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Was Einstein’s brain a peanut or walnut?

Does hearing and seeing the name Einstein over and over make one smarter or boost your grades in anyway?

First I would like to share a short story with you what I was told in one of my classes and then a classic poster that I saw in the subway.

Einstein was one the greatest scientists and inventors of this age, so it is no wonder that every parent especially the mothers in South Korea would like their little one to be like Einstein. But how far is to far? A while back in one of my classes a student, who goes by the English nickname Ho-Ya told me an interesting comparison between the type of milk that mothers give their children while growing-up.
They start by believing that their little one is going to turn out to be the next Einstein, so it is just such a natural thing to do, the new to be Einstein was fed with Einstein milk. This will go on till the child get to middle school when the mother gets a reality check on her “Einstein”. The mother say by herself my child can make it into Seoul National University, so she starts to give her child Seoul Milk. But once more that reality check kicks in as the child brings home that dreaded report card, Einstein to Seoul National Univ. a mother’s dreams shattered in pieces. What is it going to be? From the next day the mother let the Seoul Milk on the shop shelf, but stretched her hand out and picked up Yonsei Milk with a heavy heart. By the end of the second year of high school the mother started to buy Samhyook Milk. Her precious little one was not the next Einstein nor Seoul National Univ. material nor Yonsei Univ, but stand a really good chance to get in at Samhyook University at least it is still in Seoul. When the finial years results made there appearance the mother started to by no-name brand milk as long as it was from Korea. Now it did not matter anymore as long as her child gets and education any ware in Korea. ~ Every Crow’s egg is the whitest as the saying goes.

Okay look closely to the photo. You can see that the central object is a walnut and around it is its nut scattered in many shapes and sizes.

At first glance you only see the walnut and with the second glance you notice that all the bits and pieces of the walnut shell makes a 3D shelled scatter gram depicting Einstein’s head. It is pretty cool if you ask me. Just to think of it in one add you advertise your product walnuts, with out stating it the message shouts walnuts will give you the brain of Einstein.
It shows how all the continents could have been one complete ball once and that this genius could figure it out.

We read in the designers manual the following: Then God said,“Let there be a space between the waters, to separate the waters of the heavens from the waters of the earth.” God called the space “sky.” … Gen 1:7-9
Then the perfect earth was presented to humanity till this oneness became an apparent downfall to humankind. At a point man’s evil deeds just got to much for the land to bear, so the creator of all decided to wash the land clean to remove humanity from it… “the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. Gen 7:11-12
From there after the earth was not a round ball any more and the perfect climate that once existed was gone for a long long time to come. But one day the designer will recreate this earth to its former glory, after humanity has been cleansed form its evil doings and the cosmic battle between good and evil has been decided.
“Look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth, and no one will even think about the old ones anymore. Isaiah 65:17
Would that not be cool to live in a perfect world?

You might think this very strange, the title is the white mouse, but hey the picture is of a black one. Yes there is a semi hilarious story behind it.

Yes. The mouse started of as being white, thus the tittle The White mouse. See my technologically advanced girlfriend gave me this state of the art mouse made by Logitech for my birthday, to go with my white Mini, white speakers and white cellphone. What a great match it was, but the Bluetooth connection that was some what iffy from day one just got so bad that I had to return it to the shop where it was purchased. There they told me that I must go to the A/S centre. The Korean gentleman gave me the address of the place, but there was not enough time in my schedule to go there that afternoon.

The next day I cycled to the Logitech A/S centre in Youngsan. It was not that taxing. At the Logic A/S centre I was greeted by a gentleman, but not in English as if that’s anything new. I always wonder, where are those many students that study English? Well that’s a totally other story in it self.

To get back to the mouse story. I took my beautiful white mouse out of my bag to show it to the man, just to get a response loosely translated, “Sorry we don’t white mouse here.” So I asked him where does Logitech do white mice? After some surfing on the net he wrote a telephone number on a small piece of paper. The area code (031) is not in Seoul any longer and there was no way that I could get to that place. Then I asked the very helpful gentleman if he could test the mouse, but he responded “it is not black.” At that point I was just so blown about two things. Let’s not go there. After some gentle explaining that the electronics in the white mouse is the same as in the black mouse the gentleman took the mouse to test it, cause how can I do it? The gentleman tried and tried before he called his friend to help him. The result of the test was already known to me, the white mouse’s heart stopped, so it was dead as could be.

What to do now? I like to use a mouse and did not feel like buying a new one, so I asked the more helpful of the gentlemen what can you do to make me a happy Logitech mouse user. He looked a bit puzzled saying no white only black, black only. At that point I realized the I might get a mouse from this place, but it surely was not going to be white, so I opted to leave with a non white mouse. This is the story on how the white mouse became black.

I am a little bit confused about who the generis family is, because in some documentation they get referred to as the Lee Family or Lee Byeong or the Yi Family.  They are all from Gwangju, Suwon.  Well it does not change the fact that it is an important folklore artefact No.123.

This is a residential house built in 1888 at the end of the Joseon Period.  It is located in a good geomantic position since it is surrounded by a low mountain ridge line and there is a small stream running in front of the house.  It is well organized to meet the needs of a farm household.

Let’s have a look at this important folklore artefact in reality.  It has a reddish orange brown wall finished, because of the natural colour of the clay used to work the walls off with.  The thatch roof is quite thick, because it helps with the regulation of temperature during the extreme seasons.

I was standing out side behind the closed gates, with no one in sight and no bell to ring.  I could hear dogs bark, so I did not want to venture in uninvited.  Just as I was about to turn around to walk back to my bicycle I heard a scuffle and the gates opened up.  A lady asked or rather gestured to me if I wanted to come in and look around.  She quieted the dogs down as I followed her in to the inner court yard of the old farm house.  Let’s look around.

As I left the lady gave me an ice cold soda to quench my thirst on this scorcher of a summer’s afternoon.  I thanked her and she continued with her house hold duties as I walked off.  I closed the gates behind me and walked over to my bicycle where I looked at the map to see how to get to the next destination of interest.

As I went up the road I noticed a place that prepares some very strange delicacy, poison’s fish.  A very famous place it must be, because some or other movie set came to either shoot or eat here.  The places’ name is 옛마당 전문 (Do the old party professional) and you can contact them at 244-2726

This was more for interest because during the week a friend posted a photo of a “blaas oppie” on the net, so when I saw this place I was sort of compel to photograph it.  This sort of concluded my sight seeing tour of the day.

[*Note:When you navigate to other pages via the links, press on the "go back one page" button in your browser!!!]

Today I set out to see as much as I can see on the way to the French Army Memorial Monument.  That is allocated on the far North Western side of Suwon.  On the way there are many things which I really still want to see.  So the plan is to go to Hangari Toilet, Yaksuam, Hancheon Mineral Spring, Hyohaeng Memorial Hall and Lee Byeong Won’s Residence.  This is an action packed day, so I should get cracking.

- Gong Sosa (공소사) Buddhist temple

Mt. Gwanggyo Jangan-gu (광교산 장안구)

At last I made it to the correct place.  The last time I tried to get there I ran out of time and had to turn around about 1km from it.  So near but yet so far, but today I made it.  After the logistical information board we’ll visit the three main areas namely Hangari Toilet, Yaksuam and Hancheon Mineral Spring.

- Hangari Toilet

- Yaksuam Buddhist Temple

On my way down the mountain I passed several restaurants, but one drew my interest.  It was a bore bap restaurant with a nice outer appearance.  I went inside to look at the interior, but it was still too early for lunch, so I did not eat anything there.  However the owner of the place offered me some water to drink and tried to get her daughter to translate for her, but I think the daughter went into shock mode and not to much sound came from her.

-The House of Wolgok

There after I made my way to Hyohaeng Park to have a look at the French Memorial Monument and Hyohaeng Memorial Hall.  On the way I passed some very colourful graffiti on some walls covering a recycling area.

Some where I turned too quickly and ended up at some Catholic institution and thought it only appropriate to add a photo of a statue of Mary and Jesus to the many Buddha statues.  Let’s have a quick look.

It was al good and well, but I was more interested to get to Hyohaeng Park where I really wanted to be.  With a few turns I was back on the track again.

- French Army Monument

My eye caught a huge building that looked almost like a palace from a distance, but as a came closer it became quite clear that it was not a palace, but a humongous church building.  Just say that the cars parked next to it looked like toy cars in the distance.  I thought that it would only be appropriate to go and take some photos there of as well seeing that I was capturing many temples today already.  The church did not have all the rich colours of the temples, but was almost similar in many ways, but I will leave it up to the reader to pull the parallels for themselves.

This reminded me that I still wanted to do the Suwon cathedral tour.  In my crossing of Suwon I saw many churches, but I put it off to take many photos of them, because Russel and I wanted to cycle through Suwon’s streets visiting churches, but he fell and was out of action for a couple of weeks.

Close to the Yeonghwa stream I noticed many interesting things.  Let’s take a look at all the different things.

This toilet is on the Suwon’s toilet route, so it promises to live up to quite a high standard to give you the most enjoyable experience that you can imagine to get by using public toilet facilities.

Across the road from Yeonghwa toilet one can see a story told in paint on the wall.  We will look at it seen by seen.

This brought our wall painting viewing to an end.

- Toxic Sushi Restaurant

Little did I know that this would be my last tour in Suwon as a Suwon née.  Suwon has much more to offer than what is found in the tourist guide books.  I enjoyed my stay in Suwon, because of its wonderful location.  It’s almost surrounded with picturesque mountains, many reservoirs and countless parks to spend ones leisure time to relax.

The public transportation is also very efficient, with inner city busses, city busses, two cross country bus terminals and a station that is linked to the Seoul Subway grid and KTX to Seoul, Daejeon and Busan lines.

Well farewell!!! “Happy Suwon”.

On the way I noticed a small building that was fenced off and two mean looking blokes painted on either side of the door.  The door was well locked, but some vandals tried to get in so the door was not totally closed.  The gap was just big enough to get a good photo of the Maitreya in the little room.

“The Stone Buddha Maitreya statue is enshrined from the middle of the Joseon Dynast.  The Maitreya is dongmin (a Cave Man) that has been the subject of their adoration.  It kept the harvest and protected the village deity (patron saint).  The current body is a total height of 2.49 m, but 1.35 m is buried, so one can only see the chest and head that stands at a height of 1.14 m.  The rectangular enclosure that was build over the Maitreya to protect it against the elements measures 3.1 m at the front. The building was built in 1959 and is still standing.” www.dreamkorea.org/wiki/index.php?url=ifuture&no=6043 and translated with Google’s translator.  Let’s take a look at the little building and then at the Maitreya.

This concluded the visit to the statue of the Maitreya.  How many different types of Buddha’s are there?

On my way back from the French Army Monument I stop by Hyohaeng Memorial Hall.  It was full of historical information of Suwon, but could be friendlier to international visitor in the sense that more translated information could have been nice.  Let’s have a quick look outside since one may not take photos inside the building.

However the supervisor there was quite friendly he did not have any information on the place, but he gave me a book about Hwaseong Fortress packed with pictures.  Well that brought the Hyohaeng Park visit to an end.

Eventually I made it to Buksuwon I.C, so I knew that it was not too far to go now.  I went past Hyohaeng Memorial Hall and some sort of a garden with a large statue in the centre there of.

“This monument was constructed on October 3, 1974 by the Ministry of National Defence in tribute to an in memory of the French armies who came here as the crusaders of the justice to protect the security and freedom, made remarkable area were newly developed as a memorial space combining the Korean and French cultures from November 6, 2000 to November 3 2001.

A total of 4000 French soldiers were dispatched to Korea.  They participated in lots of campaigns at Wonju, Jipyeogri, Punch Ball and Ridge of Heartbreak from January 10, 1951 to the truce on 1953, achieved remarkable military gains and returned in triumph to their homeland after the cease-fire.

In the Korean War a total of 1124 French soldiers were killed or wounded: 288 soldiers were killed, 818 wounded and 18 missing.”

Let’s look at what there is to see at the sight.

Well you probably noticed a common anomaly between the different photos?  It was a bit strange to find an international monument in such a run down state.  One just wonders who is to look after a monument.  The host country or the country that is memo rated?  What beats me is, is that it is also listed as a tourist attraction.  Anyway let’s get closer to the actual memorial.  The huge doors were locked, so I peeked through the openings at the handle, but they were too small to take a photo through, so I walked up the embankment to get a bird’s eye view of the monument.

This sort of waved the visit to the French Army Monument to an end.  I just wish I could have seen in it in the same image as those who inaugurated it.

Just less than 2km up the road passes the Pot Toilet one can find Yaksuam Temple.  On the way there one will go past some planted fields that will yield some seasonal crop.  I saw some chilly and rice fields in all the small valleys on virtually on any piece of ground that can be cultivated.  There were some twists and turns in the road and at some places the gradual upward slope turned into a really steep challenge.  The beautiful lushes green shrubbery eased the mind as I made it up the last steep stretch.  Luckily the road condition is in immaculate condition, so it made for quite a pleasant cycle to the temple gate.

I tried to find some information about the area and the temple, but once more no luck, so you will have to bare with my as I try to give some useful information about the things there.  Let’s go on a photo tour of the temple and surroundings.

There must have been many attempts to rob the temple, because this guard looked so strong and mean as if it could kill you by just looking at you.  As I took a closer look at the gateway arch I noticed cut reeds, at the base pillars of the gateway, I can only imagine that this was part of the protection that was used to in the early days to prevent people from roaming freely into the temple yard from any direction.

Then at the arch of the arched gateway you can see two dragons meeting face to face holding up some sort of circular pagoda with their noses.  The dragon is a very prominent future in temple décor.

For some deviation on the approach that I normally took, let’s look at the inner court yard first before looking at the actual temple.

It just amazes me how Buddhism tries to parallel some of the other religions.  Here one can see Buddha with many little children that brings the even where Jesus blessed the children to mind and then on (in) the other hand the string of pearls that gets use by Catholics to do their heal Marries.  One can just wonder which one of the myriads of religions is the true one.  Well I have made up my mind, so it’s up to you to choose wisely.  The choices are basically the creator versus the created.  It is a black and white choice there are no grey areas in this one.

I almost starting to get the idea if one does not do it over whelm the audience with many of the same thing.  That method apparently works very well in advertising, but in religion?  Anyway I am just thinking and wondering due to the lack of information.  Well we are almost at the temple, but before getting there let’s go to little shrine next to the temple.

Well the pillars holding the roof are basically wound up dragons.

As I was standing at the shrine I noticed a little cave with the entrance covered with a sliding door, so I made my way around to the stairway.  As I went up the stairway I looked at the paintings on the side of the temple and wondered what the story behind them were, because I could see that the scenes followed each other.  Here are just to paintings out of the story.

At last only the main temple was left to look at.  It actually took quite some time to look at all the fine detail around the temple.  Let’s stand back just before entering the temple.

I am always amazed at the bright colours used to decorate the temples, but have no idea what the meaning behind them is.

This brought the temple viewing to an end.  I tried to make it to Hancheon Mineral Spring, but it was not accessible by bicycle, so I decided to give it a skip and to continue to the next venue of interest.

On the way to Yaksuam and Hancheon Mineral Spring one has to pass Hangari toilet.

Let’s read a bit about the toilet culture in Korea especially in Suwon.  All the information was taken from the Suwon information page, so credit will be given where due.  Well, well have you ever gave toilets a thought, if not you should read Suwon Toilet‘s information and history pages.  Here is a section that I felt would be good to include in this text, so that you can ask and answer the question, “What is your municipality’s action plan about your public toilets, if they are not up to scratch?  How do they plan to measure up to ideas below?”

“We plan to exert all our efforts for the following purposes:

To change restrooms, into clean living spaces beautified with music, flowers, paintings and pleasant fragrances, and by doing so, to attract great attention home and abroad; and to popularize advanced restroom culture.

Guidelines:

• Making restrooms into ones that are not culturally uniform, but are unique and unusual. Encouraging active participation by shops, conventional markets, institutions, organizations, etc.
• Achieving the target of restrooms which need intensive management and rearrangement; Managing and maintaining them thoroughly
• Holding a symposium on “Making Restrooms Beautiful”
• Selecting the signboards of public restrooms
• Promoting the public’s awareness of restroom use
• Conducting “The Best Room Contest”
• Steadily publicizing the project of “Making Restrooms Beautiful.

Tips For Making Restrooms Beautiful

• Public restrooms of today, as spaces to rest, think and to keep one’s look tidy, should be pleasant and easily accessible to all.
  • Public restrooms should be located at places where people can use them easily whenever they need them

Plans to improve internal facilities (Draft)

• Restrooms should be not dark but bright, pleasant and clean.
• Restrooms should not omit bad odours, but rather fragrance.
  • Installing automatic toilet washing devices and aromatics
  • Installing automatic aromatic sprays
  • Alternative facilities for ventilation
• Restrooms should be equipped with facilities to wash hands and to apply cosmetics.
  • Installing washstands (with air-towels, liquid soaps, mirrors. and basic cosmetics)
• Restrooms have sitting-mode toilets for domestic and foreign tourists.
• Detailed consideration should be taken so that the disabled, the weak, the aged and children can use them safely.
  • Installing special facilities for the disabled, the weak, the aged and for those with children
• Heating systems should be operated in winter.
• Restrooms should make users feel more pleasant and refreshed.
  • Providing music via audio-systems
  • Placing flower vases, flower-pots, and framed pictures
  • Installing mini-shelfs to put things on, or a hook to hang clothes inside each toilet booth
  • - Decorating walls with tiles of bright colours and installing lighting facilities to facilitate reading
• The place is equipped with a baby booth, a powder room, a hook to hang clothes and a mini-shelf to put things on inside the toilet booth, while famous phrases (or poems) are arranged in unique mode.
• Forming restrooms which are not uniform but have unique characteristics for each facility
• Uniform architecture modes should be improved to be suitable for new culture and environmental needs.
• Restrooms should be constructed which are friendly to the natural environment and suitable for cultural characteristics, according to the individual locations, such as downtown areas, parks and resort areas.
• Restrooms should be constructed to be graceful and symbolic (function-effective) buildings.”

http://eng.suwon.ne.kr/sub_frame.asp?page_id=sub_05_10_02&root_id=sub_main5&parent_id=sub_05_10

Let’s take a quick look at the exterior of the Pot Toilet.

Well I don’t really like taking photo’s of the inside of a toilet while there are people inside and it was some what busy that day.  Just say that all the points mentioned in that long list were well covered.