A Visit to Buddha Mountain, Part 2: Buddha's Hat

Near the top of the mountain, before we got to the landmark we were there to see, there was another temple.

Here, you could buy rice, I think for making offerings. (Our Korean tour guide called them "donations.")

Another temple, farther up, with bags of rice on the altar:

Even before we reached the peak, the view was incredible. There were mountains as far as the eye could see. And some power lines.

Graffiti & scenery

Finally, we got to the top and to the landmark we were there to see: Gatbawi. This statue of Buddha was carved out of granite by a guy sometime in the 600's or 700's AD. It's said the statue can answer prayers or grant wishes. Some of Gatbawi's common visitors include people worried about their sick loved ones, parents praying for their kid to get into college, and pregnant women hoping to give birth to sons.

 

There was a big area in front of Gatbawi where the ground was almost covered by prayer mats and people.

Speakers on posts blared a chant that, for the fifteen minutes we could hear it, was the same word said over and over. I asked our tour guide what the word meant. "It's baby word," he said. "Only mother can understand." Then he laughed.

You know what's an annoying song to have stuck in your head? That one.

This all was a fascinating glimpse into another religion. I was in awe. It wasn't until we started down the other side of the mountain that I started thinking about how disturbing it all was. In John 14:6, Jesus says, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

All those people on the mats bowing to a Buddha...spiritually, the walking dead. They didn't even know it. And who's going to tell them? How many would believe?

It's sobering. Scary. Heartbreaking. All those people.

A Visit to Buddha Mountain, Part 1: Going Up

One weekend, we visited some Buddha houses on Mount Palgong. Our bus drove us a good distance up the mountain, but the hike was still quite a hike.

Before we got going, I used the restroom, because it's smart to go BEFORE embarking on a two-hour hike into the wilderness, especially if you're female. I'm already wary of park bathrooms located in sheds, but this was a whole new experience.

It was my first Korean toilet. You squat. And you bring your own toilet paper. I wasn't prepared.

We walked for a while on a sidewalk. Along the way, and all the rest of the way up the mountain, there were people selling things.

After going a short distance, we came to a building. I have no idea what it was, but it looked like a gate. It was completely painted in the amazing, intricate, 100%-paint-everywhere style we saw on the temples we visited that day.

There was a monk selling souvenirs near the gate thing.

There were cups hanging on a wall for people to drink hosed-in mountain water out of.

There was a temple up a hill near the gate. We saw more amazing painting, another monk (this one banging on something to make noise along with chanting coming out of some speakers,) some golden idols, and - typical of Korea - a garden on a ledge that had been built into the hillside.

Here's a video. Please ignore the part where it's sideways in the beginning before I remembered how to take videos.

We left the temple when I was done staring and pointing my camera at their religious moments and walked back down the hill. After a short distance, we crossed a bridge. There were small stone statues on the bridge. They were lion-like creatures - maybe even lions - with fangs. We called them oni. We've been using "oni," the Japanese word for demon, a lot lately because we're close to Japan and Korea is kinda like Japan and we find it pretty darn hilarious. Like, one morning, all our windows were open, and I heard some construction sounds from about half a mile away, and they were, like, pipes banging together or something and the noises were really weird and hollow, and I asked Joe what that noise was, and he said "Two onis rubbing together." And the downstairs floor of our apartment is a cement area full of water, and it's very creepy, and it's "The oni spawning pool."

But anyway, the oni:

(I took this picture with the Korean lady in it for authenticity.) By the way, people probably dress like this in the States, too, but wow do they wear some weird combinations of patterns and colors here. And I just noticed that lady in the background who seems to be bowing to the oni.

Rock piles are a common sight on the trails here in Korea. Our tour guide explained that people build a little pile and make a wish, and the wish is supposed to be granted. I don't know if rock-pile wishes are granted by Buddha or if they're more like birthday-candle wishes.

There were quite a few merchants selling fruit by the trail.

Along the way, we saw monks sitting with collection boxes.

At one point, I saw a man sitting by the road calling out in Korean, and at first I thought he was another merchant. My stomach flipped when I noticed he was missing a hand. He was begging for money. I was shaken. I'm not used to seeing handless people. I didn't know what to do so I kept walking like everyone else.

There's a lot more to tell about this trip, but I'm splitting it up into different posts so you don't get bored. See you next time!

Busch Gardens: A Memoirial

(Get it? "Memoirial?" Memoir + memorial? I'm so clever.)

Busch Gardens is an amusement park in Williamsburg, Virginia, split into different sections themed around various European countries. The park opened in 1975. It was developed by Anheuser-Busch, the beer company, but was later sold out to the SeaWorld people and is now a twisted, ruined wreck of its former glory (only a tiny exaggeration.)

Since before I was born, my family spent a lot of time at Busch Gardens. My dad worked there before my parents knew each other existed. My mom had visited the park during the times that her military family lived in Virginia. Even when my parents were poor and had three little kids, they'd shell out over $100 every summer for season's pass admissions for each of us.

All this time spent at Busch Gardens got woven into my identity. "Home" and "Busch Gardens" share a shelf in my memory. Unfortunately, life involves a lot of sitting helplessly while people mess with the things on your shelves. Converting the garage to a family room and building a detached garage was pretty much the last authorized change my parents made to the house I grew up in, and I was only, like, 11 when that happened. Re-paint the back hallway? How dare you? Get rid of the old green truck...how could you? Re-decorate the kitchen? Looks like it's time for me to sign up for therapy. Stop selling cotton candy on the stick and start dyeing your lake-water? My heart has been broken into millions of tiny pieces.

Sometimes, when I'm hormonally imbalanced, I lie awake thinking of the letter I'm going to write to the Busch Gardens people someday about everything they've destroyed. Today at 2:45 AM, I woke up to use the bathroom and then couldn't fall back asleep and then I started thinking about all the stuff I usually think about putting in that letter. It's now 4:47 AM, and I'm still wide awake. So here I am, and here's my list.

- The cotton candy. They used to make it in front of you on a paper stick and the cotton candy loaf would be bigger than your head and it was only $4. Now they sell a quarter of that amount, and it's in a plastic bag.

- The bright green dye in the water under bridge in the Ireland section. Remember when it wasn't dyed, it looked beautiful and natural, and there were ducks in it?

- Speaking of bridges, the "Hero Bridge" between Germany and Italy. I remember being too small to see over the solid-concrete railings of the bridge, but looking at the lake below through the drainage holes. (Young Gloucesterians, I bet you remember doing that, too.) I don't like how they've added red, white & blue exhibits all along the bridge's length to honor members of the United States military. I'm pretty sure they just did that so people would say "Aww, Busch Gardens cares about soldiers."

- They're letting too many people into the park these days. Remember back when they monitored the number of people in the park each day and would turn people away when it was too crowded? I doubt that's what really happened, but I do remember when you could actually walk rather than being shuffled along from place to place in a gigantic herd.

- On the lake, there was an old copper(?) statue of that water guy who has a pitchfork. Neptune? Anyway, one year IT JUST DISAPPEARED.

- The petting zoo! There used to be one. Once, when I was about eight and with my family including grandparents and probably some aunts and uncles, I got all excited about the petting zoo and ran in there and started petting things and then realized that no one else was with me. They were all waiting for me outside of the enclosure. I wasn't supposed to be in there, and I was holding everyone up, and mom was angry. Good thing no one has to worry about that happening anymore, since Sesame Street took over the petting zoo area.

- And anyway, why, why did they slather Sesame Street all over Busch Gardens? The park's main product used to be beer, and it wasn't heavily advertised, and now it's Elmo, who is heavily advertised.

- Sesame Street even took over the auditorium where they used to have that ancient show about the guy trying to sell his family's castle. It had animatronic effects that used to scare me so much I'd cry during the show.

- Speaking of commercialism: The paintings holding the Pepsi cans. Absolutely infuriating. Okay, there were these interesting old-timey German people painted on some of the walls in Germany, and they were, like, hiding behind the beams in the walls and doing other stuff, and the colors were nice, but now they've been replaced by cut-outs made of wood or something and in the cut-outs the people are holding Pepsi cans and WHY? WHY? WHY WHY WHY??????????

- The building in Germany where the t-shirt airbrushing shop is. Remember how there used to be another business located in that building, where you could go and record a karaoke tape in a studio and get it put on a tape and buy it, or make a music video? There were TV screens over the walkway, and you could watch and listen to recordings of people singing badly and dancing awkwardly. I wish I could've found a picture, but I don't even remember the name of the company.

- It's sad that the Big Bad Wolf got taken down due to "reaching the end of its service life." I heard that some of the technicians who worked on the roller coaster hadn't been letting their families ride on it for years. Anyway, BBW was my first coaster. I hated it, as I hated all roller coasters and scary rides, until I was about 19. Then I was cool with scary rides. But before that, my parents had a deal with us kids: When you rode a roller coaster for the first time, you'd get a small souvenir, like a keychain or magnet. My little sister, who's way less of a baby than me, had no problem collecting her bribes. I had no problem riding the benches while waiting for her.

- It's also sad that the mini log flume was removed from the Land of the Dragons, and that the water play area isn't watery anymore.

- You know in Italy where they have that photo-op thing, the cart with the baskets on it where you go up there and pretend you're stomping on grapes to make wine? Remember when there used to be plastic grapes in there and they'd escape and roll around the area near the photo-op thing? I bet little kids tried to eat them all the time.

- I remember a way long time ago, when Busch Gardens stayed open late (and when they didn't play Beatles music instead of their glorious classical soundtrack when it was time to kick you out,) that they'd hand out free bags of Cheetos near the park exit at the very end of the day. And the loudspeakers would be like, "May I have your attention please, may I have your attention please. Busch Gardens is now closing."

- They have these things near the flowers near the entrance:

And you used to actually be able to pump water with them. Water pumping was among the highlights of my childhood visits to the park.

Well. That's enough from me.

Really, I guess I should just be happy that there haven't been any more changes. The layout of the park and the overall atmosphere is close enough to what it was "back then" that you can still see what Anheuser-Busch was going for.

If you're reading this, chances are very good that you know me, and if you know me, chances are very good that you're from Gloucester. Do you remember anything I'm forgetting? I'd love to read about it. Comment.

P.S.: None of those pictures are mine, except for the ones I drew.

Oreo O-No's

Remember Oreo O's? Post made the delicious chocolatey white-speckled cereal over a period of about nine years before discontinuing it. Oreo O's haven't existed since 2007, and that's sad.

A few months ago I wanted the cereal badly enough to consider ordering a few boxes online, but, alas, it wasn't available anywhere. Plus, it all would've expired like three years ago. So you'll understand how excited I was when I spotted a (fresh) box of my favorite Oreo-flavored cereal on the shelf of a South Korean grocery store. I grabbed the box and then another, using shrill, high-pitched noises to communicate to Joe that the boxes I held were anomalies of space and time and so I had to have them. He told me to put one of the boxes back, but a few minutes later, I left that store with a beautiful blue cereal box in my hands.

By the end of the five-minute walk back to our apartment, I'd pulled the box open and struggled with the shiny bag inside long enough for Joe to have taken it away and opened it for me. I stuck my hand in there and pulled out a few pieces of cereal and ate them.

And they weren't Oreo O's at all. They didn't look right, and they sure didn't taste right.

Do those brown things in the bowl look anything like the generously-white-thing-sprinkled cereal pieces on the box? No. They don't. Because they aren't generously white-thing-sprinkled.

I could've gotten over the lack of sprinkles. But the flavor.....at first, it was only a little bit "off." Then came the aftertaste. That's when I became pretty sure that the cereal had been manufactured using some kind of bean product rather than corn.

I could be wrong on that, and I can't read the ingredient list or even find it because everything on the box is written in Hangul, but it might make sense. Beans are used in some surprising ways here, like as a topping for a popular frozen treat. And the cereal's aftertaste definitely wasn't the corn-based-cereal aftertaste.

On that day, a shining moment of hope burst into flame and burned until nothing was left but a nasty aftertaste.

...but...if you just put them in a bowl with some milk, don't eat any of them plain, and ignore the aftertaste...it's almost like reliving the lazy Saturday mornings of your youth. Almost.

(EDIT: A few weeks and a few bowlfuls later, I'm starting to think that maybe this is what they always tasted like. Maybe I'm just growing accustomed to the weirdness.)