I added my temple photos of YongGunSa to the photo gallery today. Check them out.

Whaling has been an important part of the culture in this area for thousands of years. There are several petroglyphs in the region with depictions of whales and whale hunting. It’s not surprising that they have some affection for their history and culture. So much so, in fact, that they defy the world ban on whale hunting imposed in 1985. Moreover, they don’t particularly care if the world thinks differently than they do. They are going to continue hunting and killing whales in the name of science and research for the pleasure of eating and whatever else they do with them.

Anyway, I put together a few clips of last week’s Whale Festival here in Ulsan. Here’s a few bits and pieces from the festival. Grab a few chunks of whale meat and sit back and watch how the Korean’s celebrate their whaling heritage.

Yes, I always read the comments on this blog. And yes, a little more airtime of me and my pup was a good idea. I like to show the world where I am and what goes on here, but I forget sometimes that folks back home might actually miss seeing moi. And, since my new pup is such a cutie, Circe’s suggestion of posting video of me and SaTang in some bi-lingual training was a great idea.

We just came back from the vet’s place where SaTang got her 3rd round of shots. She whimpered, but once it was all over, she was her usual playful self. The vet always gives us freebies when we visit so I used his snacks for some training.

And since fair is fair, maybe some pictures of folks back home would be nice, too. I’ve seen pictures of Nicole’s, Kim’s and Corey’s kids and Circe’s grandson, but none of my own kids or of any of my friends. I did see some pictures of John in China and a graduation picture of Cameron, but like most things, more is better.

Today was a holiday in Korea, celebrating Buddha’s birthday, although they call him Bu Cheo Nim here.

The city has been decorated for the holiday for the past couple of weeks, but it was rather muted decorations. One of the main rotaries (a circular drive where multiple roads come together) was dressed up in lanterns and a Buddha-bubble-boy while the adjacent bridge over the Taewha river also adorned with lanterns.

Overall, the city’s decorations were light compared with Christmas. Its pretty close to 50/50 Christians and Buddhists, but the Christians do a better job dressing the place up. The above Buddhas and lanterns are about all you could find in Ulsan that signifies the holiday today.

However, we went to a temple in Busan, today, and there the atmosphere is quite a bit different. MyeongHee is Buddhist and wanted to pay her respects for the holiday. We went to Haedong Yong Gung Sa (해동옹궁사) which is a spectacular temple situated on a rocky outcrop overlooking the East Sea on the far southeastern corner of Korea. There I was literally blown away by the finery and beauty of the place, both because of the place it resides in, but also the colors, architecture and pure spectacle of it all.

The original temple was built in 1376, but like many Korean places of interest, it was destroyed in the 1590s by the Japanese. Rebuilt in the 1930s, it has all the grandeur one would expect from one of the country’s more popular temples, especially during Buddha’s Birthday celebration.

I took quite a few pictures, but they won’t all fit in here. I’ll create a slide show and have that up before next week. There are so many wonderful things to show you all!

It’s difficult to find comparable places of interest in America in terms of history or architecture. Much of this country has been around for centuries, despite the frequent periods of destruction wrought by the Japs. I have to admit, the continuity of a culture for hundreds or even thousands of years is something that holds enormous interest for me.

I uploaded a batch of pictures from Sunday’s outing at the Whale festival.  I’ll have a video of  sorts a little later.

MyeongHee and I went to the Whale festival this weekend. There were lots of things to see and do, but this video was just too cool not to immediately share. This is another set of Korean Folk Dancers, this time a troupe of teenagers. The dancing with the streamer coming off his hat was awesome to watch. A little too windy to do all the tricks I suspect he wanted to do, but we still enjoyed it.

I hope to get a few more pictures and videos up this week. They did a very cool reenactment of a prehistoric whale hunt – I’ll have to edit the video first for that one, though.

Speaking of editting, I finally put together some video of my Lunar New Year vacation to 무주 (Mu Ju) Ski Resort. I put that up on my Photos folder if you want to see that one.

By the way, I thought it was cool that I could both read and understand the Korean writing on the side of the building behind the dance troupe in this video. I’m still a long way from fluent, but I do pretty well these days.

Or, at least that’s what Korea’s national motto is supposed to be. I snapped this picture of a Honda Goldwing motorcycle this weekend that some fancy-pants rider decided to trick out with his biker club’s flag. I always get a kick out of the guys who have to show their intellectualism by having it written in English only to do it badly. It’s sort of a badge of brains of some kind to show the other Koreans you know some English. However, this clown didn’t bother to check his work. Although he’s got the right spelling on one part of the flag, the other, larger one is horribly misspelled. Maybe he didn’t know jack about English and was just hedging his bets, thinking he’d get one or the other right. Just above the Goldwing logo on the flag, is the correct “Morning Calm” lettering. The larger one caught my eye from a long way back. It’s still a nice bike.

It really is Land of the  Morning Calm, by the way. Many of the stores, including the grocery stores, don’t open until 10 am. However, the guys across the street are still pounding away on both destroying the playground and building the new building, both at 7am.  Hopefully, when they’re done, it will be “carm”  in the morning again

Sometimes, translations aren’t always correct. A few weeks ago on Easter weekend, we went to Eunyong for wild duck followed by a visit to the flower festival. Among the many things we saw to eat, one bowl of roasted flesh was described as “Dolphin.” Well, It wasn’t Dolphin.

This weekend, another festival comes to Ulsan. The Annual Whale Festival. MyeongHee said she wanted to go, and that’s when I learned that what she thought she was telling me was dolphin was actually Whale meat.

Well, we’ll go check out this festival (http://www.whalekorea.com/) and see what the fuss is all about.  Google or AltaVista can translate (albeit rather poorly) this site into English. The early buzz on the festival says it more about hunting, killing and eating the mammals than saving or preserving them. That 97% of the rest of the world has banned whale hunting is not a deterrent to the Koreans. They hunt and kill them under the banner of “science.” They even have special processing facilities (called restaurants) to dispose of the carcasses after the science is complete, so it’s all ok.

The playground goes under as well. Again, early in the morning, the machines enter my world of sleep.

A few days ago, they started tearing up one of the last remaining patches of bare ground in Cheonsang. Not that any place is actually bare – it had some ad hoc gardens that neighbors had created. Whatever efforts they had put into growing their veggies vanished as their gardens simply succumbed to the march of progress.

This lot is just across the street from my apartment. I have a bird’s eye view of the destruction/construction.

Progress isn’t kind. Especially to those nearby. Before they could pour the foundation for this new building they had to break up some underlying rock to level it out. I woke up to these clowns pounding the ground at 6 AM! Give a listen to this.

When I was in Korea in 2005, Jessie teased me that she wasn’t ready to have kids and make me a grandfather yet. But, she would introduce me to my “grand dog” when I came home.

So… if her dog Shelby is my grand dog, is Sa Tang Jessie’s sister? 

I’ve been single for five years. I figured it was time to get serious and stop being alone.  So, say hello to Sa Tang, my new best friend.

One of the teachers I worked with had a dog that puppies seven weeks ago. I say “had” because the mother had died giving birth to the five pups. Sa Tang and her litter mates have been raised by hand, being bottle fed with special puppy formula. She’s very affectionate. In fact, she’s totally people oriented. She wanted to be held most of the night when I got her last night and it didn’t take her long to get comfortable enough to stretch out on my lap and fall asleep. After getting acclimated to my home, she very readily went into her kennel slept the whole night there.

Sa Tang, by the way, is Korean for candy. She’s pretty sweet.

Stay tuned for a major announcement regarding a change in family size.

This is the view from ByeongYeongSeong, the site of a former police barracks and fortress in Ulsan built in the 1400s. It isn’t much today, but it does have a nice view of the river valley and its masses of covered nurseries. I stitched three pictures together (somewhat poorly) for this panoramic view. Below is a thumbnail view.

Click to enlarge.

Check out the old woman in the lower right corner, just sitting there, enjoying the view. I’ve often wondered what thoughts were going through her mind as she looked over the expanse. Her family? Her life? Tremendous growth the area has seen? Or how much money she could make from her garden.

This site had served as the headquarters of the military commander in Gyeongsangjwa province until 1894. Now, it has been reduced to just another vegetable garden.

Just a little self-aggrandizement. I was belaying Bryan, a relatively new climber, from the heights when my pal Jack snapped this photo. The climb is only a 5.9 but its very long, stretching almost 40 meters.  I had already done my climb here, in addition to leading 3 other routes, and was feeling pretty manly.

It is rather invigorating up there, standing at the precipice. The wind in your face, the cliff to your back, and a half-dozen Koreans nearby on the trail to the temple in awe of our prowess, telling us how brave, good and handsome we are.

An hour or so earlier, Bryan and I are caught in a rather more pensive mood. We were relaxing a bit having just done a couple of hard routes when Ji-Gyoung, Jack’s girlfriend, took this picture.

It’s not often I’m in front of the camera. I thought I’d share.

I have been hitting the rocks almost every weekend here. Sometimes, both Saturday and Sunday.  Lately, MyeongHee had come with me just to see what it was all about. Her ideas of rock climbing before seeing it were terrifying and she had no intention of ever doing it. She watched us climb on a couple of Sundays and decided it really wasn’t all that scary. I came off the rock on a 5.10c climb and fell no more than 2 feet before my belayer reeled things in.  I heard her suck in wind between her teeth in fright when I fell, but she realized that it was all ok.

This past weekend, she decided that she would try it. She trimmed her nails and put on one of the other climbers adjustable harness. She went in regular sneakers as no one had climbing shoes anywhere near the size of her dainty feet.  She climbed the first one, a 5.8 of about 13 meters, with only a little hesitation in the middle. We talked her through where and how to go and she was elated when she reached the top. She did the second one, beforebragging about how easy it would be. She was right. She scampered right up it. She did great, considering she didn’t even have the right shoes.

We went back into town right after coming off the mountain and I bought her a proper pair of climbing shoes. Looks like I have another climbing partner.