Saturday the Ji family took us to Gyeong-ju. It is a popular tourist site and has a large amount of historical artifacts from one of the dynasties. It is an hour from Ulsan and on the coast too. They picked us up about 10:00 and we went to one place – burial sites of kings. The graves are huge mounds. One has been excavated, and we could go inside and see where the king had been buried. There were thousands of items excavated. It is a lot like the Egyptians did, I guess. Then we had a picnic lunch that Song Jae had made – gimbap, another bap item (tofu batter outside and rice inside – lightly fried and cut in triangle halves), salad, and chestnuts. They were surprised I had not eaten a chestnut before, but I don’t recall having the opportunity. We also had the famous local food they picked up there – warm and fresh small baked good with red bean sweet filling – Hwan Nam Pang (pang means bread). The salad was lettuce, red and yellow peppers and apple slices and nuts. Song Jae mixed in strawberry yogurt. It was all very good. I have copied the salad this week at home. Most of the yogurt is thin (almost between yogurt and a yogurt drink, so it works well as dressing). After lunch we went to a historical temple site. Then we went to the resort area that is on a lake and had a coffee and sat by the lake for awhile. Next up was pedal boats for the kids (and Song Jae – one adult had to go!). The boats are so cute. They have a cover in the shape of a duck (hence the name: duck boats). Song Jae said Michael was pedaling hard, and the boys seemed to enjoy “accidentally” running into a couple other boats. We practiced our Korean and English. Mr. Ji tells Song Jae how to say things she wants to ask me (Have you ever …. ), and in the car on the way I had pictures for Luna to ask me “what is ____?” or “is that ____?” The three kids fell asleep on the way home; we got back about 8:00.
Saturday night there was a very loud noise in the middle of night. I figured out the electricity was out, but in the morning we also discovered we had no water. Something blew up in the basement of our building. They had people working on it all day, and by 4:00 or so it was back to normal. I said I would go to church clean and with wet hair, but I just could not go without a shower. So we biked and hiked and had lunch at a restaurant where Michael likes the fried mandu. At first I thought it was soup, but I had mixed up my guk (soup) and gun… so I think gun means fried. We spent some time in my office with me using my computer and Michael using a computer at a different desk. He was doing astronaut report research, and I was working on Korean. It was very nice to get back to the apartment and take a shower.
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