{"id":2497,"date":"2000-06-10T17:23:02","date_gmt":"2000-06-10T22:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/?p=2497"},"modified":"2025-06-05T21:00:53","modified_gmt":"2025-06-06T02:00:53","slug":"old-japan-and-old-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/2000\/06\/10\/old-japan-and-old-korea\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Japan and Old Korea with Carolyn"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Reminiscences 2024<\/p>\n

While Carolyn joined me at the end of the Technos trip, it was to enable us to explore old Japan and old Korea.<\/p>\n

\"\" \"\"By old Japan, I had in mind Kyoto and Nara, where World War II had not flattened the buildings or firebombed them, partly because Secretary of War Henry Stimson had honeymooned there.\u00a0 Tourists ought to sing his praises.<\/p>\n

\"\"While Nintendo claims Kyoto as its headquarters, it is better known for having been the capital of Japan from 794 until 1869.\u00a0 Known as Heian, it exudes charm, with the Kyoto palace buttressed by several Buddhist shrines.\u00a0 It has an older section of the city which was where “Memories of a Geisha” was filmed, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where we stayed.<\/p>\n

Talk about “customer service.”\u00a0 With kimonos in our room, we were transported back in time to greater luxury and ambience.\u00a0 One evening, three meals, two treasures the cost, \"\"and worth it. Ryokan is the category.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>If the city resembles a Tang dynasty capital–Chang’an (Xi’an) or Luoyang, it’s no accident. the “peaceful capital” (Heian) was modeled after those imperial cities.\u00a0 Isn’t that what it meant to be an emperor in Asia, even in the land where the sun comes up? (Nihon).<\/p>\n

Nara provided an 80-year prelude as the first capital of Japan, which later moved to Kyoto where it remained for a thousand years.\u00a0 Again, I felt we were in Tang China, which provided the feng shui for the layout of the \"\"<\/a>city. It still houses 8 UNESCO heritage sites, but one of the unusual features is the deer park, which ecompasses the temples and shrines.\u00a0 It also protects the tiny deer.<\/p>\n

The Todaji temple is the\"\"\u00a0world’s largest wooden building. Fittingly, Kyoto’s\u00a0 sister cities include Xi’an and Kyongju.<\/p>\n

As part of our tour of Tang China’s imitators, I wanted to take Carolyn to Kyongju, at one time the fourth largest city in the world. It was the capital of the Silla Kingdom from 57 BC until 935 AD.\u00a0 I’d been to the “museum without walls,” but couldn’t get enough of its ancient splendor.\u00a0 The peak was the 7-9th century when the Silla ruled most of the Korean peninsula.<\/p>\n

Today, historic buildings such as the Bulguksa (Buddhist) temple, \"\"\"\"the observatory, the bell, and the mostly un-excavated mounds evoke a splendid past.\u00a0 The museum has some artifacts, too.<\/p>\n

The Buddha in the cave \"\"<\/a>(Seokguram) is the most beautiful buddha I have ever seen.<\/p>\n

The one disappointment I had was that when I had been in Korea in 1997, it was during the cherry blossom time. Gumi, our base then, was resplendent white.\u00a0 When Carolyn and I went through it on the train to Kyongju, all we saw was a naked industrial city.<\/p>\n

To her great surprise,\u00a0 Carolyn enjoyed the food, even the seafood. She is educable.<\/p>\n

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Reminiscences 2024 While Carolyn joined me at the end of the Technos trip, it was to enable us to explore old Japan and old Korea. By old Japan, I had in mind Kyoto and Nara, where World War II had not flattened the buildings or firebombed them, partly because Secretary of War Henry Stimson had … Continue reading “Old Japan and Old Korea with Carolyn”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technos-and-post-technos-japan-2000"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2497"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9619,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2497\/revisions\/9619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}