Back in the spirit of things

Gatawbi Buddha 4
Originally uploaded by Alison J. L.

This weekend was full of medicine. After being sick all week, I decided to have my first acupuncture appointment. Timber (she's been sick, too) and I went to a clinic not too far from our house where we saw an acupuncturist who spoke some English and more importantly, gave us really nice treatments. I had my first experience with Korean hand acupuncture, which was great. He put three needles in my right thumb and I felt my sinuses start to clear. We were sent away with instructions to have a good rest and not to watch T.V. So, we went downtown. After wandering around for a while we made our way back to the oriental medicine market where I found a shop that sold needles, moxa, cupping sets and loads of books on acupuncture in Korean (darn).

Today (Sunday) we took the bus an hour outside town to hike up millions of stairs in the freezing cold to see the medicine Buddha. I don't think that's what the doctor meant when he said "have a rest", but it's been three plus weeks since arriving in Korea, and dammit I wanted to see something.

The bus cost about a dollar, 45 minutes and my digestive integrity and we arrived at Gatawbi rock. After two plus hours of very steep hiking we met the Buddha and his very funny hat. It was a miserably cold walk up and a shaky legged walk down, but the hot cocoa from the vending machines at the top was delicious and the Buddha himself was fantastic. How many places in the world can you live where that guy (see above) lives a bus ride away? Rad.