A sidetrip to Korea

Here are just a few pics from my venture to Korea this past week. It was our fall break here at KCJS and my roommate, Andrew, and I took a week-long trip to South Korea. Here's a quick rundown of our itinerary: First we arrived in Seoul and spent the night with one of my friends from high school, Matt Hecker. He's over there teaching english and living in a pretty spacious (by Japanese standards) apartment and enjoying 7,000 Won all you can eat yakiniku buffets. In fact, he took us to his favorite spot the first night I got there and the food was delicious and one of the best bargains I had on the whole trip.

The next day I explored some of the old palaces in Seoul and walked around some of the Lonely-Planet recommended parts of the city. They have a great riverwalk area that they're trying to develop and that was really fun to hang around. My first impressions of Seoul were not that great because it seemed like any other city with not much character, but after walking around and learning a bit more about the different neighborhoods of the city, my opinion changed and I think that overall it's a pretty nice city. Not necessarily somewhere that I really want to go out of my way to get back to again, but someplace that I wouldn't mind visiting another time. That night I stayed in a hostel in Hongkik, the university district of Seoul, where there are a bunch of young people and hip shops. Andrew and I tried to eat in a delicious looking restaurant, but we couldn't speak any Korean and didn't know how to order anything. It was from that point on that we decided to stick with LP-recommended digs.


With a guard in front of the palace in Seoul

The next day we woke up early and headed down to the historic city of Gyeongju by bus. It was a long ride, but well worth the visit to Gyeongju. I saw the old tombs and a really famous "Flying Horse" tapestry that is a big symbol of the city. There is also a big park and a pond with beautiful pavilions that reflect in the light of the pond at evening time.
The next day was a full day of historic temples and sites outside of Gyeongju. To Bulguksa and umm another cool temple in a hill. The problem with Korean names for me is that I'm not used to the language and can't really pronounce any of the words correctly, so I can't remember the proper names of places >.< Andrew and I hiked from Bulguksa to the other Grotto temple on a beautiful mountain trail. The leaves are all changing color here, so the forest was aflame with bright red, orange, and yellow leaves making for a great 1-hour, 2.2 Km long hike.


Colorful leaves on the way to Haeinsa

From Gyeongju, it was another bus ride to the city of Daegu (3rd largest in South Korea) where I stayed overnight before heading to Haeinsa temple. Haeinsa is sited in a national park (also full of color-changing leaves) and it is the repository for the Tripitaka, a woodblock set for printing copies of the Buddhist original scriptures. It's really old and took a long long time to make. It was destroyed once, but then they worked again to remake it. The approach to the temple was very beautiful through a forest of changing leaves, but once I actually arrived on the temple grounds I was slightly disappointed because of all the reconstruction work they were doing on the surrounding temples. Overall though, the walk through the grounds in the beautiful scenery was well worth the trip.


Just how corny the DMZ has become

That night we caught a bullet train back to Seoul and went to bed early to get up for our tour of the demilitarized zone the next morning. The DMZ tour was fun and really showcased how the drama with north korea has turned into a huge tourist attraction. The bus took us to the "freedom bridge", which wasn't that exciting and you couldn't see much because it was blocked off anyway. Then I went to the 3rd tunnel where the North Koreans tried to dig their way to attack Seoul. It was interesting to see, but not terribly exciting. We also stopped by the observation post to see the world's tallest flagpole (in North Korea, of course) and then went to eat a delicious Bulgogi lunch.

Now i'm back in the kitchen in Kyoto with a bunch of homework, laundry, and in dire need of a good shower and sleep back in my own bed.

What is This? 8

Spotted: Kyoto Cowboys putting on a Hoedown. What is this?


Answer: A normal Saturday night at Kenny's Bar, a Western-themed cowboy bar complete with cowboy hats and vintage records of classical old Western country music. They even had a Johnny Cash-signed record addressed to the owner's band (the Tennessee 5). Many of the people who come here are normal Japanese people with day jobs like dentists, tax-accountants, and book publishers, but they get their kicks on the weekends at Kenny's. I spoke with some of them and they said that they got in to country music when they listened to it in their youth in post-war Japan when American G.I.s brought it to Japan. Kenny (a.k.a. Kenji Nagatomi) started the country music group, the Tennessee Five, and organizes the annual Country Dream music festival in Kyoto. It was last weekend, but I didn't get a chance to visit it. The music was fun and the people were nice and interesting to talk to. The singers were great, singing with just a hint of a Japanese accent, most of the words were in English. Everything felt pretty normal except when the singers busted out in fluent Japanese.

A Visit to the Moss Temple

So I went to Saiho-ji yesterday, a.k.a. Kokedera or the Moss Temple. It was a pretty fun experience despite the initial stressfulness of trying to get everyone there on time. The thing about visiting Saiho-ji is that because of the sensitivity of the moss, you need to make a reservation with the temple's office by sending in a postcard with prepaid postage and a return postcard with your name and the number of people coming with you and the day you are coming. So I did this for myself and 5 of my friends after figuring out a convenient day for all of us to go.

Yesterday I rode my bike to Saiho-ji with my friend, Melissa, which was like 1:30 away from downtown Kyoto. My other friends said they were going to meet us there so Melissa and I got there at 12:45 for our 1:00 reservation. We tried to enter the temple, but they gate guard wouldn't let us go in until everyone was there. So we waited and Patrick arrived there on time, but the rest of my friends were late. I was a bit impatient and upset because my friends were late and I could hear the sutra chanting and stuff going on from outside the gates. The thing about Saiho-ji is that you have to listen to sutras and copy them before you can enter the really famous garden. So once everyone finally arrived like 20 min late, we rushed in and sat down to copy sutras. I have to say that while concentrating on writing this sutra with calligraphy brush and ink it was very calming and my initial frustration and hurriedness subsided with each character I copied. After you finish copying the sutra, you can go into the garden, which is where the real good stuff is.


The garden is famous for its moss, which covers a large part of the grounds and has many different species of moss in it. It also has a pond with some islands that are supposed to form the character for kokoro (心), but I couldn't see it while walking in the garden. I strolled around in the garden with my friends stopping to take many pictures and briefly sitting by the pond for a while to watch the single orange carp swim lazily through the shallow water. We also went in to one of the 3 tea houses they have in the garden as well, which was nice to see some post-Rikyu tea architecture.

The place was also super-photogenic and the lighting was great, so I took a bunch of nice pictures.


Tree Bark on a Sacred (Shimenawa-bound) Tree


Close-up of Mossy hills

Eastern Design Office, Inc.! & CIP Journal 1

So great news! I had an interview on Monday with the principals of Eastern Design Office, Inc. at their office in Suizome in Kyoto and I will be starting work for them next Monday :) It will be volunteer work mostly consisting of translating some of their essays and written works. Here is a link to their website in case you are interested in checking out their designs: http://www.eastern.e-arc.jp/top_E.html

I have also included in this post my first entry for my CIP (Community Involvement Project) requirement which this volunteer work will fulfill.

CIP Journal #1

Facts
Activity Date: October 5, 2009
Who was there?: Myself, Ms. Anna Nakamura, and Mr. Taiyo Jinno.
What did you do there?: I had an interview with Mr. Jinno and Ms. Nakamura regarding my volunteer work there. They showed me samples of their work and we discussed their recent projects as well as what they would like me to help them with. I also showed them a bit of my portfolio with my architecture work in it from Yale.

What Happened There?
I discussed my opinions of the work that Mr. Jinno and Ms. Nakamura showed me and they explained their current design philosophies that are currently centered around designing with the landscape. They showed me an interesting project of theirs for a house in Takarazuka and I gained a better sense of the type of architecture they are trying to create. I think their current pursuits about landscape are much more interesting than their previous fascination with the “slit”. See their Slit House and previous works that center on using slits and pattern to let light enter a building.
I think they had a good reaction to me and could understand my Japanese for the most part. I had difficulty explaining my architecture projects from my portfolio to them because I did not know the right Japanese vocabulary and grammar patterns to eloquently express my ideas. I think they were interested in my views of architecture and hopefully they were impressed that I have views on architecture that might be insightful to their work and ideas.

Reflections
I was intimidated by the interview setting at first and used very polite Japanese, but I had a little trouble using very polite keigo when I was concentrating on finding the right way to express my architectural thoughts. I think this happened because I do not know the right vocabulary to capture what I really want to say. My level of Japanese is somewhat similar to that of an elementary school student, so I was imagining an elementary school student trying to explain complex architectural concepts to me and I was very self-conscious that what I was saying sounded stupid (not only from content, which I am normally worried about whenever I present my work in front of educated critics) because I lack sophisticated language skills.
Mr. Jinno and Ms. Nakamura’s willingness to work with me to understand each other’s architectural thoughts was encouraging to me because it showed that they were patient and understood that I am still trying to study Japanese. I am very hopeful that I will learn a lot by doing this volunteer work that will help build a foundation for employment in Japan after KCJS is over.
I also discussed my working hours and what I am expected to do for the office at the meeting. I am a little apprehensive about the amount of responsibilities that I might end up undertaking if I do this volunteer work for them. I don’t want it to become overwhelming and take away from my time to study Japanese. I also hope that I can be helpful with my limited knowledge of Japanese in providing adequate translations or confirmations of translations of their works. They explained to me that they tried to submit a writing to an English architecture magazine, but it was rejected because they could not understand the translation. Hopefully such a failure will not occur as the result of my work.

How would you apply what you have learned in the future?
I don’t know how much I learned from this, but I definitely will try to focus on the Japanese words and expressions necessary for me to explain my architectural ideas when showing Japanese people my portfolio. The portfolio is of utmost importance to the hiring process and it is critical that I can express my ideas convincingly in Japanese and this has been added to my list of goals for this program.