gyeongju.
gyeongju is the old silla dynasty (about 56 BCE to 800 CE) capital. it's on the south east coast of korea, just up from busan.
it is now a city with a history of trauma.
"we need to get out of seoul" has been the refrain. seoul is huge, dirty and smoggy. busy, pushy and loud. one may remember a trip to masan i spoke of, where we attended lex spahr's birthday. we sat on her balcony (she has a BALCONY - a rare commodity) and just sat there getting high off unfettered oxygen for hours.
it's much the same in gyeongju. no heavy industry, no smog, in fact you can even smell FLORA (and fauna-i smelled cowshit and felt like i was in langley or something) there.
for 100 dollars one can take the KTX bullet train to daegu, then get on a commuter train - basically an above ground subway - for the last hour to gyeongju (mom, mark, dad, this is where i phoned you from). the KTX is vastly superior.
not only do you travel at speeds of up to 300 km/h...
you can take DUMPS at speeds of up to 300 km/h. on a plane, sure it's faster... but it's so much cooler to be doing it on land and thinking it goes out a pipe in the bottom of the train... onto the tracks. landspeed dump record.
once again, i must reiterate the difference between train travel in the east and west. in the east, they sell BEER. we took advantage of this at 9am. how else do you get through four hours of ajumosity?
gyeongju is nice. just nice. it's on the east sea (or sea of japan - if you're korean, you say it EAST SEA! with a chip on your shoulder), so the air is as fresh as in vancouver. we quickly made our way to two historical sites, seokkuram grotto, a buddhist shrine up on a mountain, and bulguksa temple, one of the oldest temples in korea.
now is when i mention that we are, yet again, travelling with ryan sabourin, the all-canadian fucktard. i love this man like the down's-syndromed little brother i never had. why? aram once said to a mutual friend "the good thing about sean is that he doesn't give a shit. if he thinks there's a laugh in it, he'll do it and he doesn't care who's watching". now imagine that times googleplex and you have mr. DUDE LASERS himself.
keep in mind this photo was taken at a buddhist shrine. this is the souvenir shop AT A BUDDHIST SHRINE. this is how weird korea gets. "mom, i'm feeling so serene here at seokguram grotto... can you please buy me a space-gun? a stuffed monkey? a battle axe?"
that night we attended another korean style nightclub much like the one i described a month or so ago in yeonsinnae... it was just as gay as the previous, but this one had a SEXY DANCING exhibition so we just couldn't say no. sexy dancing? we're IN! at first i had thought the sign said contest so i was EXTRA stoked, because i was a shoo-in. but no... it was just this guy and his two korean hoochie mamas dancing and lipsyncing to bad k-pop. rather anticlimactic.
sunday was even more fun. after an early rise and a breakfast we rented electric scooters to putt around bomun lake. it was a nice day, families were out for some beach festival.
putt-putting around bomun lake sounded fun. so fun, in fact, that ryan and derek saw fit to enhance said fun with about 6 bottles of soju.
i like to drink. i like to get drunk. I WILL NOT TOUCH SOJU WITH A TEN FOOT POLE WITH A CONDOM ON THE END OF IT. no way. it is the most vile shit known to man, and the root cause of about 75% of korea's problems. no thanks. ryan and derek see things rather differently.
so we went riding. another bottle of soju. another bottle. another.
and then this:
and then this.
and this.
http://lonelybullet.com/oleary/ryandrunk.avi
yeah. the rule of drinking responsibly: always drink with people who are strong and willing enough to carry you. since ryan only weighs about 65 pounds this is no big deal. i think the quote from one of the innocent bystanders to jyoung-ah - who speaks korean - was "wow, i've never seen a foreigner drink like a korean before!"
and that speaks volumes. i'll post more later.
