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Night View from my residence (5F) in Gwangju, South Korea
I haven’t noticed this in any other country I have visited, but in Korea, when the sun goes down and the lights come on, you can’t find a view that doesn’t include at least one lit up cross. Sometimes you can see several. Usually they are red, but sometimes they are white or blue.
KIA Tigers cheerleaders
Currently in Korean professional baseball it is standard practice to have four female cheerleaders and one male head cheerleader who has a whistle, microphone, and who does all the talking. While professional Japanese baseball teams have cheerleaders too, they are usually positioned in the outfield seats, and their voices aren’t running through speakers. In Gwangju the cheerleaders are basically on the dugout with a rack of speakers behind them so it can be really loud. Even though I didn’t understand a word he said, I will be able to remember his voice forever.
The V11 on his uniform is for “Victory 11” as the Tigers have won the Korean baseball championship a country-best ten times. I thought this was a KIA Tigers thing, but when I went to the Lotte Giants game in Busan, their head cheerleader had a V3 on his uniform. It looked pretty pathetic to wear such a thing when your competition is sporting a V with a much higher number.
Temple in May 18 Memorial Park in Gwangju
This temple is at the top of a long flight of stairs. The trees surrounding the temple have grown so much since it was built that you can’t see past any of them anymore so the temple looks almost abandoned at this point. I bet the view from here was spectacular a little over a decade ago.
Sajik Baseball Stadium – Busan, South Korea
One of the problems with watching live baseball in Korea is the amount of netting they put up around the field. One time at a game, when I was sitting next to a Korean who could speak English, I asked him why all the netting and whistles with every foul ball. He told me that a video of a fan getting hit in the eye with a foul ball (and subsequently losing eyesight in that eye) in the USA made the rounds in Korea and it freaked people out. At the KIA Tigers games I purchase seats a little above the netting so that the net doesn’t obstruct my view. That wasn’t possible at Sajik Baseball Stadium as nearly every seat has a net-obstructed view. I couldn’t take it anymore after a few innings so I headed down to one of the first few rows far down the foul line which were the only seats without a net in front of them. There was an usher checking tickets to get into this section, but I just walked past him. He figured it was easier to let me go then try to have a conversation with me in English.
Boy reaching for the sky statue
May 18 Memorial Park (Gwangju, South Korea)
Korean National Treasure No. 103 (Jungheungsanseong Ssangsaja stone lantern) from the United Silla Period in Gwangju National Museum
After biking my way (mostly uphill) in extreme heat and humidity to the Gwangju National Museum (국립광주박물관), I was a bit horrified to see the front doors all standing wide open. This meant there would be no AC inside (like many places in Korea). I was already dripping in sweat so I figured I would just take a quick look around and then head back home for a cold shower. However, once I walked in, two “English-speaking” guides said they would escort me around. I hadn’t heard or spoken a word of English in days so I didn’t turn them down. They were super nice, but their English was nearly impossible to understand. They talked about this stone lantern (광양 중흥산성 쌍사자 석등) for a long time. Actually they talked about everything in the museum for a long time (while I was about to burst into flames from the heat), but they talked about this lantern for an extra long time so I figured it must be pretty important. Then, when I was in Busan, I saw a replica of this same stone lantern at the Busan Museum so it must be really important if replicas of it exist all over the country.
The story my tour guides conveyed to me is that a farmer found this lantern in his field and sold it to a Japanese man. When the Japanese man tried to take the stone lantern back to Japan he was not allowed. Korea then purchased the lantern from the Japanese man to regain ownership.
Korea is now up to a little over 300 designated national treasures. This was number 103 (국보 103호).