Tokyo! Part 1 (well overdue)

We flew out of Gimpo airport early Saturday afternoon, 12/27. Apparently if you fly into Haneda airport in Tokyo from Korea, you have to leave from Gimpo, and if you fly into Narita Airport (the larger of the two Japanese airports), you leave from Incheon (the larger of the two Korean airports). When we arrived at the airport, we decided to go through security first, and then find some breakfast. It's a good thing we did, because Kathryn hadn't updated her visa, and as we were going through immigration (which is always a slightly harrowing affair), she was asked to go purchase a single entry pass so she could leave and come back. Dayna and I didn't know this until after she came back from a room with one door and no windows, so we were very glad it was something a little bit of won was able to take care of.

The flight itself was uneventful - we had a nice lunch served on the 90 minute flight, and landed in Haneda. We had decided not to check our bags so that we wouldn't have to wait for them at the baggage claim, so we headed to immigration, and then to purchase our train tickets. Our plan was to spend the night in Tokyo, and then leave the next day for Kyoto, where we had booked a hostel for two nights. We had spent quite a bit of time researching train tickets, and had found a cheaper alternative to the Shinkansen train - the bullet train that connects most of the country. The Shinkansen would have cost us about 28,000 yen each (about $280), while the train tickets we purchased were only 23,000 yen for all three of us (about $77). After getting our tickets, we got a map of the Tokyo subway (SO confusing!), and directions on how to get to our hostel in Asakusa.

While looking at the rather daunting ticket machine, a man came up to us and asked, in English, if we needed help. We gladly told him yes, and he helped us buy our tickets, and even made sure we got on the right train. The metro in Tokyo is similar to the one in Seoul, but slightly smaller, and much quieter.

Dayna and her luggage inside a Tokyo metro car

It's illegal to talk on your cellphone on the metro, and there are signs everywhere reminding you to turn off your cell phone (not even just silence it!). It's very clean, and there are signs in the station to remind you not to drink and ride:

A polite sign reminding you to "please do it at home". Get drunk and pass out, that is.

We arrived in the early evening, and were thrilled with what we saw as soon as we got off the subway. The metro entrances are often well hidden in Tokyo, and are sometimes under buildings or in side streets, and not marked with large signs announcing their presence. The stop in Asakusa could easily be mistaken for the entrance to the mechanical room of a building, and it dumped us out onto a side street in what is considered "Old Tokyo", or Shitamachi.

We were greeted within 5 minutes by a group of jinricksha drivers who wanted to take us on a riding tour of Asakusa for only 2,000 yen for 10 minutes. We politely declined, since we wanted to check into our hostel, and $20 is a bit much for ten minutes (and the rickshas only take 2 and there were 3 of us).

Jinrickshas near our hostel.

We had very detailed directions to the hostel, and were amazed by the buildings and people that we saw as we walked.

Kathryn and Dayna in front of the Kaminarimon in Asakusa

We headed towards the Senso-ji, which is a temple that, according to legend, houses an image of the Buddhist goddess of mercy - Kannon. There was a large red gate that we had to walk by called the Kaminarimon, or Thunder Gate, next to a 5 story pagoda that I fell in love with. Past the gate was a small garden, with statues, a koi pond, and small shrine-like structures. Our directions then took us through a market street called Nakamise-dori, with just about every type of Japanese souvenir imaginable.

Nakamise-dori

We got slightly lost when we were looking for the amusement park, since it was not what we would have considered the western version of such things. But our timing was perfect, because when we finally found it and were walking by, there was a ninja street show being performed that looked like something out of an anime cartoon. We watched for a few minutes (not understanding any of what they were saying of course), before continuing towards our hostel.

Everybody was ninja fighting!

The people at our hostel were very nice, and gave us our sheets and instructions on how to get to the room. This was the first hostel I've ever been in. The costs are kept down because many of the conveniences of a standard hotel are absent, such as your bed being made for you, a private bathroom, or even private rooms. We happened to have a 4 bed room to ourselves for the night.

Yay bunk beds! Kathryn was more happy about it than she looks.

The beds were very comfortable, the blankets warm, and the room small but serviceable. There was a kitchen and a common room on the main floor, and computers you could use for a fee. We were starving, so after stashing our stuff in the room, we headed out for something to eat.

Wandering around looking for food made me feel like I had when I first arrived in Korea. I had no idea how to read the writing on the menus posted outside, and unless there was a picture of each item, we passed by with hardly a second glance. We probably roamed around for about 20 minutes before finally finding a place that we thought we could order from. It was a small Indian restaurant, and the one man working there spoke a little English. He took our drinks, made our meal, and even consented to having his picture taken.

Kathryn's looking at our Japan book, and Dayna's just looking strange at dinner.

My yummy fried rice.

After dinner, we had planned on going back to the Nakamise-dori to do a bit of window shopping, but it had closed down for the night. We did get to see quite a few traditional Japanese paintings on the metal doors that were covering all the shops.

Geisha painting in Nakamise-dori

We were also pleasantly surprised by how well lit the Senso-ji was lit up at night, and we took tons of pictures that look just like the ones from our travel guide. (By the way, if you ever travel to another country, I highly recommend using a Lonely Planet book. I've used one for almost everywhere I've gone in Korea. They're helpful, accurate, easy to follow, and they're meant for the single traveller on a budget, but mention family outings and higher priced items, too.)

Senso-ji area at night

We headed back to our hostel around 9 or 10, and noticed the rather odd and brightly painted graffiti on the walls near where we were staying.

Dayna and I in front of the colorful paintings by our hostel

There were also tons of bikes lined up against the walls. We couldn't figure out if they were rented, or for personal use, or community bikes, but the all looked the same and there was a security man who was policing the area and making sure they were all lined up just-so.

A bunch of bikes lined up, with our hostel in the background

But as we were heading back towards our hostel, we met a semi-creepy man, who decided to talk to us. We tried to keep walking, and kept our answers brief, if we answered at all. He asked us where we were staying, and Kathryn answered "we're not sure", even though we were a stone's throw from the entrance of our hostel. He mentioned he was staying there (oops!), and we just sort of nodded and kept walking. Which is how we came across the seediest, gaudiest, coolest looking "love motel" I've ever seen. The prices were listed outside by the hour, or by the night.

Askakusa's version of a love motel

After a sufficient time gawking at the hotel (and my semi-brave trek down the steps to see inside, only to be frightened away by an automated talking door and a couple coming out of the elevator), we headed back in for the night, easily avoiding our creepy neighbor.

The next morning we woke up leisurely around 8am, and checked out of the hostel. They were kind enough to let us check out, and then store our bags downstairs while we wandered around Asakusa. We planned on seeing a bit of the area, and then heading to Kyoto, where we had booked two nights at a hostel. We explored the area around Senso-ji for about an hour.

A temple roof and Buddhist statue near Senso-ji

Smoking is not allowed while you're walking on the street. You have to stand by one of these bins, and put your cigarette but inside when you're done. Everyone that we saw seemed to abide by these:

Smoking bins

We saw a tourist information center, so we headed inside to find out where we could catch the train we had tickets for to get to Kyoto. After a short wait, we spoke to the man and woman behind the counter, who laughed because apparently someone had been in earlier with the same tickets we had with the same question, and they weren't able to find any information for them. They suggested we try a travel agent down the street. The travel agent was closed, so we headed back to the tourist center. After a much longer wait, we were becoming a bit impatient with the long-winded people in front of us and the lack of staff (where had the nice man gone?). When it was finally our turn again, we convinced the woman to let us use her computer to find the exact name of the train we were trying to find. Well, it turns out that the tickets we had were for a train that takes 9 hours to get from Tokyo to Kyoto. Since we were only going to be there two days, this pretty much made the tickets worthless to us - why travel somewhere for 18 hours when you're going to be there less than 48 hours?

I felt really bad about this, because the trains had been my responsibility to research and book, and I had found this "great deal", but had apparently missed the whole 9 hour part (instead of the two hours that the Shinkansen train takes). Kathryn had booked our first hostel, and Dayna had booked the hostels in Kyoto. I suppose if I had known before hand our trip wouldn't have been much different than it turned out to be because the Shinkansen was so far out of our budget range that we would have just decided ahead of time to stay in Tokyo. I confirmed online that we would be able to get a refund on the tickets, so long as they weren't used, and we thanked the woman for letting us use her computer and then left.

So we headed back to the hostel with the small hope of finding an open room there, but as we expected they were fully booked for the night. We asked to be put on the waiting list, and then Kathryn and I started looking through the Japan book for something to do that day in the area while Dayna made a call to our hostel that we had planned on staying in on our last night. Luckily they had a few rooms available, so we picked up our luggage from downstairs, took our names off the waiting list, and headed out to the maze known as the Tokyo subway.

Buddhist Boot Camp Pt 2

After we talked with the monk, we made our "Dream Pouchee", or dream pouch. The Koreans are really big on "dreams", and a very common question is "What is your dream?" It's kind of like the American version of "What do you want to be when you grow up?", except it's not just for kids. Anyways, they gave us this pouch, and all we really did was to string the tie through the top so that you could pull it closed. This, however, required a diagram on the board and several people walking around to help. After we had made the pouch, we were supposed to write our "dream" on a small card, and put it in the pouch and close it. We also had to put our names on the outside of the pouch so no one's would get mixed up. Then after everyone had finished and put their dream pouches in their pockets ("Keep it close!"), they taught us how to bow.

You start with 'hapjong', or standing straight, with your feet together, and your hands in front of you in a praying type position. Keeping your back straight, you then bend your knees until you are in a kneeling position. Then cross your feet, keeping your knees together, and put your head down to the floor. Move your hands to the side of your face near your ears, first putting them palm down and turn them palm up, and then palm down again. Then sit back up with your back straight and put your hands back into the hapjong position. Uncross your feet, and without using your hands, push off your knees back into a standing position. This is generally repeated a minimum of 108 times.

After we finished the pouches, around 9:30, we headed outside into the freezing cold and walked up a rather steep side of a mountain to the Jeokmyulbogung, another building on the premises. When we got to the top of the mountain, there were strings of lotus lanterns all lit up towards the building.



When we got inside, we were instructed that we would be doing the 108 bows. The first 50 would be done together to the beat of an instrument, and then afterward we could do the rest at our own pace. I was able to do about 25 or so before my knees started to protest, so after that I simply bowed at the waist each time they hit the bell. I stopped bowing all together after the first 50, but about half the people there completed all 108.



After the bowing, we were taken part way back down the hill to where we were sleeping, the girls in one room and the boys in another. It was traditional yo, which is mats, or in our case blankets, on the floor. They gave us whole warm baked potatoes for a bed time snack, and asked us to have the lights out by 10pm, as we were to get up at 3am to start the next day.


Usually sleeping on the floor isn't that bad because of the ondol, or under-floor heating. It actually makes for cozy sleeping arrangements when it's cold outside. It is not cozy, however, when you have the ondol turned up all the way, and the floor is so hot that it burns you if you touch it with your bare skin. And so this was the way I fitfully tried to sleep through the night, already having a pretty bad cold made worse by going in and out of the cold air and warm buildings. They came and woke us up at 3am, saying that we needed to be at the Bubundang building at 3:30 for the "dawn devotional chanting". I was in no condition to wake up, and respectfully asked if I could skip the yebul (chanting) and wake up in time for the breakfast. I was allowed to go back to sleep, which was rather hard considering they didn't turn down the heat at all and I was sweating in my bed. Everyone came back around 5:45 after meditation and chanting (which I'm glad I missed, because apparently there was a considerable amount of bowing as well). We walked back down to the Heungnungwon building for a traditional Temple-style breakfast, called Balwoo Gongyang. The sun was just coming up.


We had to watch a video before we ate that showed us the proper way to eat the food. There is a specific order that you have to undo the bowls and napkins that you are given, and a very specific way to eat your food. You only take what you will eat, as it is an insult to the people that made the food for you not to finish. You also have to clean your bowls when you are finished, with a yellow radish, and then eat the radish, otherwise that's wasted as well. They're pretty strict about eating everything you take, they actually walked around the room and made several people finish their food that really didn't feel up to it.



After a silent, regimented, and rather unappetizing breakfast, we were allowed free time for an hour. Most of us slept. Then we made lotus lanterns, which was actually quite fun, and made for a lovely decoration for my apartment when I got home.



After we finished the lanterns, we hung them outside to dry, and then headed back up to the Yaksajeon to make bowing beads. We were each given a small plastic bag with string, and 109 beads inside. We had to melt the ends of the string and pull it to a point so we could put the beads on it. Then we were supposed to do one bow for each bead we put on. They said that if you couldn't do one for each, you could do two or three beads for each bow, but no more than 5 at a time. So you bow (from standing to kneeling and then standing again), and then kneel down and put one bead on the string. Then stand up and do it again.


I did my beads 5 at a time.


I counted them carefully each time I put them on the string, but after counting the whole thing three times, I only had 107 beads. So I had to go ask for one more. After everyone had finished putting their beads together, the monk that had talked to us the day before came back and spoke to us again, thanking us for taking part in the program, and saying that he was happy that we all participated fully and hoped we had a good time. Then we followed him around the room about 6 times, chanting vowel sounds, and then we hung our dream pouches on the wall (you can see them in this picture behind the monk).


When we had all finished, we headed outside for a group photo with the monk.



Then we were done, so we headed back to the main building to change into our own clothes, and get on the bus. The people that I went with were pretty tired, and once we'd gotten back to 'civilization', it was a unanimous vote to go for coffee before getting on the subway to go back home to a hot shower and a real bed.

I definitely recommend a temple stay to anyone who wants to be convinced that they never want to become a Korean monk. Or if you want to exercise your knees. Or if you enjoy getting up before the sun. Or if you like a militant environment in the guise of a restful retreat. Otherwise, just enjoy the temples as a tourist. :)

Buddhist Boot Camp Pt 1

I signed up a few weeks ago to go to a Buddhist Temple Stay. This is a program that the multiple temples around South Korea have started to allow people who are interested in learning more about Buddhism and the life of a monk to experience it first hand. Although most of the larger temples have a Temple Stay program, only a few allow a single person to make a reservation, and quite a few more require 15 or more people and a week's notice.

One of my friends suggested that we go as a group with Adventure Korea, so about 7 of us signed up for a trip to Bubheungsa (법훙사). Since the temple is in the province to the east of us, and about a 3 hour drive from Seoul, we had to catch the bus at 9:30am on Saturday (meaning that I had to be on the subway by 8am, so on a bus to get to the subway by 7:30 am). I was able to take the metro with Kathryn, one of the girls I'd met at my Wednesday night dinners, and one of the people I'm going to Japan with.

There were 30 people on the trip, and we all got to the temple with nothing exciting happening on the way. We did arrive at the temple about an hour early, so our guides brought us to a nearby river, where we walked up the side of a mountain to get a better view, and found a pagoda and buddhist rock carving.

(Dayna, Vincent, Maria, Kathryn, me)

We then wandered down to the river, which had some really cool stones that had been eroded from the elements.

(Lauren, me, Kathryn, and Dayna)

When we got to the temple around 3pm, we were given a white shirt and navy pants to change into (they called it a training suit), a key to a cupboard to keep our stuff, and a name tag. The girls changed in one room, while the boys changed next door, none of us realizing at the time that the rooms were a sliding paper door apart from each other.

(me and Dayna posing zen style, with our cupboards and a vacuum behind us)

During the orientation in this same room, we learned about proper manners in the temple, and a little bit about the temple itself. It was a little difficult to follow, because our guide only spoke Korean, so every sentence or so was translated by another guide, whose vocabulary was excellent, but whose accent was a bit hard to decipher. We were also give a temple stay schedule, which is the only reason I'm able to remember the order and times that we did everything! (They stuck to the schedule almost exactly.)

At 4:20, we did walking meditation in the "Forest for enlightening Intelligence". Walking meditation is simply walking VERY slowly, and concentrating only on the act of walking, and not thinking about anything. This is much more difficult than it seems. It looks, to a casual observer, like a mourners' procession, since everyone is supposed to be walking silently and slowly, with their head bowed and hands crossed.

One of the hard parts was not thinking about anything except your walking. We walked for about half an hour, but didn't really get that far. That's a long time to think about nothing but your feet. The other hard part was, oddly enough, the walking itself. You had to walk slowly, but continuously. So you actually spent quite a bit of time balanced on one foot with the other in the air, on it's way to the next step. Quite a few people stumbled on their first step because they were so unused to the balance required to walk like this.

After the walking meditation, we had dinner in the dining hall around 5pm. The meal itself wasn't half bad. We were told ahead of time that any food we served to ourselves had to be eaten - we weren't allowed to have leftovers, as this was rude to the people who had spent time preparing the meal. We also had to wash our own plates and silverware, and return them to where we got them from.

After dinner we had Yebul, which is a devotional chanting. We pretty much all sat in front of a large projection screen with a picture of one of the alters at the temple, while one of the monks chanted and beat a wooden-instrument. When she beat it three times, we were supposed to bow (which is a seven step process, and very hard on the knees), and when she beat it once, we were supposed to stand up.

After the chanting meditation, we took a freezing walk up the hill, where they showed us a bell that's wrung in the morning and at night. We were allowed to help ring the bell two at a time.


When we came back to the orientation building, we had hot tea with another monk, who told us a little bit about Buddhism and about the temple we were staying in. There was only time at the end for three questions.

Hot tea served in bowls

That's the life

I've spent the last week or so making both mental and physical preparations for two changes: I moved apartments (again), and both James and Cherita left to go home this weekend.

I suppose it's the nature of people who move to a foreign country to be a bit transient, but it makes it doubly hard when you've made a strong connection with someone who leaves to the opposite side of the world. The ex-pat community is very tight here, both in Uijeongbu and around the country. It's difficult to make the transition into a completely different culture, and having a network of like-minded people makes it both bearable, and enjoyable.

I never truly understood why there were places like Chinatown, or other equally concentrated areas of immigrants living near each other. I always felt that if you were going to live in another country, you should be making every possible effort to learn about the culture and not only immerse yourself in it, but become a part of it (without losing your own heritage of course). I always thought that areas like this made it harder for foreigners to become acclimated to their new home. I now completely understand why these communities exist. Though you may have made a vow to become as enlightened and immersed as possible in your new culture, you will never really be an integral part of it. You will cling to your heritage and your culture, as much as you yearn to understand your new one. This can only be done successfully if you have a support system of people from your native country who not only hold the same general beliefs (and accents) that you do, but at the same time are open enough to want to experience as much of the new culture as they can.

So when the biggest part of my support system left me halfway though my contract, I feel like a large chunk of me has left with them. Though I have made several other friends here (two of which I'm going to Japan with. Wohoo!), the daily contact and closeness acheived with a coworker won't be easily replaced.

That having been said - I love my new apartment! It has a couch!!