Sep 2006

HIYA!

Guess if I'm gonna give you my address I should include an apartment number too. You know, there are only three apartments in this building! The bottom floor seems to be some sort of office, a business I guess. Gotta wonder a little why there are only three apartments in this building.

Anyway, mine is #202.

I've never met nor seen my neighbors face to face. I have seen and heard them come and go many times but neither I nor they have introduced ourselves. Quite different from Japan. When Tomoko and I moved in to our apartment after we left her parents house, we met our neighbors right away. Got them a small gift. Right, Tomo-yan? Right?! Am I mistaken?!

And the tap water is good to drink!! I don't understand just how it gets here but my boss said there's nothing added. It's mountain water. It tastes pretty good too. And not long after arriving, I noticed my hair felt sort of silky while washing it. Does this have anything to do with the water? My boss says the water is very good for your health.

HIYA!

My address:

Troy Santos
Jeju City
Samyang 1-dong 1589-9
690-071
KOREA

My phone number:

001-82-64-900-8877

001 is the international operator. 82 is South Korea's country code. 64 is the area code for Jeju Island. And the rest is my phone number. Since I've got a 900 # make sure you dial the other numbers first or you'll have to pay someone for some service!!

Now nobody has any excuse for not sending me cases and cases of "natural" peanut butter and other such goodies! Or, for that matter, giving me a call once in a while. My boss gave me a telephone. I don't expect to buy a cell phone. If you've got access to a computer and can get Skype downloaded onto it I can call you for free. Absolutely free. You can call me for free if you pay a set fee for unlimited use. That's what I've got. About US$22 per month. Not bad.

Troy.

Troy.

HIYA!

Having a blog on a traveller's site seems a bit odd since I'm not travelling. But on the other hand, this can be considered travelling since I'm not living in my home country. Anyway, I don't expect to change.

I went to the Seon temple again yesterday. There was supposed to be a guy there who'd interpret the Dhamma Talk for me. I got there at 10 am. The ceremony started about 10:30. People were chanting and ringing some wooden knocker with a wooden stick. They did their prostrations. I didn't do any of it as I didn't know what to do, but more importantly, I didn't feel like doing it. I didn't feel like prostrating before 3 big Buddha statues and hundreds of smaller ones. I don't know how the others felt about me not participating, but, if they didn't like it, that's for them to deal with. Afterwards, the several people who made some communication with me were hospitable and nice.

The monk came in about 11:00 I guess to give the Dhamma Talk. But the guy who'd interpret never showed up. So I sat and meditated some, opened my eyes to look around some, and, of course, thought about this and thought about that, and everything else that you don't want to think about while "meditating". But I was okay. No problem. I guess the monk talked for about an hour. Maybe a bit less. At the end he said something to me. I think I understood one word. I think he said "Korean language" in Korean. I just laughed.

Then one lady approached me and spoke with me. She speaks decent enough English so we talked. Most of the 15 or 20 people who attended then went to a dining hall for lunch.

Vegan I'm happy to say. Every single thing they had lined up was cooked but it all tasted good just the same. Vegetarian kimchi too. Nice. Probably organic as well. The lady told me that all the food was organic and grown there at the temple. I doubt the rice was grown there but never mind. I suppose she means the vegetables and maybe the sesame.

While having lunch I got the names and locations for two vegetarian restaurants. Great. I'll go sooner rather than later.
I also want to look into getting some of this kimchi from the restaurant so I can start up a batch myself. I want to eat kimchi often. They say it's really good for your health. The taste is okay. Not great but not at all bad.

After lunch the lady said we could go to talk with the monk. Just the three of us. We talked for a couple of minutes then a few others came in. One lady came to make the tea for us all. Green tea. Good good quality stuff. And the others came I guess just to hear the words of wisdom from the monk, or, I don't know. None of them asked any questions or anything. They chimed in a couple of times during the talk I had with the monk.

The monk doesn't speak more than a few words in English so an interpreter was essential. The lady's English isn't great, but good enough for me to understand most of what the monk said. But how would I know if she interpreted him wrong anyway?!

He spoke in words like I have read from numerous books on Zen. So I enjoyed listening to him / her. Or maybe I should say however, instead of so!! I mean, he kept asking me what my fist is. He must have asked ten times in the space of a few minutes. He kept telling me no, no. Don't think. Just answer. Don't think. Just answer.

He eventually got away from asking so frequently but still peppered me a few times after the initial burst.

He told me to say to myself all through the day, every day, "What is?" Don't answer the question with thought. Just ask.

So that's what I've been doing a lot today and yesterday. Of course I don't always remember, but more often than ever I've been able to keep some awareness on this question. And of course, don't think about the question, nor about the answer, nor about the asking. Just, whatever I do, ask the question. Bizarre practice. But this is what I've understood from some Zen books I've read. So, it's neat to get to a temple and get just such instruction.

The monk gave me the bag of tea we had been drinking from. Good stuff from Japan.

I'll go again next Sunday. The lady who interpreted for me has been going nearly every Sunday for about 10 years. Wow.

Troy.

HIYA!

The apartment, briefly. This is a nice place. It's standard in Korea for employers to pay for the teacher's apartment. I don't know how much this place costs, but I suppose it's not real cheap. I pay for utilities: water, electricity, and gas. Fine. I'm pretty frugal anyway with my use.

The floors are heated, not the air. That's standard in Korea. I like it. They're heated by turning on the gas which runs heated water in piping below the floor. My boss says you can control where the heat is going but it doesn't seem possible. So, he says, at night when I'm asleep, I can turn on the heat to only the room where I'm sleeping. Again, it doesn't seem possible. He says he'll ask the apt manager. The floor doesn't have carpeting. It's sort of like linoleum I guess. With a wood pattern. Easy to clean.

It's got two bedrooms, one a master bedroom and the other a small bedroom. They both have beds, a big one and a small one. I use the bigger bedroom with the big bed. There's a full bathroom with hot water. No bath which would be nice in winter to soak in. There's a small kitchen / dining area but is plenty big for one person. There's a fridge and a few kitchen utensils. There's a gas stove. The only kitchen things I've bought are a fork and a butter knife! There's a washing machine which I'm still not good at operating. The manager says to just use cold water and that it's better, for some reason, to wash in cold water. I don't see why he would care much about the temperature that I use for washing clothes since I pay for the utilities. The washing machine is in a room to hang dry clothes. Plenty big. Just outside this laundry drying room is the balcony. Sort of southeast facing which is good. There's plenty of sun. At least there is on sunny days anyway!

There's a TV with cable. But I've told the boss to disconnect the cable since I don't want to watch anything much. I'd rather save the money. The TV isn't even plugged in. I never watch anything.

Wow, this isn't so brief, is it?! The boss gave me two clocks, a wall clock and a table alarm clock. He gave me an electric / battery shaver and the telephone. He's so good to me. Wow. I'm saving money in quite a few ways here.

I will write about this someday, I suppose. Maybe not!

I'm leaving soon for some shopping.

Oh, there's even an umbrella here. And big mirrors. The entrance is like in Japan, where you take off your shoes then step up a little to go into the apartment.

I've really got no complaints at all about this place to live. Well, I could say that I'm cold but that's more me than anything else.

I've determined to overcome being cold. I'm looking in to taking a yoga class, or some other thing. I'm really interested in something disinctly Korean, but Tae Kwon Do is about kicking and punching, which I'm not interested in. I've heard about something else but forget what it's called. More like Tai Chi.

Okay, that's all.

Troy.

HIYA!

I've asked my boss if he thinks I could do some gardening around here somewhere and he says it shouldn't be a problem. I've asked the son of the apartment manager and he says the same. I'm not ready to start. I'll need to ask my boss for some help. He says he can ask the owners of the garden just outside the apartment building if I can use some of the land. I'd be happy to rent a piece. But only if the land isn't contaminated with lots of agricultural chemicals. In that case I'd rather get a bunch of pots and other things to plant in on the rooftop. I could also use my balcony. And buy some soil.

Alternatively, I wonder if I can use a piece of land at one of the nearby temples. That'd be really neat. They've already got tangerine groves and a bit of vegetables growing. This morning I saw a lady walk over to a tangerine grove with a small bucket. There was some composting grass beneath the trees. She opened the bucket and dumped the stuff out of it, and buried it in the decomposing grass. The stuff looked like she'd been fermenting it. So I'm wondering if the lady is doing organic agriculture here. If so it'd be an ideal place for me to grow some vegetables.

There's also a lot of wild things growing all over that I'm really interested in growing to eat. When I walk around I always look at things growing. I've seen quite a few that I know to be edible. Some from Thailand, some from the US. Once I start doing something I'll see about pulling these plants up to take back and put into soil.

I don't know if I'd plant and grow "weeds" though at a temple. People may not appreciate it very much.

So all this gardening stuff really depends to a great extent on my boss. He's the only one I know around here who speaks much English. Yet he's really busy with other things so I don't want to give him too many things all at once.

One other thing I want to do about gardening is go to some of these botanical gardens around to ask what local plants are edible and see about planting some of them. There's a native plant association of some sort here in Korea. I've seen a contact for the group here on Jeju Island so I'll see about contacting him.

Enough.
Troy.