New Years Eve 2012

For New Year's Eve this year Emily and Jill went to the New Year's Eve Dance at church (Jill is one of the youth leaders)

 

 

 

Dad!  Stop taking pictures of me when I am getting ready!

 

 

The boys stayed home with Dad.  They had fun opening a new bag every hour with a different treat or game.

Happy New Year!

Emily's Braces

Emily got her braces on in December.  She has been waiting so long for this.  As you can see she is very happy.

Christmas 2012

Christmas 2012

These pictures are a little out of order and I am months late in making this post, but I didn't want to miss documenting this Christmas

 

Emily was thrilled to find an I-tunes card in her stocking.

Ah, brotherly love.

Evan and his coins.  He had to start filling it in as soon as he opened it.

Santa delivered with the giant hersheys kisses again this year.

 

Here is where we jump a little out of order.  For Christmas Eve dinner we were pleased to have the missionaries over as well as Bill, Terrie and Laurie.

After dinner we were treated with a musical evening.  The kids all took turns playing duets with their great grandma Mom-i.

Later Laurie brought out her accordian and told us great stories about her youth and even let the kids take their turn on the accordian.

We ended the evening with the traditional opening of the Christmas jammies.

Terrie and her alpaca fur bear.

Happy kids who are getting way to big way to fast.

Terrie and Laurie with sillouette necklaces of the kids.

Bill got a whole box of Danish cookies all for himself.

Ending Christmas morning with a good light saber fight.  Thats how you do it.

Chalk Art at the Marketplace

Emily was invited by her 8th grade art teacher to participate in the annual chalk art festival at the marketplace.  She and a fellow student worked on this piece together. 

Seoul, Korea

For our final day in Korea, we were back in Seoul.  We went to Gyeongbokgung Palace first constructed in 1394 and reconstructed in 1867 is largest of five palaces built by the Joseon Dynasty.

We made it just in time to see the changing of the guards.  They didn't seem to mind that tourists wanted to have their pictures taken next to a guard.



Their costumes were great.  I especially liked the feathers in their hat the their weapons.

 

This is Geunjeongjeon Hall, the throne hall where the king would give royal audiences.

Inside you can see the throne and all the intricate designs that are painted on the walls and ceiling.

The throne hall was surrounded by these stone animal sculptures.  This is the blue dragon, one of thirteen different sculptures surrounding the throne.

Koreans have a zodiac calendar.  Here is much more than you wanted to know about it, but I thought it was interesting: The Lunar Calendar was the basis of Korean life in the past and to this day, holidays/celebratory events are based on the moon's cycles. Years were represented by animals that followed each other in an established order repeated every 12 years. In Korea, when someone asks about your sign, they are not only getting a sense of your personality as people in the West do with signs of the zodiac, they are also working out your age.

The twelve animals guardian deities collectively known as the Sibijisin, which literally means "Twelve (sibi) gods of the earth (jisin)." They were also used to measure the hours of the day as well as to represent direction. For example, the hours between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. had been called "Myosi" (Time of the Rabbit), and the hours between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. "Misi" (Time of the Sheep). The entire day had been divided into twelve different "times," each represented by one of the twelve animals. (See attached for more details)

The twelve animal signs are: Rat (aka Mouse), Ox (aka Cow, Bull, Buffalo), Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep (Ram or Goat also), Monkey, Rooster (aka Chicken), Dog and Pig. Every animal is considered to have specific characteristics, which are shared by people born in their year. The year itself may be defined by its animal.

 

Dave and I were both born in the year of the OX as pictured above.  That means OX: The Ox, which is also known as the Buffalo, sign symbolizes prosperity through fortitude and hard work. Those born under the influence of the Ox or(Water) Buffalo are seen as stable and persevering. The typical Ox is a tolerant person with strong character. Not many people could equal the resolution and fearlessness that the Ox exhibits when deciding to accomplish a task. Ox people work hard without complaints at work or at home. They know that they will succeed through hard work and sustained efforts, and do not believe in get-rich-quick schemes.
Ox years: 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, 2009

The palace grounds also had a museum which in part depicted Korean life.  Here is a display about Kimchi, the favored fermented vegetable dish that is served with meals.

A census record in Korean from the 1800's.

This is the pagoda roof of the musum.

 These Korean totem poles or jangseung were placed at the edge of villages to mark the boundary and to scare away demons.

 

One thing we noticed was that the Koreans love their smart phones.  Whenever we rode the subway, we were surrounded by people on their devices.  They even show a public announcement video within the subway car of the proper etiquette of cell phones...like not walking and watching your screen or not texting while standing in the subway car so that you can't hold on to the rails.

 

We also noticed a lot of neon at night.  Most stores had a neon sign.

When it was time for us to leave, we ran into a little bit of trouble because Typhoon Bolaven was headed straight for us.  This picture shows all of the cancelled flights that day.  Our flight, we found out was delayed for 24 hours.  We were able to find a hotel room in Seoul and rest comfortably until our flight was sceduled to leave the next day.  On the way back into town, it was a little scary to feel the bus being pushed from side to side by the wind and to see all the downed trees,  Luckily we were safe and finally were able to fly home the next day.

 

Seoraksan National Park, Korea

After Dave's conference was over, we went to Seoraksan National Park so that we could get out of the city and see some nature.

 

We took the trusty city bus, which dropped us off right at the park's enterance.  How convenient.

 

 The trail we took led to Biryong Falls, which means “Flying Dragon” Falls. Legend has it there was a drought that stopped the water flowing in the town. After the village made a sacrifice of a young maiden, the dragons were appeased and allowed the water to flow again. It is said the fall looks like a dragon flying upwards toward the sky.

The Great Unification Buddha in Seoraksan National Park, South Korea. The Buddha is the largest seated bronze Buddha statue in the world, at 14.6m high, excluding the halo, lightning rod and pedestal.

The statue's name, Tongil Daebul, means 'Unification Buddha', and it was built to symbolise the Korean people's hope for the reunification of North and South Korea. The statue cost ₩3.8 billion won (US $4.1 million) to erect, which was raised over a decade, with the construction being completed in 1997.

 

You can really get a sense of how large the buddha is when I am standing right next to it in this picture.

This a the hike to Geumganggul Cave.  The last few kilometers to the cave were incredible vertical.  This is a shot we took looking down from the final ascent up to the cave.

When you get to this small cave you find a fountain carved into the rock.  There is a mountain spring there and it’s said that if you drink from it you’ll have a long life.  Dave and I both took a drink, so we are looking forward to a long and wonderful life together.

 Geumganggul Cave was inhabited by a Buddhist monk who wanted seclusion. His shrine is still there.

 

 

This is the amazing view that we saw from the cave when the mist parted for us ever so briefly so that we could really appreciate where we were.

Here I am pointing to the enterance of the cave.

 

 



After our hike, we were so hungry.  We decided to try some of the traditionl Korean food offered in the park.  I had rice with vegetables called bibimbop and Dave had noodles.  I learned that hard way that is was not a good idea to mix the rice and vegetables together like I saw everyone else doing.  The red sauce that I mixed in was so spicy, that I was unable to finish my rice dish.  If I ever have a chance to eat that again, I will carefully scoop out as much of the hot pepper sauce that I can.

  

 

Later we took the cable car up to Gwongeumseong.  

 On our way up the cable car we could look back and see the Unification Buddha that we had seen earlier.

  

The fog was pretty socked in up there.  We knew that we should be seeing some pretty amazing mountain ranges from up here, but all we could see was fog.  After climbing to the top of the summit, they offer this flag for a photo opportunity.  We saw many people wearing their photos which were printed right there using a generator.  We opted to take pictures for ourselves.

I am not proud of this shot from the rear, but this is final stretch to the top of the summit.

 

 

Everywhere at Gwongeumseong were piles of rocks that people had stacked.  I bet this is a sign for good luck.

 

For a brief moment, the mist parted once again and we could appreciate the beauty of Seoraksan Park.

The bridge on the way to the temple of Baekdamsa. 

The original temple was built in 652 AD.  Due to many fire in the area the current buildings are reconstructions but still impressive.

 

 

We were impressed by this restroom facility on the temple grounds.  This is the fanciest building I have ever seen for a restroom.  Traditional Korean female toilets require one to "squat" in order to take care of business.  This restroom had western style toilets but with a guideline posted behind the door in case you weren't accustomed to using them...

 

 

 

 

 

The following day in the park we ventured to another hiking trail.  This one led us to Heundeulbawi (Tottering Rock). About five meters high, the rock looks like it will roll down the cliff with just a small push, but even though thousands of people have tried to budge it, it does not move, just wiggles a little, no matter how hard people push it.

 

The trail continues on toward the Ulsanbawi rock formation.  It can be reached by hiking past two temples and climbing 800 steps up the face of the rocks. Ulsanbawi has six granite, quartz and mica peaks that rise as high as 873 meters, covering an area 4 km in circumference. According to the legend Ulsanbawi comes from the city of Ulsan in the south east of Korea. As Kumgangsan was built, Ulsanbawi walked to the north as the representative of the city. Unfortunately Ulsanbawi arrived too late and there was no more room. Ulsanbawi was ashamed and slowly trudged back to the south. One evening the rock went to sleep in the Seorak area. Ulsanbawi felt it was so beautiful around there that it decided to stay for good. -wikipedia

 

I consider myself relatively healthy and enjoy hiking very much.  I was not prepared however for the grueling experience of hiking to Ulsanbawi.  The steel stair trail was much easier that hiking the rock face itself I am sure.  Nevertheless, this felt like doing a stair master from you know where.

 

Luckily, I did make it and am so glad that I did.  It was purely spectacular at the top.  The rock face made us feel like we were riding to spine of a stegasaurus.  For a while we were the only people at the top and we were able to enjoy the view, watch the mist roll in and out and also watch a falcon soaring around the formation.  It was really something amazing.

At the end of the trail on the way back, I added a rock for both Dave and I to the stacks for good luck.  Seoraksan was such a great choice for us to spend our last couple of days in South Korea.  It is such a beautiful, green country.  We felt to lucky to be able to come here.