Weekend in Gyeongju

Last weekend we had a wonderful time in Gyeongju, a mountainous coastal city in the SE of the peninsula. This is a smaller city, more like a town, surrounded by beautiful mountains, many of which are home of UNESCO World Heritage sites. The oldest and largest Buddhist temple in Korea is on Bulguska mountain, and we decided not to miss it. Along with some friends we rented motorbikes for the afternoon and cruised around, it was a blast! Driving in the downtown was a little scary at first, cause it's madness on these streets, but we managed to get out of the city, to the open road, winding up the mountains and lined with blooming cherry blossom trees. The slightest breeze would cause the petals to fall around making it a truly remarkable scene. The sun was out, our only hope for warmth on the crisp spring day, as we climbed higher up the cool mountain.

We hiked in to the highest mountain temple. To celebrate Buddhas birthday, which is coming up in about a week, there are lanterns decorating the streets and buildings, with lots of festivals planned. The lantern display at Bulguksa was remarkable, the whole place was remarkable and exotic, the view from up there was stellar (the sea!), the fresh air, the blooming flowers, the buildings themselves, the monks singing, the breeze blowing, the newness of it all! This is why I travel... for the adventure, to collect all the new memories, and to see the ways of life that I can not see at home. 

We cruised back down the winding mountain roads, feeling much more comfortable on our bikes, and enjoying the warming air with each steep S curve we traversed. One more stop at a famous temple, marked on Koreas currency, and crowded with tourists, then back to sea level!

After returning the bikes we did what we usually do when traveling anywhere: eat exotic food! And lots of it! Jeanie, a native Korean who we were traveling with, is from this region, so she was able to help us find the best, most obscure and dirty gogi restaurant in town. It was incredible! Whole octopus and thick cut pork, grilled bananas and garlic, tons of greens and a whole lot of soju were how we celebrated the winding down a a great trip.

We stayed in town in a traditional Korean home, with a detached guesthouse in their garden. They provided sleeping mats and we all slept on the heated floor. The older couple who lived there were both artists and the large open room was lined with their art. The place was really beautiful in the early morning sunlight. 

And the grey afternoon as well! 

I am not sure how to explain this one, but I had to share it and mention that I am glad that these are the only chickens I have to be dealing with these days.... 

random statues

I hope you enjoyed these stories... more to come soon. 

In the meantime be good and try to enjoy each moment!

Love.

spring has sprung

In the spirit of all things blooming, I would like to share my joy that it is not longer bitterly cold, and actually it's warming up fast! The flowers are ALL beginning to bud and bloom, in this concrete jungle it was hard to imagine so much color popping up everywhere, but not even the strongest concrete can harness the spring, waiting all year to burst with so much life! I really love every season for some reason, but there is so much comfort in spring, things are alive again, ready to grow. I can relate to these flowers right now, as in the winter I felt some grey clouds, now I feel the energy of new things, new growth, and some good ol' vitamin D! Happy Spring everyone, I hope it is a time of growth and beauty for you.....

cherry blossoms!

Spring is here.... along with the option to leave my coat at home, there is a beautiful pink and white glow to the city, streets are lined with and mountains are covered in cherry trees, and they are all blooming right now! Please enjoy some of these sights I have been lucky to have:

Yangjae Flower Market

We found this nice flower market near our neighborhood, the largest in the city! There were buildings upon buildings of flowers and trees and plants.... a nice escape from the concrete jungle in which we live. We couldn't help but grab a lot of plants ourselves, which made for a silly and cumbersome taxi ride home, but we managed, and now our house is to closer to the jungle status that I love!

Inspiration for the name of our blog

In the theme of music, another great site is symphonyofscience.com. Above is the first song we discovered on this website which transforms scientists and philosophers voices into music. There are many songs made, as it is an ongoing project, this one is very catchy.

Some music love for all you music lovers!!

I spend my idle time online "surfing the web" for new and interesting music. Often I am led astray or I spend way too much time searching for that one song I can't remember the title or artist of, yet there are times I find these gems, and I would like to share them with you. So please enjoy my favorite music websites and blogs!

I love KBOO! Lucky for me they are available streaming online, or I would be having kboo withdrawals. The local, grass roots, liberal, free speech, volunteer run kick-ass radio station from good ol' SE Portland, this radio station has so much great stuff, music and otherwise. Support your local KBOO!

Some music blogs that I love are listed below.

Aurgasm: most of the music reviewed and highlighted on this site is listen worthy, and furthermore, all of it is available for free down load, right from the site, so check out their archives and genre list.  The main writers periodically make sweet mixes as well. 

ZZK Records: I discovered this label last summer by going on a whim to a show at Rotture and being overwhelmed by the goodness of the sound and energy. I think they had been described in some concert fliers as "cumbia dubstep", and that indeed they were, and so much more, these guys work together to create a huge world beat sound, very heavy on the bass. 

Furl Tracks: I have to give this shout out to my friend, the furl #1, Noah Mock for creating and maintaining a sweet blog that highlights obscure gems from the 60's, 70's, and 80's. From Afrobeat to Garage, and Psyche to Soul to Metal, Furl tracks is a good stop for learning about something you should already know. 

Abstract Earth Project: For my Portland poeple... this is essential for finding the best electronic/DJ shows in Portland. I can't even look at this website without instantly feeling jealous and wishing for the Portland music scene to be instantly transported to Seoul. So my lucky friends, just about every show on here is worth going to, and they have a nifty free music section!


Pelski: I just recently discovered this blog, and found it to be highlighting loads of music that I already love, while mentioning quite a lot that I didn't know. Based out of the UK. There is a long list of all the artists reviewed on the left side of the page, pretty sweet. 

In addition to the myriad of cool music blogs to be perused, there are some great music resources. Here are some that I frequent regularly:

Soundcloud is a place where artist of any genre and level of popularity can drop their tracks and see them visualized, search for a song, or explore the genre list. Most songs are available for free download, just look for the link that says "download" right on the track player. 

8 tracks I love this site, I don't know how long it has been around, but I'm sorry that I didn't know about it years ago! I have been selecting random mixes from here for about a year, and am hoping to start adding some of my own very soon. One of my favorite mixes right now is: Afrocentric give it a listen if you have time! 

As always, youtube.com has a wealth of cool videos, you just have to weed through the vast sea of lame or poorly done videos. Be diligent! Here's a cool one that caught my eye last year from the amazing poet, writer, and musician Gil Scott-Heron, back on the scene after a 16 year hiatus.

"I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music."  ~ George Eliot (1819-1880)