Palgongsan #2

When I first got to Daegu I felt that every weekend I had to be doing something, going somewhere, seeing the sights of the City. Now after being here for more than two months and it being winter and all, I am not doing the touristy things nearly as much. But, since my friend Marla's dad was in town visiting we thought that we should get out and see a new place in Daegu. We decided to go visit the Donghwasa Temple at Palgong Mountain. This was not my first trip to Palgongsan (san = mountain in Hangul), but it was my first trip to this part of the big mountain range. The village around the Donghwasa temple and the temple itself were beautiful and very peaceful. We thought we had seen everything in the village, but stopped into the tourist information booth to see if there was a gift shop anywhere in the area. Luckily we did this because we almost missed seeing the Tongil-daebul Buddah statue. This statue was built in 1992, and is the largest in the world - 33m high! It was definately the highlight of the trip.

Slacking

So, I have to admit that I have been a slacker lately with this blog. I apologize and I'm going to try harder this month to post every week. I feel like I have finally gotten into a steady routine here and that sometimes there just isn't much to write about. Either that or the things that I found extremely exciting/strange/crazy when I got here have now become the norm.

So here is what I've been up to the past little while:

Last Saturday a few of us went to see a performance that was part of the Korea in Motion festival going on in Daegu. Out of the many performances we chose the one called "The Ballerina who Loves B-Boyz". Does this sound very "Save the Last Dance" to anyone else? It was really good - lots of amazing breakdancing and hip hop music. Sorry about the lousy photo, it was difficult to get a good shot in the theatre.

This past Wendnesday was my official 2 month mark! It's hard to believe that I have been here for two months already (even though some days it seems like I've been here forever). Ten more to go!!

This Saturday we went to Seomun Market, the biggest market in Daegu, to try to do a bit of Christmas shopping. This market is huge, with sections for food, clothing, bedding and other goods!! It's very easy to get yourself lost, or find youself thinking you're in a new area, but then pass by a shop you just went into ten minutes ago. It was a fun time, well mostly - I would advise staying away from the rooster/chicken isle where they have hundreds of them for sale, both dead and alive.

After the Market we met up with friends at the Ariana Brau, a restaurant within the Ariana Hotel that has an all-you-can-eat and all-you-can-drink-beer buffet. It was an all Canadian crew out for the night to celebrate our friend Laura's birthday - a new Daeguite who I was connected with through a friend from back home (thanks Paddy!). I think we all got our money's worth with the beer alone. After dinner we went downtown to hit up a variety of bars. We ended up finding the place that we were looking for - a hookah bar - and spent quite a bit of time there in the chill atmosphere. A birthday night cannot be complete without a bit of soju and dancing, so we picked up a couple bottles of soju from the convenience store, and drank our way to the dance club Monkey. Good times were had by all!