Temple Stay

Train rides are amazing here. They are cheap, smooth, quick and there is lots of room for your legs. We met Kim in Gyeongju with two of her friends, Krissy and Emily. Since we didn't need to be to the temple until 5pm, we decided to explore the city. There was a Rice cake and Liquor festival happening that weekend so we checked it out. It was a 5000 won taxi ride (about 10 minutes), which means for 5 of us it was about $1 each.

The festival was a bunch of tents set up in a parking lot (like most US festivals). For 2000 won we bought 6 or 8 pieces of some green rice cake. It is not actually a cake but more like a soft gummy slice covered in powder. The texture was strange and taste wasn't very good. For 1000 won we bought an awesome sampling cup which hung around your neck and tasted three varieties of rice wine, all of which were delicious. We didn't find the tent to test the rice liquor (called Soju), but there was a parade and people dressed in costumes. All in all very fun.

We had to catch a bus to the temple. Almost caught it in the wrong direction. For a couple of stops we kept asking the bus driver if this was our stop. Finally we get to an intersection after being on the bus for 30 minutes and the bus driver throws up his hands and yells "Golgulsa." This was our stop. We walked about 15 minutes to get to the temple where we were given monk clothes and a room. Andy had to sleep in the boys building.

The monk clothing was :

amazing to say the least. Huge baggy pants that were constantly falling down if you didn't tie them tight enough and a fantastically orange vest so no one accidentally shoots you?

But the temple area was gorgeous. It was set in the mountains and there were many buildings along a very steep mountainous path. The cherry blossums and I think peach blossums are blooming.



Dinner was at 5:30 in the dining hall, traditional low tables and you sit on the floor to eat. We had rice, spicy kimchi, green onions in some sesame sauce, something I didn't recognize and a soup with what tasted like spinach. You could take as much as you wanted but you had to eat everything you took. Needless to say most of us didn't eat enough because we were too worried about not being able to eat it all. Then at 6:30 was a video about Sunmudo an then actually doing Sunmudo. Turns out I am not very flexible or strong. It was pretty intense for beginners. For evening chanting at 8:00 there was lots of bowing. Not that half bow crap, but full on stand up lay down forehead to ground then stand up again. But listening to the monks chant was amazing (we each got a book that had the chants written out for us in roman letters but it was hard to follow). Then to bed for lights out at 10pm. Which may seem early but morning chanting started at 4:30 am and if you missed it you would have to do 3000 bows, which we found out later takes between 6 and 8 hours to complete.

I am going to break up the posts because this is pretty long and the next day was even longer.