South Korea

The main reason for my recent trip to South Korea was to catch the cherry blossoms, and it was to my slight dismay that the weather was unusually cold the week I was there. As a result, I was slightly too early for the cherry blossoms in Seoul, and slightly too late for the cherry blossoms in Gyeongju. Oh, there were outliers I got to see assuredly, but I didn’t get to experience the peak of the cherry blossoms, that is to walk through an avenue of cherry trees with flowers in full bloom, ground littered with fallen petals, and petals falling down almost like snow. Something to look forward to in future, I guess.

The photo albums are ready for viewing, and to accompany them I’d like to recount an experience for each of the cities I visited:

Busan

According to Lonely Planet, Spa Land is “the largest public bath in Asia, perhaps the world”. And this is where I spent about 3+ hours soaking and relaxing in the spa’s 22 hot spring bathtubs and 13 distinctively-themed saunas. The spa uses two different kinds of water: Sodium Bicarbonate Hot Spring which supposedly removes dead skin cells and makes the skin and hair shiny, and Sodium Chloride Hot Spring which supposedly is good for blood circulation and helps to relieve pain and aches. I thoroughly enjoyed the one-person jacuzzi-style “water massage beds” – just imagine a shallow tub to lie in with strong water jets from below and all sides. 😉 I also spent about 5 minutes in each of the saunas, e.g. Finnish Sauna, Yellow Earth Room, Roman Room, Pyramid Room, Body Sound Room, Wave-Dream Room, Hard Wood Charcoal Room, Hamam Room, Bali Room…

Gyeongju

Tohamsan is a mountain containing two Buddhist World Heritage Sites, namely Bulguksa Temple and Seokguram Grotto. I know of Christians who are uncomfortable (or even don’t condone) going to non-Christian places of worship, but I’m not affected in any way as I view it as visiting historical pieces of culture. Besides, the ground I walk on and the rooms I enter are sanctified because of Christ who is in me. Anyway, call it coincidence if you wish to, but it actually hailed (yes, ice precipitation) for about 5 minutes while I was at Seokguram Grotto, and it was just at the time I was under the cover of the only shelter in the whole area, which is the grotto itself. The grotto is small enough that most of the tour groups and pilgrims would not have fit in, and they ended up running back about 1 km to the entrance of the grounds (no shelter along the way) when it suddenly started to rain/hail. When the sky cleared soon after, I stepped outside the grotto to see that the grounds, which was initially full of noisy kids and tourists, was completely empty – perfect for my photos! I couldn’t help but feel loved and smile at the “irony” of the situation. There is a video clip of the hail in my album.

Seoul

In South Korea, some of the shower heads have an additional button that needs to be pressed to turn on the water (apart from the usual tap), and one might accidentally press the button while showering which will cut off the water supply. To the uninitiated, this would appear as though the water supply had run out, or the tap had spoilt, and no turning of the tap one way or the other could make any water appear. So I went down to inform reception that the shower was spoilt (no way was I going to bathe with a pail), and of course the young guy (the place is like a hostel) was surprised and came up with me to check it out. It didn’t take more than 5 seconds for him to grab the shower head, press the button, and the water came gushing out…