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Odd and beautiful Gingko Trees (Gingko biloba) line the city streets everywhere in Korea.

Part of a larger park full of exercise equipment, a soccer field, picnic areas, and a running track, these photos show what we affectionately call the “Foot Park.” Small stones with varying degrees of smoothness (and sharpness) have been set into the concrete path, which you walk on to massage your feet. Stone reflexology.

Days of Roses: the rose season is almost over now, so these particular pictures are a little outdated now. As I mentioned in an earlier post, roses are grown extensively throughout Seoul beside apartment buildings, sidewalks, and retaining walls, as well as in parks and gardens. Colorful and fragrant walking.

Magical pathways: various views of Bulamsan.

. . . and last but not least, Happy Canada Day! My country is 142 years old!

A pair of poems written during the creative process of the 2007 Edmonton Poetry Festival has just been published in Speak News, “a quarterly human rights news magazine focused on under-reported issues, and the flagship publication of the University of Alberta’s Chapter of Journalists for Human Rights.” An interactive online-magazine format. There is currently a typo on the page itself - my fault, not the editors’ - but hopefully that’ll be fixed soon.

. . .

On a completely different topic: here are some photos of Changdeokgung, one of the major royal palaces in Seoul, originally built in 1405. This one can only be visited fully via a guided tour, and includes the beautiful Secret Gardens. Despite the rain (or because of it, maybe) it was an excellent Saturday…

I’ve been accumulating so many pictures lately, these past couple months, but posting them so infrequently! I have to start adding more.

Another day of work. The exhausting and hilarious antics of little kids (my students range in age from preschool to 3rd grade), and the exhausting and hilarious antics of my fellow ESL teachers! Hot open-window classrooms versus stale chilly air-conditioning. Time management, marking homework assignments, classroom management, attempting to be a disciplinarian. And so on. Standing and talking literally all day long.

A summer evening. Stretched out and did some writing and reading before the beautiful smoggy-orange sunset, in one of my favorite places: a row of benches shaded and half-hidden by overhanging vines. Vegetation dense enough to sit under and stay dry in the rain (I’ve done it more than once). A place where high-school kids sit to smoke cigarettes and gaze longingly upon their handphones.

When it was too dark to read, I went for a walk in the lingering heat of the evening, under the green green trees, under the towering rectangles of near-identical apartment buildings. Endless straight lines and windows, endless lights. Blue television flickers. Someone practicing piano. Streets busy as usual, sidewalks crowded with uniformed students pouring out of academies, loitering around convenience stores, filing onto the waiting fleets of colorful buses. Walked around the bustling Joongkye area, people-watching, notebooking; bought some not-quite-ripe plums and apricots from a sidewalk stall before heading back to call it a night.

Just over one month left in Seoul! Hard to believe. The days and weeks at this job are just flying by. I’m sure I’ll return to Korea, someday, possibly to teach again. Hopefully at a university this time. Seoul again? Jeju Island? Or . . . ? The ocean certainly sounds appealing, but both the idea and the actual thing are too far away at present.

This morning it’s cool, but today is apparently going to be 30 degrees. The humidity is increasing daily: rainy season is almost here! Pale orange peaches are growing bigger outside the apartment window. On the 3rd floor, I can look out directly into the trees. Lush green growth everywhere. Roses are wilting and dropping petals beside sidewalks; here and there a pumpkin vine is blooming big bright orange flowers. Little vegetable gardens in random places wherever you go. I feel like I could endlessly explore this place. I felt that way when I first arrived in the city of Gwangju in 2005, and I still feel it 4 years later. The architecture, the natural landscape and climate, the culture and traditions here . . . the food . . .

Morning coffee number two. Shady trees outside, with all their mesmerising layers of green; slow whir of a circular fan inside. Quiet time with a book. Another day with high-energy children about to begin.

I have a short essay about haiku poetry over at the excellent Writing Companion: Help for Writers of Fiction. (Please have a look at this website, it’s full of practical information, exercises and advice.) My piece is about carrying a pocket notebook, which is what I’ve done for years now, as a sort of writing practice. An idea from Jack Kerouac.

“Bulam” is a young feral (or city) pigeon, named after the mountain close to where I live in Nowon-gu, northeast Seoul. He was wandering near a hiking trail at the base of the mountain, with one leg either stunted or injured, and as yet unable to fly. Due to his lack of nourishment, and also due to the number of magpies around, he wouldn’t have lasted long! So instead he rode quietly in my camera bag back to my apartment, where he has lived in the bathtub - alternating with a cardboard box on those rare occasions when I decide to shower - for two weeks now.

A pigeon isn’t a bad-smelling bird to have in an apartment, believe it or not. And he’s not too noisy. He (assuming Bulam is a male, because I think it’s impossible to tell at this point) eats a surpising amount of food, and is gaining strength daily. Hopping around and trying out his wings. I’m venturing a guess that within the week he’ll be flying, and then he’ll be relocated to the nicest park I can find. Preferably a place where people feed the pigeons!

According to Wikipedia: The Rock Pigeon (Columba livia), or Rock Dove, is a member of the bird family Columbidae (doves and pigeons). In common usage, this bird is often simply referred to as the “pigeon”. The species includes the domestic pigeon, and escaped domestic pigeons have given rise to the feral pigeon.

Wild Rock Pigeons are pale grey with two black bars on each wing, although domestic and feral pigeons are very variable in colour and pattern. There are few visible differences between males and females. The species is generally monogamous, with two squabs (young) per brood. Both parents care for the young for a time.

Habitats include various open and semi-open environments, including agricultural and urban areas. Cliffs and rock ledges are used for roosting and breeding in the wild. Originally found wild in Europe, North Africa, and western Asia, feral Rock Pigeons have become established in cities around the world.

For more information on pigeons in general, see BBC’s Science and Nature website, or Pigeonwatch, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s international study of feral pigeon colors.

Summertime! It’s getting hot these days. Another reason to spend more time outdoors! My throat is sore from all these dirty wasteful ridiculous air conditioners. The sidewalks beside roads and buildings are lined with red roses at this time of year, I remember this from the city of Gwangju too. Part of the genius approach to landscaping and gardening that I’ve seen everywhere in Korea: assymetrical; obviously cultivated and carefully trimmed; yet somehow still giving the appearance of wild growth. More difficult than you’d think. (I’ll resist the temptation to start talking about subjects I know nothing about, like “Zen gardening.”) Colorful morning walks to work, and fragrant evening walks home again. And shortly after these summer Days of Roses will come the Umbrella Days. Photos coming soon!

. . .

The green mountains
Tell me
To live silently.
The blue skies
Tell me
To live flawlessly.
Cast away your greed
And remove your anger,
And live like water
And like wind,
And go.

. . . poem by Master Naong (1320-1376) from Hogarth, Hyun-key Kim. Syncretism of Buddhism and Shamanism in Korea. Seoul: Jimoondang Publishing Company, 2002 (page 114)

More photos of the Lotus Lantern festivities, as they progressed into the evening (and I went home long before it was finished). Massive paper lanterns in long stationary rows, or moving down the street as parade floats: all sorts of mythical beings and characters . . . and more loud, colorful drumming-and-dancing groups . . . 

Processions of hundreds of people from all walks of life, all sorts of organizations including high schools and universities, representatives from other nations . . . and of course Korean Buddhist monastics . . .

And lanterns! More colors and shapes and sizes than you could ever imagine: bells, animals, drums, and all sorts of geometric shapes - and lotus flowers! Bobbing, bright, blurry waves of color as each new crowd of marchers passed by . . . also a giant lantern fashioned after San-shin (the mountain spirit or mountain god of Korean folk religion).

Please see the rest of the photos here.

The festival itself: early part of the day. Here is another view of the sky over Seoul’s Jogyesa temple, hung with lanterns. Setting: an old Buddhist temple in the middle of an otherwise very large, technologically-advanced, fast-paced urban center.

The colorful costumes and instruments of the traditional drum and dance groups, or “farmer’s dance groups” - hourglass-shaped drums (above), and brass cymbal and hat-mounted ribbon (below). People everywhere, colorful clothing, and loud rhythmic music.

More colorful costumes . . . lion dancers and clowns . . .

See a few more pictures here.

This will be the first of two (or three?) posts on the annual Lotus Lantern Festival, held in honor of the Buddha’s birthday. All over Korea in April and May, Buddhist temples in the biggest urban centers, and on the most remote mountains, are decked out for the event.

Daylight. Sharp contrast of old stone and wooden buildings, and old trees, and colorful paper lanterns hung everywhere - the prestigious and beautiful Jangamsa temple, nestled on a hill within the city of Seoul.

Night. Enormous paper lantern sculptures glowing and reflecting up and down the Cheonggyecheon stream, and endless strings of lanterns above competing with the city skyline…

…See more photos here.