Look at the band

Look at the band
Originally uploaded by punk_rock_baby.

Gyeongju Part II:

There was something lovely about escaping Seoul. I hadn’t gone to sleep the night before Gyeongju. I was afraid I would over sleep and miss the bus. I’d be tired, but I didn’t care. I was getting out; going some where new. And I was doing it with friends. The seven of us meet at the Express Bus Terminal to catch the 7:15 bus. I sat next to Zack as we headed out of Seoul, away from cookie cutter, drab, grey apartment buildings. Modern Seoul’s architect is functional, but bare and hardly esthetically pleasing. Only when half masked by night could you call Seoul a beautiful city. It’s laurels rest on having blotted out the stars with it’s light pollution, substituting earthly lights. But no wishes can be made on a burnt out light bulb. This we rode away from in the early morning. Twenty story apartment buildings housing families faded as we moved away leaving only lush green hills.

I love these hills. They’re my first love on arriving in Korea. It was a grey day, my first day. The rain had just cleared. Mist still clung to the hills as we rode into Seoul. They are not like the hills back home, glacier smoothed bumps. These hills, or mini-mountains, have character, personality, and a bold beauty to them. Seoul is in a valley, thus it is surrounded by mountains and hills, but they are marred by man who obscures them with cement bunkers and red neon crosses. It was refreshing to watch unadorned hills whip past as we moved further south. Instead of neon signs, these hills bore farmhouses and burial mounds.

Here death and life are not separate by false or geographic barriers. The green that covers the well tended graves of our grandfathers, also cover the hills of our forefathers, and is beheld by the children of today. The deceased lay next to the fields they once tended. The living farm the land and live next to the ones who bequeathed the land to them. The living tend the dead. These perfectly round mounds with their man made dolmens are maintained by the family. Offerings are made with reverence thorough out the year.As we rode towards the cultural capital of Korea. We wondered about the mounds, living so close to death, the raised mounds, the u-shaped mounds. What’s and why’s scurried across our minds whit no really answers. Just another example of living in a foreign land. A different culture.

But then that is why we are here. We’ve come to experience something different, maybe to grow, maybe for a vacation of sorts. What ever our reasons, we are here, and together we journey. And sometimes that is all you can hope for is good company as life moves on. So, together we visited Bulguksa Temple, walked up and down streets and roads, clicked mementos of Buddhist art, enjoyed the fresh air, listened to frogs croak as we walked down country roads, tired new Korean food, wandered around soaking wet, played Starcraft, sang songs about life(love), drank together, and enjoyed ourselves even with the in climate weather. The hills will out live us all, but that doesn’t really matter. Someday we may drift apart, but we will still have the memories, nothing can erase the time that was spent together. Sometimes all you can hope for is to be able to enjoy good company while it lasts, the connection. Really though, even if you cease talking to a person, there is still a connection that lasts. It’s crazy but everything is. The crazy things are the things that make the most sense. : )