#yeongcheon

The title of this show is ‘the Earth can’t avoid the Sun’ which is held at YeongCheon artist-in-residence. I stayed for 3 months developing ideas about the connection between everyday life and the universe. 

There are 2 exhibition spaces and one of them has 2 entrances which let the sunlight in. By using natural sunlight, I made a site-specific animation. The spiral form, I think, can be found in Nature when the earth revolves around the sun and leaves are grown in different directions.

The first week of January ends with a day of winter camp, which essentially amounts to:

-Come in at 9

-Find the maintenance guy and have him turn on the electricity in the room

-Watch one scene of a movie at a time

-Do worksheets

-Replay scene if needed

-Keep track of attendance (six kids)

-Let them go at noon.  Or earlier, depending on the day.

-Stick around at school.  Watch TV on my laptop.  Look at grad programs.  Do internet stuff.  Keep the back of my neck warm.  (Collectively called desk warming.)

After class: TV in the heated English office.  Noteworthy: the little red warning-this-has-a-lot-of-caffeine label on the bottom of the Monster can.

Week two of January is the beginning of my staycation.  Still irritated, but accepting of the fact that they changed my dates at the absolute last minute, I really don’t have any plans.  That is, except the overnight trip Mr. Cheon, my vice principal*, has planned...

January 6.  We meet in the teachers’ office and take off from there.  Our first stop is for food at a rest stop.  (Korean rest stops are well taken care of.  They’re furnished with restaurants, convenience stores, and occasionally, batting cages- basically, places you wouldn’t be ashamed of spending more than fifteen minutes.)  Lunch of the day: mandu kimchi stew.  It’s delicious.

Spicy, hot, delicious.

Our first stop is in Yeongcheon, where Mr. Cheon is having his retirement house built.  So far, it’s just a small storage house, with enough furnishing that he can spend an occasional weekend.  The land plot, just next to a small stream, is set and ready to go.

The small plot of land, next to the site of Mr. Cheon’s retirement home.

The stream in front of the house-to-be.

After this stop, we’re off to the mountains to see Bohyeonsan, a famous observatory.  So famous, in fact, that the telescope has earned a spot on the 10,000 won note.  

The back of the 10,000 won note.  The telescope is lightly illustrated on the right.  Worth about $9.

As we head up the mountain, the path gets increasingly icy.  Eventually, we have to turn around, park, and walk.

The drive begins, starting through farmland.

Up the mountain we go!

And at one point, we see an S.U.V. unable to turn around.  Mr. Cheon jumps out and muscles the failing power steering to turn the vehicle around.  It wasn’t until later that I found out that the driver is his sister and not just a random person.  From here, we had to walk the rest of the way.

Eventually, we finish the icy walk and make it to the Korean Astronomy and Space Science Institute.  Our tour is short, and a bit underwhelming, because the telescope feeds into computers.  It’s still cool to climb the ladder and get a close look at it.

A map of the city, pretty self-explanatory.

Star Yeongcheon.

The observatory.

One of the telescopes.

The main telescope.

Look familiar? (Like it might be on the 10,000 won note?)

Another view of the observatory and the telescope.

View looking down from the mountainside.

The evening consists of a small dinner, a short walk to a planetarium, a presentation explaining how to find a few constellations, and a small meal back in the room.  Of note: my first experience with Gwamaegi, some kind of fish dish famous in Pohang.

Dinner.  Also, the floors were heated hotter than any human should have to endure.  It made for a rough night’s sleep.

From left, clockwise: seaweed(?), a cup of spicy pepper paste, dry seaweed, soju, cabbage, a cup of green veggies of some sort, fried chicken, a cup of garlic cloves.  Looks like what I call a meal!

The next morning is an early one.  After breakfast, we’re back on the road at 9 am.  Leaving, Mr. Cheon asks me if I have any plans.  Nope.  Not until 2, when I’ll be going to see Candiss in Pohang.  So he asks me if I’d like to go to Gyeongju.  It’s a trip we’ve been talking about for a while and haven’t had the chance to do.  ‘Sure thing’, I tell him, and away we go for some sightseeing.

The building we spent the night, just as we were getting ready to leave.

Unfortunately, it’s a bit too cold for my brain to process at full speed.  But the pictures are nice.  Bulguksa, a grotto carved into a mountain with a gigantic Buddha statue, and an old observatory wrap up our morning.

Bulguksa Temple

Under the stairs.

The stairs.

Another of me and the temple.

Looking down from the temple.

This pagoda is on the 10 won coin.

A sign for the grotto.  No photos were allowed, so here’s one from Google:

Seokguram Grotto, photo from Wikipedia.

The Buddha statue is in the temple just above my head.

After driving a ways, we came to this giant field with mounds.

Gyeongju Cheomseongdae, the oldest astronomical observatory in East Asia.

Lunch is a mixed rice and sides, and as we’re finishing up he asks me what time I’d like to get back to Dongdaegu to take the train to Waegwan.  My options for train times are 2:05 or 1: 10.   So I tell him 1:10 would be ideal but that I don’t think we’ll have time.  He seems to disagree...

Lunch!

Leaving Gyeongju, the GPS estimates we’ll arrive at 1:14.  Wrong.  Real ETA: 1:06.

This gives me enough time to get back to my place, back travel to Daegu, and catch a bus to see Candiss.