Daehanminguk dailies, 9.27

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9.20-9.24 dailies

"The nighttime sky is easily one of the most beautiful and profound spectacles ever to be experienced by any conscious being living here on Earth."

Gyeongju excursion, part one

As mentioned a few posts ago, we went to Gyeongju in Gyeongsangbuk-do on Friday. My Lady Friend wanted to visit this city last year, but we never made the three- or four-hour journey.

Now that we live near the south coast, however, Gyeongju is just an hour and a half away. We got a head start on the Chuseok holiday traffic and arrived around 9 p.m.

The next morning, we took the local bus to Bulguksa, a Silla-period Buddhist temple complex on the side of Mount Toham [see earlier photos]. From there, we walked a couple of miles to Seokguram, a restored grotto that contains a masterfully carved stone buddha and an array of protector deities.

On Sunday, we visited the royal tombs just south of downtown, Cheomseongdae Observatory (publicized as the oldest structure of its kind in East Asia), and Gyeongju National Museum. We also went to check out the World Culture Expo, but they were chargin' $15.50 to get in... a bit of sticker shock after going to all of the other sites and paying no more than $4 (the National Museum was a $1.50, which is typical for Korea).

Anyhow, let's go to the photos:







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Gyeongju, part two

Gyeongju excursion, part two

This was part one.






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Gyeongju, part three

Gyeongju excursion, part three

This was part two.


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"[Cheomseongdae] is built out of 362 pieces of cut granite, which some claim represent the 362 days of the lunar year. Some surveys of the site have indicated that there are 366 blocks. The tower has 27 circular layers of stones surmounted by a square structure. Twelve of the layers are below the window level and 12 are above. There are 12 large stones set in a square at the base, with three stones on each side. These sets of 12 may symbolize the months of the year [though I must point out that there 13 lunar cycles in a solar year --Ed.]."









Gyeongju, part four

Gyeongju excursion, part four(with all of five photos)

This was part three.



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One more lotus...

Love, light and lotuses

Examples of all three from Gyeongju.
Total coverage from our excursion is on the way.

Double-flower power:Datura in Daehanminguk

I received a relocation allowance from my employer this afternoon, so I went to buy a houseplant and some tea supplies at the local street market.

Didn't get much else beside a plant, though, because the first thing I saw was a purple-hued Datura sitting in front of a corner plantstand. My Lady Friend asked me what kind it was, and after a few seconds of "It's... uh...," I finally said "I don't know."

As astounded and intrigued as I was, I hesitated to buy the plant. We live in a high-rise, it's mid-September, and [at the time of original writing --Ed.]we're in between typhoons: so when and how might a pollinator find its way to these flowers? That's when the proprietor stepped close and pulled back some leaves to show us a nascent seed pod.

"That's it! Sold!" my Lady Friend laughed as I bent down to pick up the pot.

The sweet irony of this episode is that I went to that shop in order to buy some soil in which to grow some of the Datura seeds that just dried.

Plants of the Gods indicates that this is D. stramonium vartatula, which is native to the Himalayas. I figured that the plant I bought was imported from South Asia, so this ID supported that notion. However, as I looked over examples on the 'net (many of which seem to be mislabeled), I noticed a double-flowered, usually purple variety simply called double Datura. Don't know how that well that jives with the ABADS ID for D. stramonium var. tatula form bernhardtii. But that's for a later time...

Update, Sept. 25:
Now I'm thinking this plant might be a variant of D. inoxia, but I still haven't received a reply from ABADS about classification. What's really important to note, however, is that the plant has been pollinated. There are two new pods growing in place of the flowers that are seen in this post. As I've told friends, this is due either to the attention of the two or three insects that were in the apartment, or my improvised pollination with a cotton swab.

Daehanminguk dailies, 9.20-9.24

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9.19 dailies

A lone lotus

There are several lotus ponds located near the Gyeongju National Museum. July or August would be the best time to see the flowers in bloom, but we were content to see solitary specimens.

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Daehanminguk update

My Lady Friend and I are in Gyeongju, the former capital of the ancient Silla kingdom. The area is renowned for its ruins and restored temples. One of them is Seokguram, a grotto built atop a mountain ridge southeast of Gyeongju. The statue inside the grotto depicts Shakyamuni Buddha. The original construction is dated circa 750 AD.




Seokguram has been been restored twice, first in the 1910s and again in the 1960s. There's been recent news about how these restorations might have been flawed. [see photos; text in Korean]

In any case, Seokguram grotto and the nearby Bulguksa temple, which we also visited, are UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Daehanminguk dailies, 9.19

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9.17 dailies

Quick-and-dirty dailies...

...because I've got something special to share in the next post.




9.16 dailies

태풍2 (Typhoon, part 2)

I heard that there's another typhoon that might wind its way toward us, though perhaps only after rumbling over China. It's called Wipha (wee-fa), a woman's name in Siam.


Nari, the name of yesterday's storm,
is the Korean name for a summer lily.

Daehanminguk dailies,east of the eye of the storm

Typhoon Nari is churning across the peninsula tonight, after it battered Jeju Island earlier this morning. The typhoon made landfall between Jeollanam and Gyeongnam provinces around 6 p.m., at which time My Lady Friend and I were about to make our way back from Busan. High winds and rain passed through the area in the afternoon -- but the rain was considerably lighter than what fell yesterday, which was an all-day soak.









9.14 dailies

Let's go back to the stars.

I've spent most of the last six months nose-down in the dirt, more or less, or on my way to one place or another.

As a result, I haven't spent much time behind the eyepiece, so astronomical concerns haven't appeared in this space for some time. Here are a couple of items meant to end that trend.

"Astronomers have spotted a space oddity in Earth's (so-called) neighbourhood -- a dead star with some unusual characteristics.

"The object, known as a neutron star, was studied using space telescopes and ground-based observatories. But this one, located in the constellation Ursa Minor, seems to lack some key characteristics found in other neutron stars...

"If confirmed, [the object nicknamed "Calvera"] would be only the eighth known isolated neutron star -- meaning a neutron star that does not have an associated supernova remnant, binary companion, or radio pulsations...

"Exactly what type of neutron star Calvera is remains a mystery. According to [McGill University's Robert] Rutledge, there are no widely accepted alternative theories to explain objects such as this that are bright in X-rays and faint in visible light.

"'Either Calvera is an unusual example of a known type of neutron star, or it is some new type of neutron star, the first of its kind,' said Dr. Rutledge."


"A computer model of the early universe indicates the first stars could have formed in spectacular, long filaments.

"These structures, which may have been thousands of light-years across, would have been shaped by dark matter... Astronomers believe that more than three-quarters of the matter in our universe may be dark. It does not reflect or emit detectable light, and so cannot be seen directly -- but it does gravitationally pull on normal matter (the gas, stars, and planets we see in space).

"Computer modelling suggests there is a link between the structures assumed by early stars and the temperature of the dark matter amongst them...

"Tom Theuns, from Durham's Institute for Computational Cosmology, told the festival: "What we found for the first time is that the nature of the dark matter is crucial to the nature of the first stars.

"'In cold dark matter the particles move very slowly; in warm dark matter they move very quickly,' he explained. 'We found that if the dark matter consists of these fast moving particles, then the first stars form in very long, thin filaments... The filaments have a length about a quarter the size of the Milky Way and contain an amount of matter and gas [that is] about 10 million times the mass of the Sun, so that provides a lot of fuel for many stars.'

"Some of the stars that formed within the filaments would have had a relatively low mass, which is of interest to astronomers as they have a long lifespan and could still survive today."

Daehanminguk dailiesfrom our day off (9.14)

9.13 dailies

Daehanminguk dailies, 9.13

9.10 thru 9.12 dailies

Daehanminguk dailies,9.10 through 9.12

9.9. dailies

Daehanminguk dailies, 9.9

September skies

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Daehanminguk dailies, 9.7 + 9.8

9.5+9.6 dailies...
and Imhosan images, as well.

Ascending Imhosan

Some of us foreign teachers took to the streets on Saturday afternoon. My Lady Friend had suggested that we hike up to a temple that overlooks East Gimhae. After a bit of yes-no-where-should-we-go along the hillside footpaths and irrigation channels, we finally arrived at Heungbuam.


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Daehanminguk dailies, 9.5 + 9.6

9.2 dailies

Cut and dried, part three:A Datura update

This was part two.

Was it back in July that I got all excited about the blossoming of a Datura stramonium specimen in the garden? Well, here it is September, and I'm still talking about that plant (or, at least, some of its parts).

I cut several seed pods from the plant several days before we left Chicagoland. I sent some to friends and brought three with me. I placed them in a bowl on top of our closet and let them continue to dry. A bit of fine fungus grew on and inside the pods in that time, and I hope that the seeds will still be viable after I quickly dunked them in a sub-boiling bath with eucalyptus, peppermint and wintergreen oils. I've left the many, many seeds from two of those pods to dry. The third has yet to crack.

Meanwhile, I spotted a couple of broad Datura specimens outside of the school where I teach. Not sure of the species; perhaps D. meteloides inoxia because of the grey-green leaves and long flowers? Will have to look into it.

I'll only have the photos to rely upon, though, because two days later, those plants were pulled out.

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See this page for more on the species.

Daehanminguk dailies, 9.2

There will be neither 9.3 nor 9.4 (been busy).











9.1 dailies

The view from here(from over there)

I was searching for a map of Gimhae and I found a link to a page on Flickr. The photo on that page provides a view of many of the apartment blocks in southern Gimhae City. Ours is highlighted below (the full frame can be seen with a click). The second photo shows the view from our patio.


The Flickr photo was taken from a peak that's south of our apartments and the bus terminal. The dark building in the first photo is the Aurora Hotel. It contains scores of shops and market stalls, a couple of which were shown in the 9.1 dailies.

Daehanminguk dailies, 9.1

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8.31 dailies