told him he didn't have to but he insisted.  The iced hot chocolate was amazing.  You're probably thinking, "Iced hot chocolate?  So you just had hot chocolate with ice in it?"  Not exactly, they play it up more than that.  It had other good stuff in it like caramel, nuts, chocolate bits, and much more.  :-)  So good.

We took some more pictures outside and walked around 김해 Gimhae. 

When we saw this, immediately, "What is THAT??"

Let's take a picture by it!

I don't know if I mentioned this but Kenwood is a direct descendant of 김소로왕 King Kim Suro who was the king in the 가야 Gaya kingdom.  Who he's standing in front of is King Kim Suro's wife the queen who had some significance because she brought Buddhism to the 가야 Gaya kingdom.  The story is really cool!  The queen was from what is now today India and she married 김수로왕 King Kim Suro.  As you know, children take on their father's last name.  Well, 김소로왕 King Kim Suro felt bad that his wife's name wasn't being passed onto her children because she technically wasn't Korean so he had the second son take on the queen's last name which was 허 Heo/Huh which is a Korean corruption of the Indian last name.  허 Heo/Huh is a very unique Korean last name and so those who have the last name are more than 90% likely from the king's second son.

박 교수님 Professor Park invited us to have dinner with a few of his students.  We went to this Korean beef and salad buffet called Orange.  Every single time we have walked by this restaurant at Home Plus, we get extremely hungry so we were very grateful for 박 교수님 Professor Park for treating us.  We ate well that night; almost too well.  So, I went to go get meat for everyone because I thought we were going to share (it was between 4 people) but by the time I got back, everyone was full!  Well, you can't waste meat because it's good meat (duh) and it was a lot.  So what happened?  Me and Stephen ate all of it.  :-(  I seriously wanted to kill everyone at this point.  Why didn't you say anything before I left?????  That meat is going to add a ton to my face and everywhere else.  :-(  심태용 Tae Yong, 박현준 Hyun Joon, 김민주 Kim Minju, and 이충호 Lee Choong Ho joined us for dinner and after we went to 노래방 karaoke!  I don't know why but I was so hyper and giggly after dinner that it brought to everyone's mind this inside joke we have now about getting wasted.  Rachael was telling us a certain line from a movie that I can't remember nor have I seen that these kids were asking I believe Adam Sandler what "getting wasted" meant.  He didn't want to tell the kids so he said, "it's when you eat a lot of ice cream."  Then the kids said, "I want to get wasted!  I want to get chocolate wasted!"  Haha so everyone says that I was "meat wasted" that night and everytime we think back to this day, "meat wasted" comes to mind. 

Me and 김문주 Minju

노래방 Karaoke was fun but not as fun as last time I think.  Even though we were pretty hyper, I think we had more fun last time.  Also, me, Victoria, Kenwood, Michelle, and Stephen from the study abroad group and our Korean friends went and everyone else was tired and went home.  We still had fun.  There wasn't any funny videos that we took really.

We love the students here!  They are so nice to us and have made an effort to make sure we all have a good time while we're here in Korea.

May 19, 2011 Tombs, tombs, tombs, tombs, tombs, tombs.......

Yeah the title explains itself.  What did we do today?  Saw lots of tombs.  It's fine until you see a lot then it's starts to lose its interesting factor.  Also, some of the tombs they have, they don't even know who's actually buried under there.  That's who they think is buried under there.  Yay..... It was pretty hot too and so hearing a lecture when there's not much shade was pretty hard. 

We went back to 경주 Kyeongju (kyung-joo) and the first tomb we saw was 나정 Najeong (nah-jung).  At the tomb, Dr. Peterson told us of the Tangun myth that many Koreans believe that the original Korean people came from.  The legend is that one day a bear and a tiger both wanted to become human.  The heavenly being Hwanung told them that if they would live in a cave and eat nothing but garlic and mugwort for 100 days, they could become human.  The tiger couldn't endure but the bear did.  The bear turned into a beautiful woman that Hwanung took the lady/bear as his wife.  On the mountain, she bore a son named Tangun who ruled the land peacefully for 1,000 years.  Many Koreans don't take this story at face value but it's taken seriously.  Because myths, just like religions, contain elements or symbols that can be traced to prehistoric times.  Also, the definition of a myth is not the complete truth but a story based on some truth.  Dr. Peterson said he had an experience where he was talking to some Korean people and said, "You guys don't actually believe that people can come from a bear?" and they replied back, "Yeah that's just as crazy as the belief you guys came from Adam and Eve."  Wow....Wow is right.  Whether their statement was valid or not, it showed that many Korean people hold tightly to the Tangun myth.

We also saw the tombs of who they believe the first Park and 경주 Kyeongju Kim ancestor came from who's stories are also myths.  While the first Park ancestor came from an egg left by a flying horse, the first Kim ancestor came from an egg found in a forest.  I thought it was interesting learning about myths!  I never knew myth had that definition.  I thought myths were just completely false but they have some truth to them.

We went to a Korean buffet 경주한식뷔페 that was nearby for lunch.  It was really cheap and pretty decent.  All of us felt like death afterwards.  Just when you think you're done, there's ice cream haha.

After lunch, we went to the 5 tombs which were very grassy and each of the tombs were close to each other.  It was still hot and so it was STILL hard to pay attention.  But for what it was worth, it was pretty to look at.