Happy New Year!

I literally "rang" in the New Year in Seoul. ^^

In Korea, it's a Buddhist tradition that you ring giant bells on the new year to "wake up" the world. I like the sentiment. It makes me think of creation singing praise to God. So for the new year all around Korea people are ringing humongous bells in the temples all at the same time. And we STILL couldn't hear the sound. :( Too much shouting. haha

We were in a very crowded area of Seoul for the event. Kinda like the "Times Square" of Seoul. Before the event the streets were closed off and police buses lined the sides. You could see police everywhere in preparation for crowd-control. (Or so I thought.)

When it event was over, of course everyone tried to leave at once. So the crowd became a mob. And the police did nothing. They stood there on the side watching people get pushed and shoved and carried. They only smiled and laughed about it. Useless! Worse than useless! (Like the "net neutrality" bill...)

BUT despite that (and the frigid temperatures) I had a wonderful time in Seoul~ and the thought that I will be back home soon cheers me even more.

Kyung-ju visit

Kyung-ju: Old Korean capital city back when there was a King. Obviously one of the oldest cities in Korea, and also one of the most rural. It has famous temples, farms, and old tombs. A very interesting place to visit. ^^

Hong Sung's family lives in Kyung-ju and he grew up there, so he invited me out to tour the sites. When we got to Kyung-ju one of the first things we did was eat! :D We had ssam-bap: meat wrapped in lettuce with a ton of side dishes... as you can see. haha

In the restaurant there were all these cute miniatures of traditional Korean "village life." A lot of the scenes had cows in them, since they were considered part of the family way back when you depended on them for your life. Since Kyung-ju is still very rural, we saw a whole bunch of cows. ^^ There were also fun game scenes depicted as well.

All these old people are playing yut-nol-i, a traditional Korean game. I'll teach you how to play when I'm back. ^^

After eating, we visited a park. Or what I thought was a park. It's actually a huge cemetery where all the old royalty is buried. See those mounds? Those are tombs.

The tombs were all different sizes. It all depended on how important you were. They're like the pyramids, except more natural. And I don't think it took thousands of slaves to make them.

Across from the graveyard was another graveyard, except bigger and more spread out. This one was definitely like a park. People were playing and eating and flying kites! An old man was selling kites he had made, and it was the perfect weather for it. Since I am the year of the tiger and this year is also the year of the tiger, I thought it was pretty cool that I could have my own "special" kite.

The tombs are about 2 inches high. And that man is just veeeeeeeeeeeery small. hehe

After the tombs, we stopped by one of the most famous temples in Korea: Bulguksa. At the entrance gate they have these huge statues on either side. They're the guarding gods, making sure the temple remains safe from evil spirits. They are definitely formidable-looking!

Temples in Korea usually have the same architecture, like churches in America. But every once in a while you come across one that has a unique quality; just like our famous churches in the world. They're special for some reason. Bulgulsa is special because it houses some of Korea's "national treasures," and is a World Heritage site.

I do like the architecture. It's unique and something I wont get to see back in the States.

After our adventures, we headed back to Hong Sung's home to eat with his family. His mom had made a special bulgogi just for my visit! One of my favorite Korean foods is bulgogi. ^^

Kyung-ju is completely different from Daegu. I was going to compare it to going from the city of Chicago out to the suburbs where my relatives live... but that's not even close enough. Kyung-ju is very refreshing; everything is natural and clean. A huge difference from the city smells of Daegu!

Korean Thanksgiving (추석) Pt. 1

Some friends and I went to Jeju Island (Korea's Florida) over the holiday weekend (more on that later)... which isn't exactly what Korean Thanksgiving is about. But most of our Korean friends were busy doing family rituals for the holiday.

A friend from church, Brandon, put together a CLIP about what they do for the family rituals and I thought it was definitely worth sharing. So please, check it out if you want to understand/see a bit more about Korean culture.

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Note: The egg shaped mounds of grass are their graves. They are shaped that way because traditionally they believe in reincarnation, and the egg-shape of the earth symbolizes re-birth.

The Lying Buddha

At the end of July we had a much-needed vacation! Jin's family was kind enough to invite me to their trip to Baek-A mountain, which is a few hours southwest of Daegu. They were going to spend a few days in a cabin mountain.

This is our beautiful cabin in the woods!

Our cabin was split into two. The four of us on one side and another family on the other... the other family was fairly large and loud too!

On Thursday afternoon we took a tour of the countryside. We stopped by a bee farm and watched them add to the hives. There was a small convenience store with a kind old man! He built the wooden house and the store it was attached to. It was pretty awesome! It reminded me of a house you would see in Maine.

The people in the area were so nice too! They were very talkative, and gave us some of their Indian corn (ock-su-su) from their side-of-the-road gar

While we were in the area, we visited a few of the famous Buddha sites. This place was the "land of a 1000 Buddhas." Roughly. There were SO many! The myth for this area was that angels came down and were making all these Buddhas in one night, but the rooster crowd to signal daybreak and scared them all off. So most of them were left unfinished. Really interesting, but I wonder what the real story is.

This plant was used by women to paint their nails! If you crush up the flower it stains your fingers really easily. Jin's mom demonstrated for me. ^^

After MUCH hiking we finally reached the famous "Lying Buddha." It's the largest Buddha in Asia(?). But it's laying down... if I remember correctly it fell over because its base is too small. And in actuality there are two Buddhas stuck together... and they're actually carved into a bigger slab. Which I'm sure contributes to it being difficult to erect.

They have extra Buddha statues lying around every where! There really is no shortage of them.

The view from the top by the Lying Buddha was really amazing. There were both rolling hills and mountains everywhere. The weather was near perfect too... not too hot and a cool breeze at the top. I still remember Jin trying to catch dragonflies with his hat like an 8 year old... hehe.

Some of the Buddhas were definitely old.

This one reminded me of "The Thinker" statue.

I'm not exactly sure what kind of Buddha this is. I've never seen one in such a "come hither" pose. haha.

We took a break in the middle of the day on Sunday when we were seeing the "Dolman" stones. "Dol" means stone... So we were seeing "stone men." But the name is deceiving.

Basically all they are are large stones that don't belong there in the region. They were cut to build something, but that something was either never accomplished or so completely destroyed that they can't figure out what it used to be.

This is the largest dolman stone.

Apparently it has a hole in the top that looks like a vagina hole. The myth goes that if you throw a rock into it (and you're single) you will get married. If you miss the hole, you'll never get married. OR it could also mean that if you get your rock into the hole you'll have a boy for your first baby.

I got one in after the 4th try. Which either means I'll have to wait a helluva long time to get married... or I'll have 3 girls and a boy. haha.

If you can see the difference between the two pictures... congrats! You've found my rock.

It was a great trip with Jin's family. They really made me feel at home! It was nice being with a family again since I miss my own...

"I lift up my eyes to the hills..."

Jin took me on a day trip the weekend after my birthday. It was a surprise, so I had no idea where we were going. (I love surprises!) We had to take an early morning bus about an hour outside of the city and then transfer buses and ride for another half hour. It was a little complicated and it was so nice for Jin to take care of it all!

The morning mist was beautiful around the mountains...
Jin and I on our way to the largest women's Buddhist temple and college.

There was this beautiful path on our way up to the temple. It was quiet and peaceful and we were the only ones there that early in the day.


Entrance to the temple. We couldn't take any pictures of monks/nuns, so we had to stick to buildings and scenery.

The view from inside the temple grounds.

The main temple and oldest temple on the grounds. They were having a kids camp, and teaching the kids how to meditate and what to say. (That's what the posters are for)

Mats you kneel on to pray.

Buddha surrounded by individual carvings of all his different disciples. What I don't understand is how they know who is who or how many he even has. Especially since there are so many different Buddhas!

Either way, they're pretty cool looking. It might have taken a VERY long time to get these done...

Guardian angels that used to be outside the temple walls guarding it. Now they're inside the medicine Buddha's hut. Nobody knows why. (Seriously, I asked)

The medicine Buddha.

Another temple where the Buddha is surrounded by his disciples. Not sure why they're bigger though. Maybe they were kings and princes? Kinda hard to say.

The large temple grounds. This area started the college for women to learn the Buddhist ways.

It was actually a pretty amazing temple experience because while we were there a foreigner came up to us and gave us fruit. But she was dressed in the Buddhist monk clothing! A little while later we were able to sit down and talk with her. She explained how she had ended up in Korea studying Buddhism at the women's college. She also explained a lot of Buddhism that I had been wondering about.

Apparently there has always been a disagreement between the monks who think practice is more important, and the monks who think theology (or theory) is more important. To me, it sounded a lot like Christianity in that respect! She explained the tradition of the robes, the shaving their heads, and the different temples.

Religions are surprisingly the same sometimes. However, the biggest difference is that Buddha did not claim to be God. He doesn't save people from themselves or their sin. He only teaches people how to be separated from the world. How to remove yourself enough from it that you can rise above the human conditions of sickness, suffering and death. And there are many Buddhas. There is only one Christ.

However, there are similarities between how the two religions react to each other. Buddhism is split into many different sects... just like Christianity. Some disciples say one things is better, another says some other thing is more important... just like us. It makes me wonder what the difference is there. I wish there was some. Didn't Christ Himself pray for our unity?

We hiked deeper into the mountains to see some "marbles" from the bodies of departed Buddhist monks. When the Buddhists burned their leader after death, they started finding marbles that had formed from their body. Supposedly one body had as many as 300 marbles! (How somebody lives with 300 marbles in their bones, I will never know.) The more marbles you had, the holier you were.

Sadly, we were disappointed. The marbles were hidden inside the mountain and the only thing at the top of the mountain were more temples reserved for the truly devout Buddhist.

Seeing all the temples and alters built to Buddha and mountain gods made me think of David's psalm (121): "I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth."

I remember learning in class that David is talking about being surrounded by the idols and temples that were always at the tops of mountains. He was seeing all these, and thinking about the LORD and the difference between Him and the idols that people worship. I think I am starting to understand more how David felt. These mountains surround the city... and there are temples on every one of them. So where does my help come from when surrounded by all this?

It comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.

Samduk sol!

For dinner one night, my friend and coworker Nicole took me to have my first Korean dinner done right! It's called samduck sol (pronounced sam-duck-sol). It's pork, and you cook it over a grill in the middle of your table! It comes with sides you're supposed to eat it with/on.

First, you cook the pork. It comes in strips and you have to cut it with scissors when it's been cooked enough. Then you put the pork in the lettuce leaf, with rice, a red bean paste, bean sprouts, kimchi, garlic (roasted if you want), and onions soaked in soy sauce with a lil wasabi on the side. You roll it into the lettuce leaf and shove it all in your mouth! It's actually pretty delicious.

However... one thing was not so delicious. Apparently a much-loved side dish here is bundaegi. Basically, it's cooked silk worm larve. And you just pop them into your mouth. Yep, you eat them. When the lady first brought them out... I was so naieve and was like "oh, what's this? Do we put this in the leaf too?" haha. Thankfully, I took a closer second look. And noticed they had legs. Ew.

Also, I realized that I took a video of the Buddhist prayers and forgot to post it! So here it is:

Gatbawi Buddha

The hike this past Saturday was amazing! Brutal... but amazing. haha. My coworker was right when he said it was the "stair master from hell."

The trip started off around 10am Saturday morning with an hour long bus ride. Their buses are really nice compared to Chicago's! The cherry blossoms have been coming out for the past month as well... so there were some very beautiful parts of the hike.

The entrance of the hike with some beautiful cherry blossom trees!

Right before you start up the trail (and on through the trail at certain points, as I came to find out later), there are piles of rocks. The rocks are wishes or prayers and you have to balance them on top of the other rocks... and you want to balance them on the highest point so your prayers are closer to Heaven. Or Buddha. Not really sure which one.

My prayer balancing on the highest point I could get.

A ways up the hike we came to a temple area. Before you go up to the temple, there's an alter to Buddha. Incense was burning and water was flowing by the statue. People were there lighting candles for prayers, kneeling on the mats to pray, and worshiping Buddha's statue. It actually reminded me of a strange mix of Catholicism and Islam.

They take off their shoes before they step on the mats to pray

Statue of Buddha and alter area

There were a few different temples. One was to the mountain god - usually depicted as a tiger or an old man, and the other is the main temple where the monks pray. This beautiful bridge connected the two temples.

Temple of the mountain god

Pagoda and bell "tower" for the temple

Bell which they ring once a day for the main prayer

Beautiful hand painted artwork was everywhere; this is from the bell "tower"

Everyone tries to get a sip (or fill their water bottles) of temple mountain spring water that's been blessed by Buddha. It flows out of the mouth of the turtle.

Vats of kimchi soaking on the roof of the temple kitchen

These are the hardcore uneven steps that kicked our butts

As we neared the top we started seeing people selling candles, and gifts for Buddha

The view from one of the resting areas maybe halfway up

When we neared the top, we started seeing these beautiful temple lanters!

The lanterns had Buddhas holding lotus' and standing in Buddha positions

The prayer area at the top of the mountain.

The lanters that covered the ceiling had the prayers of people tied to the ends

Me and the huge Buddha with a stone on its head: it's one of the oldest in all Asia!

Once we had finally reach our goal with making it to the Buddha and the temple at the top of the mountain, we had to make our way back down again. That was definitely the most trecherous part of the trip! (At least for the first half of the way down.) We hadn't realized how steep it had been getting... so we were definitely off balance for the way down. Gravity works, let me tell you. What was the most confusing though was that we kept seeing people with dress clothes/shoes and very old people making their way up the mountain! How they did it I will never know...

Making our way slowly back down the mountain

Me with a monk!

We finally reached the end of our hike with much relief. Our legs were definitely shaking! On our way down we passed by the monk that I have a picture with, and he was so friendly! It was funny cause the only two things he knew how to say were "hi" and "I love you..." haha. Our bus ride home felt long, but we felt both tired and accomplish from the day. I can't wait to do more!