The itinerary for the trip started on Saturday morning meeting at three different pick up spots around Seoul on a nice chartered bus. My friend, Jean (pronounced the french way of John) and I met at the first spot which is about an hour from where I live. There were about 18 of us altogether. Then it was about a two hour drive to Sudeoksa Temple in Yesan County. South Korea terrain is very similar to Alberta/Saskatchewan. I often look out the window and think - I could be driving to Jasper right now.
Our "before" picture.
The drive was good for a few reasons. I learned so much more about Jean including the fact that he used to work for 20th Century Fox when he lived in West Hollywood for a year. He worked for their trademark department which handled the Simpsons. He said another country tried to sell Duff beer, so they had to shut that down. Another thing I liked about the drive was meeting some of the other people on the tour. Lots of us are here as English teachers, but some are nurses, or here for a few week vacation, doing freelance work, or studying. There was an Italian graduate student studying landslides.
When we got to the little town where the temple is located we walked around for a bit and had lunch. We were told to pack a lunch and then we got to the town where there is like 20 restaurants. So, I didn't eat my lunch so I could go out with a few people from the tour. But, not eating my PB&J, carrots, and apple slices would come in handy later when for the three meals we ate at the temple were the same. Rice and other cold veggies for all 3 meals.
There's so much glare it's hard to see but these are giant vats of aging kimchi.
Various massage instruments.
At first we thought this was honey but it's flavoured alcohol. There's bees in there!
This town is made for tourists. It's like a mini Jasper or Banff. I bought my first souvenir from Korea! Something I've always wanted - a mortar and pestle. It's so cute! I wan't wait to bring it home and crush spices with it.
Once lunch was over we picked up our bags and hiked up to the temple where we would stay. Lots of stairs . . . .
I asked "Do monks drive?" And yes, because sometimes they go to
visit people to pray with them privately.
We got settled into our rooms, put our temple clothes on, was given a little bit of info on how to conduct ourselves at the temple (walk with hands in front of you in a resting position, no talking while praying, no holding hands or signs of affection, how to bend down to pray). Then, we made lotus flower lanterns that we would later use for the evening chant. That was really fun!
Some of our group
Selfie with roommate Marilyn in the background
After that we had some free time to walk around and see the sights. Then we met for dinner where we are supposed to eat silently, but there was for sure some talking. (Are we allowed to get more? What is this?) After dinner we made the prayer beads/rosary. There are 108 beads which is a significant number in Buddhism. We had to bend down and pray, put a bead on, and then stand up and do it all over again. 108 times. My butt is so sore still. I wanted to do something special for each bead I put on, partly because it's a prayer, and partly so I could focus on something and not get bored or think about the pain while putting the bead on. Sometimes I would say a positive word (joy, love, courage, happiness) or I'd name a person I love. If you're reading this I probably named you! I'm glad I did that - It made me really happy.
After the beads we went to the evening chant which starts with drumming followed by praying in the temple. Then, we came back to a meeting point where the monk had us write down two things on a piece of paper: one thing we want to happen this year and one thing we want to stop happen. We grabbed our lotus lanterns and walked up to a place where the monk burned our papers to give these thoughts to Buddha in hopes we would feel lighter.
Afterwards we had a quick snack which was a chunk of sweet potato and headed to bed. Bed time was supposed to be at 9 but it was more like 9:45. We had the option of waking up for 3:30 am chant which I wanted to do because I wanted the full experience. The morning chant was only about half an hour so we went back to bed a bit before breakfast at 6 am. It's weird to eat rice and cold veggies for breakfast! (I ate half a PB&J before breakfast knowing that it would probably not be a breakfast I would love.)
After breakfast we had some free time, then went for a walking meditation. I've done that before which is just praying as you walk back and forth. This version of walking meditation was hiking up a very steep mountain, I made it about half way up before I realized I am terrified of heights. In fact on the way down I had a few moments of panic. I'm glad I stopped there because the tour guide told me there is a 70 degree slope up ahead which I don't know if I could have manged to get back down. Another girl with bad knees stopped with me. Her name is Dawn and she's a nurse with the army. We walked back down and took in the scenery.
Later, we met up with the rest of the group for a tea ceremony with the monk. That was my favorite part of the whole weekend. I loved asking her questions. She is so wise. She answered my most burning question which was if she is able to see her family. She said it's different for every monk, but when she started being a monk she became very sick and had to have surgery so she went to the hospital and her family took care of her. After that, she asked the head monk if she could continue to see her family because she realized it's so important to her. But, she said that some monks find their family too much of a distraction, so they choose not to see them. That shocked me - but I can see if you have a lot of family drama that keeps pulling you back into a lot of pain, it would distract a monk from their goals. She said the hardest part of being a monk is when people put so much expectation on them. Sometimes people call them and say "I'm about to hang myself - help me!"and she doesn't know what to do in that moment. She is so peaceful, you could see that it hurts her to experience that. I asked her if becoming a monk was hard for her because she couldn't have a family. She said that it wasn't a hard decision for her because her ultimate goal in becoming a monk is to find out who she is, and you can't do that while having someone so dependent on you, as a child would be. The way I wrote that isn't exactly how she said it because that sounds so harsh, but it made sense when she said it.
We left the temple after lunch and headed to an apple orchard to make apple pie, apple jam, and try apple wine. It was all delicious! I even ate the pie I made which if you know me, I'm not a huge fan of pie. Then, we boarded the bus back home. The tour guide asked if we wanted to watch a movie and just mentioned "Moana" which caused a shriek from most of us females on the bus. Yes!!! None of us had seen it but wanted to so badly. It was perfect. I kind of floated in and out of sleeping and watching, but I got the gist of the movie.
After picture
I mean . . . .
Apple brandy
No!
There was much discussion around a slice of cheddar cheese on apple pie. Some had heard of it and some hadn't. They couldn't image it. I kept pointing out that fruit
and cheese is a thing . . . just go with it.
When we got back to our home base I went to Jean's for pizza. He turned on the tv to some sort of singing talent show like The Voice but they wear bag/masks over their heads instead. I can't describe it, so you have to see a picture.
Can you believe I've been here for 2 months? Sometimes I can and sometimes I can't. 10 more to go . . .
Love,
Alli
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