The weekend as a whole was amazing and very rejuvenating. It began with us learning a lot about Buddhism, which is a major religion in Korea. We attended a talk by a Buddhist monk who grew up in the US but then came to Korea twenty years ago. During his first year in Korea he discovered Buddhism and it soon became his way of life and Korea became his home because he decided to remain here instead of returning to the United States. He then accompanied us to Samhwasa Temple, which is about 40 minutes outside Donghae. The temple was absolutely gorgeous and we were lucky enough to learn about the various instruments they use at the temple and were even able to ring the bells.
My friend Maggie and I near the temple
Drinking fresh mountain water from the temple
Some offerings for Buddha
Lanterns on the temple grounds
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| The bell we were able to ring. Here it's being rung to indicate the beginning of a prayer service.
The experience at the temple and the talk by the Buddhist monk led me to really want to do a temple stay. There are many opportunities during the fall and spring to stay overnight in the mountains at a Buddhist Temple. You generally are awaken at 3AM by a call to prayer and then participate in meditation and chanting until dawn. You then participate in more ceremonies before a very large meal at noon. You can do two night temple stays but I tend to think one night would be intense enough for me.
The other religion that I have been continually exposed to has been the Unification Church. I'm not sure if I divulged this before but the University that we are currently at is owned by the Unification Church, hence the marble-everywhere. (You can check out pictures that a fellow ETA took of our Univeristy here. Well, it turns out that the hotel we stayed at in Donghae is also owned by the Unification church and was a very similar marble palace! Luckily, my room was very nice and included one queen size bed that a friend and I could share and then one Korean style mat bed. We also received a room with a kitchen. Several of our friends were not as lucky and simple had one big empty room with three mats to make Korean style beds. The hotel did have two very attractive perks though- one was an unlimited breakfast buffet with Western foods like cereal, eggs, bacon and bread and the other perk was a wonderful spa. Since the weather was not very great on Saturday many of the female ETAs chose to visit the Korean bathhouse/spa at the hotel. Basically you enter the spa and must completely strip. You then shower and are able to enter any of the seven heated pools, some which are also herbal infused, or any of the five saunas. There was even a salt water pool! All of the pools and saunas are different temperatures and are infused with different herbs or other medicinal things. You also can scrub yourself, which is something Koreans do very frequently. You basically soak until you are pruney and then rub your skin with a rough clothe until all of the dead skin and dirt rubs off. The entire experience was very neat and really exposed me to another side of Korean culture.
Some friends and I at the beach on Friday.
The last part of our trip was a museum visit on Sunday. Of course the museum was owned by the Unification Church and was another marble palace. In fact, Korea has seven marble palaces and by the conclusion of this weekend we had seen three of the seven. The museum was probably the weirdest museum I have ever been to and included fake stalagmites and stalactites both inside and outside the museum. There was actually a stalagmite and stalactite garden. Then there were weird copies of objects such as the Trevi Fountain, the Eiffel Tower and other landmarks. There seemed to be very few real objects in the museum come to think of it.
The garden at the museum.
In the end though the weekend was incredibly enjoyable and helped me relax before my teaching this week, which I will write about a little later! And I promise my next blog entry will not be so long!
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