Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Happy Birthday!
Indian: Happy Birthday Buddha!
Korean: Happy Birthday Booda!
May 26th, was Gautum Buddha's birthday - for the uninformed (you lowly peasents), one major Korean festival, a national holiday (yeay!)
Like in true Korean tradition we (Avi and me) kicked off the birthday with 3 bottles of Soju (the traditional Korean vodka) and one helluva mega-super-duper-genetically-modified chicken! (Well, OK - not Korean tradition, but what the heck!) Totally drunk, we were trying to make sense out of "A Big Fat Greek Wedding" :-)
Conked off at about 5:00 in the morning. Got up at 1:00 in the afternoon, with a sick taste in my mouth - what a crappy way to start a national holiday... had bananas to calm my stomach and headed for the lab.
I was barely five minutes into my work (alright, I was checking my mail - so what?!) and Joshi popped in [Ed: I forgot to tell, he was drunk like a stone last night - before Avi and I had even started drinking. Apparently he ended up with a bet in a bar and you can guess the rest...] So we go down for a coffee - Joshi, Me, Ganeshan & Ganesh Kumar.
One thing led to another and before I know it, I had borrowed a digital camera from the lab (Thanks Jung Eun), and the four of us were on a cab to Bul-Guk-Sa. Struck a deal with the taxi driver at ee-man-o-cheon Wons :-D Muahahaha - you measly, lowly non-Koreans - dont know counting in Korean do you - that's 25,000 Wons.
Well, Bul-Guk-Sa is a temple in Kyeong-Ju (the capital of the ancient Shilla Dynasty) and that's all I know about it :-) Well one more thing actually - "Sa" in Korean means temple.
I know I'll fail at describing the sight at Bul-Guk-Sa, but I'll give it a shot. It was BEAUTIFUL. Thousands and thousands of round balloon shaped lamps. Rows and rows of lamps - all around. In the gardens, along the paths, on the trees. Every-fucking-where. And an equal number of people in that temple there. It was crowded.
We went inside the main temple, it was a big square thing, with the main temple in the middle flanked by corridors on all four sides. Rows of lamps hung from ropes supported by sticks all around the courtyard.
As soon as we stepped in - a monk started playing a huge drum rhythmically and after that they started their prayers. A monotonic chant while beating a small round "pot" making a high pitched percussion sound. It could've been soothing had it not been for the crowd there.
As it began to grow darker the temple became prettier. Everyone started lighting candles in the lamps. I chipped in and must've lighted aroung 50-60 lamps. It was fun.
As night fell, the view became breathtaking. Impossible to describe. You should take a look at the photographs probably.
The snaps are not really good cuz the digital camera really sucked! It took down with it 8 AA batteries. It was a real hog and had space for ~30 snaps only. And the focusing was not great either. Anyways I tried some stuff and the snaps are lookable - nothing great though. I'm carrying a regular film camera wherever I go next time.
Take a look at the snaps here.
Have fun.
Korean: Happy Birthday Booda!
May 26th, was Gautum Buddha's birthday - for the uninformed (you lowly peasents), one major Korean festival, a national holiday (yeay!)
Like in true Korean tradition we (Avi and me) kicked off the birthday with 3 bottles of Soju (the traditional Korean vodka) and one helluva mega-super-duper-genetically-modified chicken! (Well, OK - not Korean tradition, but what the heck!) Totally drunk, we were trying to make sense out of "A Big Fat Greek Wedding" :-)
Conked off at about 5:00 in the morning. Got up at 1:00 in the afternoon, with a sick taste in my mouth - what a crappy way to start a national holiday... had bananas to calm my stomach and headed for the lab.
I was barely five minutes into my work (alright, I was checking my mail - so what?!) and Joshi popped in [Ed: I forgot to tell, he was drunk like a stone last night - before Avi and I had even started drinking. Apparently he ended up with a bet in a bar and you can guess the rest...] So we go down for a coffee - Joshi, Me, Ganeshan & Ganesh Kumar.
One thing led to another and before I know it, I had borrowed a digital camera from the lab (Thanks Jung Eun), and the four of us were on a cab to Bul-Guk-Sa. Struck a deal with the taxi driver at ee-man-o-cheon Wons :-D Muahahaha - you measly, lowly non-Koreans - dont know counting in Korean do you - that's 25,000 Wons.
Well, Bul-Guk-Sa is a temple in Kyeong-Ju (the capital of the ancient Shilla Dynasty) and that's all I know about it :-) Well one more thing actually - "Sa" in Korean means temple.
I know I'll fail at describing the sight at Bul-Guk-Sa, but I'll give it a shot. It was BEAUTIFUL. Thousands and thousands of round balloon shaped lamps. Rows and rows of lamps - all around. In the gardens, along the paths, on the trees. Every-fucking-where. And an equal number of people in that temple there. It was crowded.
We went inside the main temple, it was a big square thing, with the main temple in the middle flanked by corridors on all four sides. Rows of lamps hung from ropes supported by sticks all around the courtyard.
As soon as we stepped in - a monk started playing a huge drum rhythmically and after that they started their prayers. A monotonic chant while beating a small round "pot" making a high pitched percussion sound. It could've been soothing had it not been for the crowd there.
As it began to grow darker the temple became prettier. Everyone started lighting candles in the lamps. I chipped in and must've lighted aroung 50-60 lamps. It was fun.
As night fell, the view became breathtaking. Impossible to describe. You should take a look at the photographs probably.
The snaps are not really good cuz the digital camera really sucked! It took down with it 8 AA batteries. It was a real hog and had space for ~30 snaps only. And the focusing was not great either. Anyways I tried some stuff and the snaps are lookable - nothing great though. I'm carrying a regular film camera wherever I go next time.
Take a look at the snaps here.
Have fun.
