Temple Stay

Last weekend, Jared and I did a temple stay for 24 hours. We, and 16 others, left at 11am on Saturday, and took a bus to a beautiful temple in a lush, green forrested valley. It was a promotion to get foreigneers involved in temple stays, so it was free, but they had hired 3 camera men to follow us around all weekend and film our experiences. When we arrived, we got our temple clothes (monk pants and vests), got our rooms, and went to our first buddist service. It was really interesting. We did the bowing and chanting for awhile, then explored the temple grounds. After that, we made lotus flowers out of cups and crate paper. We explored the temple grounds a bit more, led by our monk, while he told us stories and we stopped to learned how to meditate a few times. For dinner, we learned how to eat like a monk. We were completely quiet and had 4 bowls, and everyone set up and served themselves exactly the same way. We each took a bite, then chewed it quietly until it was gone. Then another...and again, it was really interesting to see how they do it 3 times a day. The food was slightly hard to eat-kimchi, roots, potatoes, rice, and acorn jelly stuff. Not bad, but very strong flavors. Afterwards, we poured water in our bowls and drank the grey water. I didn't mind it, but some people were absolutely disgusted. After dinner, we had another Buddist service, and watched some cool drumming stuff done by the monks, then went to bed at 9pm.

The next morning, we woke up at 3am (ouch!), went to a Buddist service of more chanting and bows. After that, we practiced meditating again, which was incredibly hard to do with video cameras in your face. By the time I got out of my mind and away from thr cameras, we had finished. Then we had more free time to wander, but it was pouring outside, so after a quick and wet walk, I took a nap for a few hours. When I got up, we made necklaces with 108 beads....108 for the 108 sins that monks bow for, 108 times. After craft time, we observed, then had, a traditional tea service. It was beautifully presented, and we had tea and delicious rice balls filled with suggar. After that, we had a quick closing closing ceremony, then left on the bus back to Ulsan.

That was a really quick run-through. It was a good weekend, and we learned a lot. We had a monk with us for 24 hours and we able to ask him questions about Buddism.

We have one more week of school, with lots of fun activities (so not real, real work), then we are off to Thailand for a week. We can't wait!

Karate is still going well, although I don't really stop getting sore. And I'm still training for my half marathon. I finally hit an hour the other day...I was pretty proud of myself.

Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the summer. We are down to 8 teaching weeks..yay! See everyone soon!