Pics from the last two weeks of August 2009

Ceiling of a temple on Suri Mountain

Giant Buddha at newly built temple near Namtaeryeong Station

Buddhist figurines in a temple garden

Four level Dunkin Donuts in Myeong Dong Shopping Area

Mandala

Namtaeryeong Station escalators

Cucumber Gimchi

View from Suri Mountain. I think my home is somewhere in the picture.

Kim Young Shin

Until now, I have published only very recent pics. However, I went through some pictures from the last year and picked out my favorites of Young Shin. Isn't she pretty?

She looks nice in this one. Me? Not so hot...

This is actually from a dinner we had at a restaurant in Itaewon last weekend.

Blah, blah, blah...

Big Market

There is a large complex of warehouses located about 5 minutes by foot from my home. There is a very large warehouse that has seafood products and another large warehouse that has fruit.

I wandered into another building that had about a hundred different small shops selling dry goods and hardware store type stuff.

Bong Won Sa

Bongwonsa is near Yonsei University. You can get there by taking the 7024 bus from Sinchon Station. It is the head of the Taego order of Buddhist monks in South Korea. Taego monks are unique from most other Korean Buddhist monks (Chogye order) in that they can marry.




The symbol on the main temple is what is referred to as the "Dharma Wheel" or Dharmacakra (Sanskrit). It is one of the oldest known Buddhist symbols found in Indian art. The eight spokes represent the "Noble Eightfold Path" of Buddhism, one of the four "Noble Truths" (main teachings) of the Supreme Buddha, Siddhārtha Gautama.





Interesting note: The remains of about a dozens bodies buried by the infamous Korean serial killer Yoo Young Chul were discovered on the temple grounds several years ago. Yoo is currently on death row awaiting the death penaly which has not been administered here since 1997.

Zoom Lens

I went back to the horse track in Gwacheon before meeting Young Shin for dinner in Seoul today. I wanted to take some pictures with the zoom lens I bought a couple months ago.

Anyang Sports Complex

There's a nice sports complex in Anyang. It has a hockey arena, basketball stadium and soccer stadium that seats over 20,000. There's also a swimming pool for diving competitions and some kind of small water park.

Nothing happening today, just a little maintenance.

Anyang's basketball team is called the Kites. I'm not sure if this is them or some high school team. They didn't strike me as particularly formidable from a distance, but what do I know?

Near the sports complex is a nice stream that runs through most of Anyang with a bicycle / pedestrian path.

Panoramic pictures

I was playing with photoshop CS3 last night and pieced together some panoramic images from some of my past photos.