Why the hell would you do that?

One Gwangju printer's enthusiasm to work "story"---popular on Korean signs and advertisements---into the banner missed the obvious.

Biggest Buddha in Korea.

Last month we read about the huge Catholic church and complex they're building in Mokpo. That isn't the only big worship site in the area: Jeollanam-do also has the biggest Buddha in Korea.



You'll find this 36-meter, 670-kilogram statue at Nammireuksa (남미륵사) in Gangjin county's Gundong-myeon. You'll also see it on the highway if you're driving from Gangjin to points eastward. It went up in 2006---construction photos here---and cost 10 billion won.





I first wrote about the temple and the statue in December 2007, and visited the following February in order to take some photos for a March 2008 Gwangju News article. The temple is comprised of two sections: one has a variety of new shrines, stupa, and statues; the other has the large statue of Amitabha (아미타) and accessories.



Everything was brand new, almost creepily so, except for the lot that connects the two halves.



The temple's in the middle of nowhere



but buses do run somewhat regularly to the vicinity. A bus from the terminal in Gangjin-eup, the county seat, bound for villages to the east will drop you off some 700 meters from the entrance.

Don't forget the cherry blossoms in Suncheon.

In March the Korea Tourism Organization put out a thing announcing the anticipated blooming season for cherry blossoms in South Korea. They estimated places down south, like Gwangju and Yeosu, would go in late-March or early-April. The KTO and had profiles on top spots in the country for viewing them, places where you'll get to share the sidewalks with thousands of people who have the same idea.

If you're in eastern Jeollanam-do I'd recommend heading to Suncheon, a city of 270,000 and my home for two years. There's a stream that runs through town, and it's lined with rapeseed flowers (유채꽃), forsythia (개나리) and cherry blossoms (벚꽃). Here are some pictures I've taken in years past:







Those are taken from the four posts I've done on Suncheon's spring flowers:

* April 5, 2009: Beautiful flowers in Suncheon.
* April 3, 2009: Flowers n'at last weekend in Suncheon
* March 13, 2009: Cherry blossoms in Suncheon
* March 30, 2008: Beautiful day in the neighborhood.

That stream, 동천, runs all the way to Suncheon Bay, and since last fall you've been able to rent a bicycle to go from town to the bay. There are 100 bikes distributed among 5 stations, and by clicking on the stations on the homepage you can check availability.

Seoul opening third English Village.

Gyeonggi English Village advertises they're "Creating Global Korean." Given how those language immersion experiences turn out, that sounds about right.

The Korea Times has the story:

Most English immersion villages are running deep in the red, with fewer students enrolling in classes at them.

Against this dismal background, Seoul City Hall is opening its third English village. Its existing two are making ends meet thanks to a city contract to have schools send their students to them in large numbers.

. . .

According to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, English villages across the country lost 21 billion won in 2007. Data from 2008 was unavailable

Experts say the government needs to conduct thorough research before they build the special-purpose villages.

“Local English villages are suffering because municipal governments invested in them competitively without conducting appropriate research on demand, location and scale,” said Lee Byung-min, an English education professor at Seoul National University.

“Seoul villages are making profits as they are receiving students from schools and are included in courses as part of the elementary school curriculum.”

These types of projects really aren't that uncommon, and they seem to run into a lot of problems, too. My first contract in Korea was with an "English Theme Park" planned for Seoul's Gwangjin-gu in 2005, but it went under before it opened its doors. I then signed a contract with an English Village scheduled for Incheon through the city government, but I lost my job with that one before I started the paperwork because the opening was delayed. There are also English Towns in nearly every city and county in Jeollanam-do, though certainly not on as grand a scale as the ones in Seoul or Gyeonggi-do, or the foreigner ghetto "English Education City" planned for Jeju. I was hired to work at one in Gangjin county starting in August 2006, as part of a project that would phase native speaker English teachers out of schools in that rural area, but the opening was delayed by 18 months and so I was foisted on some uncooperative elementary schools instead.

In February I visited the Gyeonggi English Village in Paju, but I didn't get enough to warrant a post on it at the time. We not only picked a cold, rainy day to show up, we picked the one day of the week (Monday) when no programs were scheduled. And, if it weren't for the song "Kickin' it in Geumchon"

South Korea’s got Jeju, South Korea’s got Seoul
Busan and Ilsan if that’s how you roll
But when you work at EV, and live in Paju
Then the town to get down is 15 minutes from you

I would have had a hell of a time getting there at all since it's not clearly marked from Paju. I admit I went as kind of a cynic, having read the news reports picking on the place---on Korea Beat here and here---so I was both happy and sad when some of the shopkeepers spoke Korean to my fiancee, and greeted us with 어서 오세요, in violation of the "Only English, No Korean!" policy. I didn't press the issue because I wasn't "working" that day, and I didn't make any attempt to chat with the foreign employees on their day off. We enjoyed walking around the grounds, but it was a little disappointing that my fiancee, herself a learner of English, didn't really have much opportunity to use the language or be immersed in it. The fairytales they read aloud over the speakers in unnatural tones don't count as "immersion."





It's worth a visit only as a curiosity, in a country where they build English Theme Parks, but just be aware that the programs aren't aimed at adults, and there won't be much for you to do but look around and avoid the students. The bad reports in the media, and negative experiences from teachers and native English speakers, are helping guarantee the place gets more work as a filming location for music videos, commercials, and TV shows than as an educational center.

Immanuel Methodist Church, Seoul's PPG Place.

Across from Olympic Park in Seoul's Bangi-dong is Immanuel Methodist Church (임마누엘교회), shaped like a large glass castle.



Churches in Korea tend to be large, gaudy, and ostentatious---more often than not they're capped by neon crosses---but this one first caught my eye back in 2006 because it looks almost exactly like PPG Place, perhaps the most distinctive building in Pittsburgh.

PPG Place opened in 1983 and 1984, Wikipedia says, and the new church building ten years later. The church's website, as far as I can tell, doesn't acknowledge the resemblence or the inspiration. Here are a few pictures from my visit on January 24th.






PPG Place consists of six builidngs, the largest being 40 stories. The church has two buildings, a 16-story education center and a four-story church, and doesn't enclose a courtyard like its Pittsburgh counterpart. Behind the church is an alley full of motels and singing rooms.

Brian's second trip to Japan.

I was in Fukuoka from December 14th through 17th, four months after my first trip. I went alone this time and had a pleasant few days. The picture up there is the sun setting on the ferry terminal in Fukuoka; here are a few more.







Those are some pictures around Tenjin Central Park (天神中央公園), and the house is the former Prefectural Guest House. It's a couple blocks up from Canal City, which you'll see in some of the pictures, and a few more blocks from my hotel, which in turn was a couple blocks from Hakata Station. In spite of the cold weather I walked pretty much all over the city, as far west as Momochi Beach, and except for some sore legs in the morning there was nothing unpleasant or difficult about it.



The city was beautifully lit up for Christmas. Here are a few displays, in the daytime because I suck like that, in front of Solaria Plaza (ソラリアプラザ) department store:





A little further is Maizuru Park and Fukuoka Castle.






It was probably my favorite spot during the trip, and totally deserted because everyone was at work or at school.





You get a nice view from the top. You'll see the Yahoo! Japan Dome, home of the local baseball team, on the far right, and Fukuoka Tower. In the foreground is Ohori Park.








I took pictures in Ohori Park the next day, but for the sake of order I'll put them next. It's served by its own subway station, Ohori Koen, if you're not in the mood to walk.





Within the park is a little Japanese garden.








I didn't meet any of these.



A good bit of Korean at tourist attractions in the city. I was thankful for the hiragana, too, since I can't read or pronounce the characters.



From the park I walked toward Momochi Beach and the dome. I followed a map part of the way, though after a couple blocks I could see the dome and Fukuoka Tower. The Korean Consulate is about a block from the Yahoo! Japan Dome.



The stadium is home of the SoftBank Hawks.



Here's Momochi Beach, accessible by Nishijin subway station:



And here's the 234-meter-high Fukuoka Tower:



And a bulldog statue:



It costs 800 yen to go up the tower, though when I went the ticket office gave me a coupon book which gave me a discount. The view is nice.



That's looking at the beach, and this is looking back the way I came.



The carpet was a trip, too.



I'll pause here to put up a few pictures of food. I had breakfast at McDonald's, where there seems to be a strong aversion to filling the cup with coffee.



My second night I got some ramen from a yatai along Nakagawa next to Canal City and the soaplands.




Across the street from Fukuoka Tower I had some Indian-style curry---according to the menu, at least:



And, to get out of the cold, some Mister Donut:



My fiance has a bad memory, and is thus surprised each and every time I tell her that Mister Donut actually started as an American company. I saw them all over the place when I was a kid in Pittsburgh, but I can't remember the last time I saw one in the US. Wikipedia tells me some were bought out by Dunkin Donuts, some closed, and some were absorbed by Donut Connection. I think they're the best donuts you can buy.

Another place I visited was Dazaifu, a city inside Fukuoka Prefecture and a twenty-five minute train ride from Tenjin Station downtown. It's best known for Dazaifu Tenmangu Shrine a short walk from the train station.








Kanzeonji Temple is about a twenty-minute walk from the train station. Next to it is Kaidanin, an old ordination hall, which I visited first.



It's got a different setting.







Nobody around except for artists:



Here are a couple from Kanzeonji, next door:




And a few from the neighborhood:





Across from the train station I had some ramen and dumplings. I'm a man who likes his ramen and mandu.



I'm getting tired now, too, so thankfully we're at the last thing, a temple across from Dazaifu Shrine:



There's a small courtyard out back:




Back in Fukuoka, the unwelcoming committee was out:



Here's my favorite character Rilakkuma---relax + bear---dressed up for Christmas:


And, a match made in heaven:



I've long since lost interest in transitions and cohesion, so I'm just gonna go ahead and talk about ramen again, recommending Ichiran as a place to get some fine Hakata ramen. There are locations all over the place, and I can't make sense of the pamphlet I got, but probably the most convenient ones are at the huge Canal City mall and underground near Hakata subway station. It's distinctive in that you sit in a little booth with partitions on either side of you and a curtain in front. You place your order through a machine at the front of the store, and your food is passed to you beneath the curtain. Here's more.

One final note---and the note will be about something other than the massage parlor catalogue I picked up outside a Lawson's---on the post I did about my trip to Japan last August I talked about trying to use my international debit card and not having any luck. Well, I was able to use it a couple times last month at 7-11---like commenter Randi said---so if you have an international debit card from KEB, and if it has the VISA Plus logo on the back, you should be able to use it. But don't take my word for it, because all too often people go overseas thinking their card will work only to find it doesn't.

I'll reiterate it was a really nice time, and I'd of course recommend Fukuoka to anyone in Korea looking to get away for a few days. In conclusion, Japan is a land of contrasts. Thank you for reading my essay.