August 17th 2008 - Lotus

August 17th 2008

Lotus-viewing in Gyeongju

For some reason or the other, the rainy season does not want to let go of us this year. Every day the forecast predicts thunderstorms and although we only get a fraction of what has been predicted, our covered back terrace resembles a swimming pool more than a covered terrace. The water is coming in through the cracked walls, so there really isn't much we can do about it.

Friday was Constitution Day here in Korea, so I had the day off. We spent it making bread ! My colleague Kim came over to see how this was done, as he is pretty fond of danish rye bread !

In the evening Paula's friend Pil came over for dinner with some of the students from her English class. These are some of the people who take care of Peo when we are awawy, so we had prepared a Western dinner for them. It went down OK ! Pil has just been 5 weeks to the US and Canada, so she had plenty to tell us !!

Saturday Paula and I went to Gyeongju to look for a stone Buddha for Paula. She has been talking about this Buddha for months now, but one is not supposed to buy one for one self, I was going to wait for her birthday. Not a plan Paula likes !!! So off we went, but unfortunately we didn't find the right one. Instead we came across the lotus fields of Gyeonju. It was very pretty with yellow, white and pink lotuses. Lots of Koreans were out to have a look at the fields even though it was raining all day.

After the lotus fields we drove off to the folk village near Bomun Lake. Paula has been here a few times but I had never seen it. It is actually quite nice - especially in a bit of a drizzle, when there aren't too many tourists around.

Part of the World Culture Expo Park in Gyeonju

Paula at a religious site in Gyeongju

The equivalent to the christian candles ...

Electric, of course!

At night my colleague Henrik had invited for a small birthday party at Ballentines. The bar was pretty full for a Saturday - the busy day is normally Friday. We had a good night with some good drinks, so thank god I had planned the mountain bike ride for today in the afternoon !!

Only 203m of altitude so we had to go up the mountain a few times to get a good workout !

One day the school in front of our apartment was used as training ground for a troupe of martial arts performers.

Paula has finished a few more paintings...