hongbeop temple

This weekend Andrew and I went to a "temple stay" in Busan.  Meaning we went to a Buddhist temple, stayed the night and pretended to be Buddhists for a day.  We learned a lot about the culture and lifestyle of both Monks and Koreans.  First I will share my photos and then I'll share the strict schedule we followed that another photographer captured.

My whole flickr album can be seen here.  But here are my favorites.  Lots of the lily pads.

the largest Buddha i've seen.  we actually meditated inside of it

this is were we slept.  a had a korean room mate and we slept on the floor. i really liked the natural lighting

 

Part II

We were about an hour late but we only really missed the introductions of the other foreigners that were there.  Iris works for the volunteer group that was hosting the temple stay so she actually came and got us after we couldn't figure out how to get there on our own.  It took us about 3 hours to get there Saturday afternoon.

this was our Monk and the Modern Buddhist temple we were at

Andrew and I were had to introduce ourselves after getting there late.

This was our traditional dinner circle.  It was quite strict and we had to eat in silence. We also had to eat while tasting each individual bite slowly.

after dinner we had a ceremony.  this is us practicing for the real one that started at 8

we made 6 offerings to all the buddhas.  tea.light.rice. fruit. insents. and one more

then we did 108 bows, consecutively. It went by quickly but the next day we were in a lot of pain

After the ceremony we learned how to meditate (this is inside the big buddha i showed you above)

after that we had to get up at 3:30 to start our day. this is at 4:00 am.  we were walking around the temple looking for buddha

we found him and are thanking him, except for andrew.  he is still sleeping

the morning ceremony.  not many of us are sitting up straight for this one

then some more meditating

and then walking while mediating.  our Monk reminded us of the snow queen

picking unwanted grass at 6:30

and then painting at 8

and a farewell at 11

It was a lot of fun but we were exhausted and had a hard time staying awake after  1 hour of sleep.  Thank you to Iris and her group that had us.  And their photographer for all these great photos.

last of the vacation

As I finally finish editing and updating my photos from our summer vacation trip, Andrew and I have planed our last vacation before we come home, to a declining economy with no job or big immediate plan.  First I'll cover my photos.

The last two sets I just posted are...

dinosaurs and stuff

We were scorching hot while walking around Mokpo after our sunburnt camping experience and so we walked over to were the museums were all lined up on the board walk.  We made this decision while trying to huddle in a little shady spot on a hill and agreed we couldn't sit in that one spot the rest of the day.  So I had picked dinosaurs over boats, sculpture, and something else.  It was a great choice and we spent a few hours there and a few hundred pictures between the two of us.  PS. the museum claimed they used all the real bones in the museum.  But they don't look real, and they let us take pictures of them... sooo?

maybe the ones in the plastic boxes are real bones

they used real fish though!

Next was a train ride to Suncheon

We took a bus ride to the ECO park. There was someone at the tourist place using a computer that actually translated everything into English.  Pretty much she just kept saying "follow all the people".  We  went to the bus stop with all the people, crammed some 100+ people on the city bus, (no one was left behind), followed everyone in the walking line through the grass, up the VERY steep hill, and to the observatory deck overlooking the view below.  Coming down we followed the long line back down the hill, now dark, through the mosquito tall grass and waited at least an hour for the next city bus to put at least half of the 200-300 people waiting in line at ~ 9:00 night.  We really wished we had a car at this point.

How many crabs do you see?

 

So what's next you ask?

Well this weekend we are going to go stay in a Buddhist temple.  Ya I didn't know we could do that either, but I guess it is pretty common here for the foreigners.  Actually Iris, our co-teacher, volunteers once a month for this foreigner activity program.  They usually do something that is focused on introducing Korean culture and this month is a "temple stay".  We are traveling to Busan, about an 1 1/2 bus ride but lucky for us we got train tickets to make the 2 hour travel less ... well we won't want to throw up, so ... more comfortable :)

We also recently decided to go to Jeju Island right after our contract ends before we fly home.  It will be a nice little vacation to end our time in Korea on a relaxing note.  More to come on our plans.  So far we found airfare round trip for the both of us for about $160.  That's SUPER cheap. 

Okay.  bye

mokpo

Mokpo: great city on the water ... lots of boats ... and crabs ... eroded rock formations ... museums ... and sad horses pulling tacky buggies with fake horse sounds and poop catchers that their tails sit in ... I easily feel bad for animals.  flickr set

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

bigeum-do

Almost two weeks ago, Andrew and I set out for Mokpo to join our friends Becky and Nick for our summer vacation.  We traveled by slow train, a long 6 + hours, then took a taxi to the boat ferry, hopped on the slow ferry, another 2 hours, missed the bus to the beach, waited another hour for a crazy restaurant owner with a long knife to drive us in the back of her truck to the beach and walked about 10 minutes to a nice place to set up camp.  From the time we left Jinyeong to the time we got to the beach it was well past 12 hours of traveling.  We had a really good time though for only camping for less than one day.  It was cloudy the next day but we all managed to get instantly fried.  Unfortunately it started to look rainy so we had to pack up camp about 3:30 in the afternoon to take the ferry back to Mokpo.  And we almost missed the boat ferry leaving at 6:30 because we had opened a bottle of wine and the ferry came a little early.  I'll soon have the rest of my photos and blog caught up on what we did after we returned to Mokpo.

These are my favorite photos + fun in the sun below.  You can check them all out on flickr.