Buddhist Temple Stay

This past weekend, Clayton and I ventured to Yongmunsa Temple, located in the Gyeonggi province. The link below has information on the temple itself and our itinerary for the weekend.  http://www.visitkorea.or.kr/ena/SI/SI_EN_3_6.jsp?cid=309682.

We had a wonderful experience getting to live like buddhist monks. It's an experience that I believe everyone should do just once, regardless of religion or beliefs. There was about 20 people that were in our group, a lot of couples, wanting to get away and relax for the weekend...or so they thought. When we arrived at the temple we were dropped off at the bottom of the mountain. We had to hike straight up for about 20 minutes. We looked like we had jumped in a pool by the time we got to the top...that's how sweaty we were...it was a little warm. We were told to change into our "uniform" for the weekend. The picture above is Clayton and I in our "uniform" that we had to wear for the whole weekend...even to sleep in. You can imagine how lovely we smelled by the end of it. I loved the uniform, especially the pants because they had an elastic band and I could pull them up to my nose. They were so comfy.

          We started off by learning about Buddhism and the temple itself. The temple is roughly 1100 years old. It holds the oldest or largest ( i can't remember which one) ginko tree in the East.....like the Eastern world. It was huge and gorgeous. I think I took like 5.3490 million pictures of if because I just couldn't get enough. After getting briefed on the religion and taking a tour of the temple compound we hiked even further up the mountain to an area where we did martial arts. Most of the other females were not excited about this....I on the other hand was SUPER excited and took this exercise very seriously. Clayton tried his hardest....let's just say if he and I got into a martial arts match, I would win. Clayton was surprised at how good my marial arts skills were.

After martial arts we had to participate in the ringing of the gong for the evening. The gong is rang in the evening 33 times. It was so cool to actually get participate in this event. I do know that I would not like to be a local becuase the gong is sounded 33 times in the evening (7:00pm) and then 28 times in the morning (5:30am). This thing wasn't like your typical gong either....it shook the mountain! We had dinner in a separate area than the monks. Dinner consisted of not wearing those sweet blue shoes, sitting on the floor, and a buffet of vegetarian food. I didn't recognize anything but rice....so that's pretty much what I ate all weekend. Monks don't believe in wasting food, so everything you put on your plate you had to eat. We also had to eat with chopsticks....this is still a struggle for me. Thank goodness the rice is sticky! Clayton loved all the food and tried just about everything. I don't have the palate that he does so I stuck mostly to rice and occassionally ventured out and tried seaweed. We were also served yellow water....which we didn't drink because it was yellow. For all I know it could have come from the bathroom. Speaking of the bathrooms....they were not quite what we were accustomed to. It was a nice ceramic hole in a stall.

It's moments like these when I wish I were a guy....I would literall take my pants off when I used the restroom because I was so scared I would "miss the hole," and...well....you know, make a mess on myself. I didn't shower the whole time, because towels were not provided and I was scared to. Again, you can imagine how we smelled on Sunday. The sleeping arrangements were very nice as well. We were given a thick blanket, which was actually not so thick, and a very hard pillow that was the size of my hand. Luckily we were all so tired that it really didn't matter what we slept on.

           After dinner and the adventures of using the bathrooms we had tea time in the tea room with one of the monks. This was so special because we were able to have some face time and ask the monk questions that we had about Buddhism or just anything. The monk showed us how to make tea....and not the kind from the tea bag but like special korean tea that you have to strain yourself. It was sooo good. We have decided that our next purchase will be a Korean tea set so that we can make tea like this frequently. I was put in charge of making the tea, which was scary, but luckily it wasn't too difficult.

        We were awakened by a gong that was not so big or loud at 4:00am to begin our morning chanting and the bows with the monks in the main temple. Now, to most people this would sound awful, but it was quite possibly the coolest thing I have done in a very long time. We performed our bows and chanted with the monks for about 45 minutes. I loved getting to hear them chant even though I had no idea what they were saying. After the chanting came the 108 full bows. A full bow starts out by standing, next falling to your knees and then bending over while having your hands together in the "pray position." From there you turn the palms of your hand upward, sit back up while putting your hands in the "pray position," and then standing back up on your feet while keeping your hands in the "pray position." We had to do this 108 times. One for each sin. Clayton was able to successfully complete all 108, I did roughly 90. It took about an hour to complete. It may not sound like it was difficult, and I didn't think it would be, but when you are doing it over and over again, it's exhausting. Plus, those monks were moving fast! Below is a picture of inside the main temple where we worshiped. It is gorgeous!

           We had breakfast.....aka rice and unknown veggies/tofu, and then geared up for a hike down the mountain. The men were in charge of sweeping the sidewalk while the women just followed behind. I made sure to rub it in Clayton's face the whole time. Hiking back up the mountain, we walked in what they call the "waterroad" or a small stream of water that flows from the top of the temple down to the bottom of the mountain. The monk said that it would be a massage for our toes, but I am here to say that it was NOT a massage on my toes, it was painful, and slippery! I loved it! After walking the waterroad we took a group picture and then went to practice our zen meditation....for an hour. This was difficult simply because we were exhausted and sore from all the hiking and bowing!

          

After lunch we packed up, returned our sweet uniforms, and headed back home. Part of me was sad to leave, but another part was happy to be getting back to my toilet, shower, and bed! Clayton and I were so glad that we went and have both said that we would do it again....maybe not next weekend, but somewhere down the road in the future. More pictures have been posted on my facebook page, so if you'd like to see them all, and there are a lot, feel free to check them out.

Driving in Korea

I am posting this publically in hopes that Koreans everywhere will read this and take warning. Today I passed the written test to obtain a Korean driver's license. I officially can drive in Korea. I am excited and want to throw up all at the same time. You see, here in Korea, driving is like the running of the bulls experience in Spain. It's every man/woman for him/herself. If you don't run/drive aggressively and constantly look over your shoulder and in every other direction you WILL get hit by a bull/car or hit a pedestrian. Red lights mean that stopping is optional, you can park on the side of the road in the middle of a lane, lane markers/lines are also optional...you don't have to stay in your lane while driving. IT'S CRAZY!

For those of you who know me or have rode in  car with me know how slow I drive and how confused I get when driving...thus you can imagine how it would be to ride with me in a car here in Korea....simply awful. Today Clayton had to work a pretty long day. I wanted to run out and do some errands while he was at work. What this meant was that I had to take the car and drive BY MYSELF, for the first time here. You would think this wouldn't be so bad and that after 10 days of driving roughly the same route, I would know where I was going...WRONG. I left Clayton's building and drove completely in the wrong direction...I never had a chance. I drove out the gate, asked the guard , who was Korean, where to go to get to the PX (shopping center) and he directed me. I became very confused by his directions and attempted to follow them the best I could. I was not successful. I found myself on the side of the road crying because I had know idea where I was because all the signs were in Korean characters and I couldn't read them. I rolled the window down and asked a stranger/Korean man "US. Base?" and shrugged my shoulders as if to convey "I don't know." He pointed me in the right direction and I made it back onto base. Success! I got to the PX, did my shopping and then realized...I have no clue how to get back to Clayton's office. Luckily, I used that wonderful brain of mine and asked a soldier before I got back and started driving all over Korea again. Needless to say, I made it back...in one piece. What should have been a 30 minute trip, took almost an hour and a half.

First Week Success!

So, I've been here now for one week. We have finished all the "important stuff" and hopefully now can work on having fun. Our apartment is GORGEOUS! All hardwood floors, totally electronic (which has given us some difficulties as everything is labeled in Korean), beautiful sliding glass doors, very modern yet very traditional korean style living. My first morning, Clayton had to go to work, which left me at the apartment by myself. I woke up and tried to go into the back room/sunroom that is attached to our masterbedroom. Well the doors are all sliding doors. I was half asleep and trying to feel around for the door knobs and quickly realized that I couldn't find them and that the doors didn't have them. I panicked because I had no idea how I was going to get out of  the bedroom! I thought I was trapped in there or that Clayton had locked me in there so I couldn't get out. After a few moments of panic, I said to myself "Hey self, remember you're in Korea now. Clayton showed you how to use the doors. THEY SLIDE!" I slid the doors open and all was right in the world again.

Our recycling situation is very interesting. You literally have to recycle EVERYTHING except for food scraps. This is so amazing and so wonderful yet so confusing at times. There are about 10 large bins outside our building for recyclables and scraps. They are all labeled in korean however, so we don't know which bin is for what. We have to  pray each time that there are things in the bin so that we know where to put our trash. There is also a trash security guard...not even kidding. If you dont put things in the wrong bins you WILL get in trouble. Unfortunately for us, we are the only foreigners that live in this building...and all of our trash is in English, therefore, if we put something in the wrong bin they will KNOW it's us. We have yet to get in trouble which must mean we're doing a good job. I'm thinking we should just make friends with the security guard and pay him a little each month so that if we do mess up, he won't tell the landlord and have us evicted.

I've already said several times that it is going to be difficult leaving this place...and I just got here! Our complex is suburbia meets NYC. It's super kid/family friendly with lots of parks, resturaunts, and shops. I've already scouted out the shoe/clothes stores...Clayton is a little worried.

We spent our first weekend travelling down into Seoul. Everywhere we go people stare at us...they don't say anything or point and scream...they just stare, especially young children. We had to take care of some things for Buttons, and afterwards we went shopping at one of my FAVORITE places to get shoes. They must have been having a back to school/end of summer sale because almost every shoe store had shoes for 10,000 won, or about $9. It was amazing, I was in heaven. I only bought one pair since Clayton only had enough cash for about one or two pairs (I think he did that on purpose ;) ). On our way back home we encountered a "situation" on the subway. Two young girls were sitting across from us giggling and talking. I noticed one say to her friend and make a hand gesture that I had big eyes. Needless to say I was NOT happy that I was being made fun of!! I told Clayton, who laughed at me, that I was going to tell them that they had small eyes. He advised that I not get into spat with these two girls, who could have been half my age, because I could be deported from the country...not to mention I'm supposed to be the older and more mature one....yeah right! I ended up not saying or gesturing anything to the girls but did sit and pout the rest of the ride home.

I've been able to go to two of Clayton's soccer games thus far, we've played raquetball, gone to the movies once, and eaten ice cream just about every day. Tonight we went to our first language class. We are hoping to be fluent by the time Clayton's parents visit us late this Fall. Not too sure if that will happen after going to this first class. We both want to continue with the language classes weekly, as it will give us something to do and work on together.

I have also secured a volunteer position which will help give me something to do during the days while Clayton is working. I am super excited about the position since it seems to be working with families and children. We are crossing our fingers that eventually it could lead to employment. We've got several events planned already for the upcoming weeks. We are hoping to make a trip to visit one of Clayton's friend's in China, we are going on a weekend Buddhist Temple Stay retreat here in country, and also hopefully hiking up some of these gorgeous mountains that surround us. We will be sure to keep you posted...

Preparing for the BIG MOVE!

Our big day is fast approaching! We have created this blog so that our friends and family can keep up with all of our plans. Our schedule for the rest of the summer is as follows:

June: Cruise with BOTH our families!
July 16-25: Bam home to NC
July 30/31: Bam Graduates!
Aug 2: Bam and Buttons move to KOREA!!