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I'm so bad at writing blogs. But at least I write good ones when I do, but I'm usually so busy. This past weekend I went to a Temple Stay. It was just overnight and I wish so much that it was longer. It was actually down in Gyeongju where I went before. But farther out on a mountain. It was beautiful and so peaceful. Stress that I didn't even know I had disappeared. We had free time but also regimented schedule. It was unique in that it had a martial art there as well: Sunmudo. It is kind of like Tae kwon do, but not really. I have a video on you tube of one of the kids demonstrating. Don't let him fool you, he's a black belt. Unfortunately I didn't get a video of the next guy which did quicker movements and jumps so you get to see the slightly less impressive one, but that is ok. ^^
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZsS_pM2Utk
Our schedule: Beth and I left here at 7:15am to catch a bus down to Gyeongju. If you remember from my previous entry it takes 4.5 hrs to get down there. So we were able to catch a bus
leaving at 8:50am. Once in Gyeongju at about 1:20pm we caught another bus for 50min to the stop nearest the temple. Once getting to the stop out in the boonies we had to walk 20min to the temple then another 10min up a steep hill. I still claim it was so worth the extra time and cost. Traveling there we saw many trees, mountains, and rice farms. I would not want to see the monster misquitos that they produce with how they flood the fields. I want to know also how the rows come out so neatly and just how exactly it works. It smelled heavenly. Whenever I leave Seoul I am reminded how much I love Korea, the real Korea. It was a male monk temple but females could stay and train in Sunmudo, and participate in the rituals. It is a very controlled martial art with isolated movements. It took a lot of strength and I learned how to kick. ^.^
We had free time until dinner that night so we wondered around and looked at the shrine and the cliff with the Buddha carving. At dinner we found out that during the whole stay women were
Main shrine
We meditated on the balcony part, and the Sunmudo demo was there as well. We chanted inside in the morning. on the left and men on the right, for everything. This is during pray, meals, training, etc. I wish I was able to ask their precise reason but I think I have a pretty good idea. The temple food is delicious. It's vegetarian and keeping with tradition we had to eat everything that we took. It was so healthy, but I didn't eat enough because I was afraid of not being able to finish. ^^ We had chanting afterwards and then Sunmudo training intro class. At 10pm it was lights out and after a long day we were tired and went right to sleep. At 4:00am we woke to monk walking and chanting with his wooden bell coming over to our building to wake us up. We had to get up for the 4:30 chanting, and if we didn't we would have to do 3,000 bows as punishment. We found out that would take at least 8hrs to do. 108bows is hard enough, from a seated bow to standing that many times is very tiring and painful on the legs (thighs mostly).
That morning after chanting and meditating on the balcony of the main shrine (outlooking the same view
Walkway along rock face
to get to the buddha carving... kinda sketchy that we have from the buddha carving) we had a very buddhist breakfast. It consisted of four bowls with different purposes. There was no talking, we had a limited time to eat so we had to do it fast and properly. We cleaned our bowls with water, first with hot (which we drank) and then with cold which I also had to drink because it was too dirty. The head monk set the pace at which we would eat and finish and instructed us when to clean our bowls by hitting a bamboo stick. After we had tea time with a couple monks and we could ask questions and discuss things about buddhism. Unfortunately a lot of the time was taken up by trivial questions that the other people had. Then there was free time again which we used to see a couple other sites and another temple. I never know what to think about having monks live at a temple then having tourists wonder through it. It somehow seems dirty to have it be a tourist site when it should be and is used as a spiritual place. Anyways, our lunch was like our dinner. We then saw the
Sunmudo demonstration then we took a bus home and got back at about 11pm. It was such a great weekend and so restful. I love having the free time to wonder on the hiking trail and just meditate on a hill. The smells and weather were wonderful, it was worth the extra cost.
When I say extra cost I am talking about the temple stay that everyone else went to. I'm pretty sure it was about 40-50people who went to one within Seoul (so it was small and in the city) it was organized by our Ewha buddies. Beth didn't want to go to that one so she found this other temple way out and asked if I wanted to ditch the preplanned one and go with her. I jumped on the opportunity to do a quieter temple stay with a lot less people. I'm really still not a big group person. They didn't have that great of an experience, it was more packaged, all planned out, no free time, no room for questions, and not relaxing were the responses to that weekend. I am so refreshed and it helped to refocus what is important for me. The rest
of my weekends will be spent leaving Seoul and hopefully escaping into the country.
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