Temple Stay and cherry blossoms :)


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Asia » South Korea » Gyeongsangnam-do » Yangsan
April 17th 2011
Published: April 30th 2011
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So for my 27th birthday I did a temple stay and it was pretty amazing, although it wasn't what I expected. I anticipated a relaxing and thoughtful "vacation" where I would meditate and reflect on life 😊. What the reality of temple stay is is the day in the life of a monk, which was great, but definitely not what I expected. On Saturday we got a tour of Beomeosa temple - which is one of the most famous temples in Korea, which is beautiful! Then we had dinner - white rice, "panchan"(the side dishes-lots of veggies), cabbage/bean paste soup - so mashisoyo! (delicious). After we ate we had to clean our bowls with a slice of radish, haha. you put some hot water in your rice bowl and use your chopstick to push around the radish to clean the bowl, then pour the water into the panchan bowl and do the same, finally into the soup bowl, then eat the radish and if your water is "too dirty" then you have to drink it because the monk said that if you pour the water with too much food in it down the drain then the spirit baby of the Earth will not be able to drink the water. 😊 Next we did 108 bows- you are standing with your hands in prayer pose at your heart and then you drop down to your knees, and then all the way down with your face and hands to the floor. While down there you string a bead onto a necklace. 108 times. It was pretty intense but worth it 😊. Then we went to sleep at 9pm and awoke at 3am at the sound of monks hitting bells to wake everyone op in the monastery. We then saw a ceremony of monks beating leather drums. The leather drums help animals to become enlightened. Next, a traditional Buddhist service with more bows. Breakfast- same deal. Then a hike up the mountain :D my favorite part. So beautiful!!! I brought my sunglasses on the hike and when we got to the top it had become really sunny so I put them on and one of the Korean volunteers at the temple gave me a thumbs up and said, "Wooooww!! Beautiful! Jennifer Lopez! Maggie Q!" hahahahaha!!! Definitely a first for being compared to J Lo and most likely the last 😉 haha. So that was my temple experience... 😊😊
It is soo beautiful in Korea now that it is Spring <3... everything is bright green and there are soo many flowers everywhere :D. I'm looking forward to my Mom coming on Wednesday 😊😊😊 we are going to go to Seoul! Yaho!
Anyhoo, that's all for now. Sending love and light to you all from Korea!!! 😊
Andrea😊


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