Thursday, November 17, 2011

where should I begin?

My word.  It has been a month since my last post, if that even counts.  I have done some pretty cool things the past few months, so I will do my best to share my experiences!

Way back in September I did a temple stay in Seosan with some good friends and it was wonderful!  First, incase anyone was wondering, I have not converted to Buddhism, but going there was a great way to learn about and appreciate the religion, as well as a wonderful way to relax and de-stress.

When we first got there we changed out of our street clothes into clothes provided to us by the temple...they were quite the stylish get-ups.

This is myself along with some of my friends who did the temple stay.

Once we were changed into our lovely orange numbers we watched a video that educated us on staying in the temple and being respectful to others and the religion, it was pretty interesting.  After watching we realized that we had already broken almost rule that we were supposed to follow, unintentionally of course, and we were now much more cautious.  

Next came the bowing. Oh my goodness, monks have some stamina.  We only did on  108 bows and that was painful, the monk informed us that he has done over 10,000 at a time, I can only imagine the pain that he must have felt after that.  The coolest thing about this part of the experience is that while we were bowing we were also make a necklace and putting one bead on for every bow, everything was going pretty smoothly until bow number 78 when I dropped one end of the string and all of my beads fell off.  I kept going to finish my bows and out the necklace back together once I was done, here is the finished product:


This is probably one of my favorite photos from the whole weekend, it's mine and my friend's hands with our finished necklaces, which also work quite nicely as bracelets! (I wear mine almost everyday) 

After the bowing we had worked up quite an appetite and were relieved to know that dinner was next and man do monks eat well!  The food was delicious!  They are not allowed to eat any animals but have some pretty tasty meat substitutes that had me fooled.

After dinner we had a little break and then yoga with the most authentic instructor I will probably ever come in contact with. 


Incase you weren't sure he is the little bearded man in the middle.

I am pretty sure he was made of rubber, he could fold himself into the tiniest little man ball and it was so cool!  Unfortunately, he wouldn't let us do many of the poses because we had just, "taken the dinner" and he did not want us to disrupt our digestion, regardless, it was still pretty cool.

After yoga we had some tea and were then in for quite the performance from the monk who lived at the temple.  At first he was singing some traditional songs which were very beautiful, then he started singing some Korean Pop and encouraging us to dance. It was awesome. Once the performance was over we sat around to talk with the others who were doing the temple stay and were treated to some lovely rice cakes and wonderful conversation.  We had the opportunity to sit and talk with the yoga instructor, which was definitely one of the highlights of our stay.  This man was so enlightened and at peace with everything.  Our conversation with him felt like one of those enlightening conversations that only Hollywood could script, but it actually happened, and was so so so cool!  Our temple mom had to cut the conversation short though because bed time was at 10:00 pm, and for good reason, we were waking up at 6:00 am to climb a mountain!

Once we went to bed it turned into a giant slumber party.  I felt like a little kid at camp, there were 7 girls, all close friends, and we sat around and giggled and talked about everything, it was so great.  6:00 came much too soon but we all woke up climbed to the top of the mountain in Seosan that I posted pictures of a while back, it was pretty cool.  Once we returned to the temple we had breakfast, made a really cool lantern, had tea with the monk, and then our temple stay was over.  The sense of relaxation and rejuvenation that I had after that weekend was incredible, and I definitely see myself doing a few more before I leave Korea.

Fast forwarding to where I am now my friend group has almost completely changed, solely due to the fact that contracts ended and friends left and new friends came.  A few weeks ago I had four goodbyes in two days, that was tough.  Fortunately, the new people who have come are pretty wonderful! I also now have a really good friend from University here!  My friend Laura lives in Daejeon which is about an hour and a half bus ride from me, not bad at all!  I have seen several times and it is so nice to have a bit of home here in Korea!

Well, I need to move onto other things, sorry if this post is really jumbled, it was really bothering me that I hadn't posted anything in quite some time.  I will try my hardest to do a few more posts in the near future so that this is finally up to date.

Still loving living in Korea.

: )