Buddha's (Belated) Birthday

Korea, along with many countries, actually celebrated the Buddha's Birthday (seok ga tan shin il) last Thursday, but I have been too busy/lazy to do a post about it yet, so here I am finally getting around to doing so. It was a public holiday in Korea, so I didn't have to work and took the opportunity to visit Gyeongju again with my friend Areum. Even though the weather report was threatening rain, the morning was positively beautiful, which meant that vacationing people from all over Korea headed to Gyeongju, perhaps the most popular domestic tourist destination, resulting in a little traffic jam. After my bus driver negotiated his way through that, Areum treated me to lunch at the most famous sun dubu jjigae restaurant in the city (sun dubu jjigae is a sort of very spicy stew made with soft tofu and, in this region of Korea at least, seafood. Sometimes, restaurants serve it with a raw egg dropped inside which quickly cooks in the rapidly boiling soup. It is fast becoming my favorite Korean dish). It was there that I encountered my first really xenophobic locals who were angered that the waitstaff served me and Areum before them, asking her "So, he gets special preference because he's American or something?" Incidentally, we were seated closer to the kitchen, but it didn't keep the angry couple from staring daggers at me for the rest of the meal. Oddly enough, it was a refreshing experience for me. After lunch we wandered lackadaisically around the city and the Bomun lake area, ending up here at the waterwheel:

It was then that the rain that had been predicted finally arrived. Having been overly optimistic, I had left my umbrella at home. Fortunately, Areum was wiser than me. We sought refuge in a tea house in the new downtown with an eclectic display of kitsch from all over the world. We tried a tea unlike anything I've ever had; at first, it had a mild, green-tea-ish flavor, followed by a natural sweetness. Quite enjoyable. It was then time for us to part ways, she north to Pohang and me south to Ulsan and the elaborate lantern displays lining the boulevards.