Temple Stay

Buddhism is quickly being taken over by Christianity in Korea. In any given neighbourhood you are bound to see at least 3 red crosses indicating the churches. Of course this is intriguing to me since I am an ex-Catholic who is currently more inspired by Eastern religions where I feel the real roots are.

I took this opportunity to experience a temple stay at Buddhist temple near Daejeon, about 2.5 hours south of Seoul. A temple stay is typically 2 days, 1 night minimum and you stay with monks waking up at 3am to meditate and chant. It is basically a quick look into pure Buddhism and the way of life when meditation is all that is on your mind.
I walked into this not really knowing what to expect. Of course waking up at 3am when I typically go to bed at 3am was a challenge but I was ready to deal with that. What I wasn't ready to deal with was the aura of feeling like I was part of a cult.
We were given robes as soon as we walked in and told where to meet for meals (in the communal kitchen) and that we had to attend all meditation and chanting session. Being in a serene setting among the mountains was amazing! The temple itself was pretty new (about 5 years old) and I really enjoyed finally knowing what to do when I entered a Buddhist temple (do I bow? how many times? do I sit? how do I meditate here? do you have to pray to Buddha?).

I stayed in a room with my friend Meg (rooms were obviously separated by gender) and we were given very comfortable duvets to use to sleep on the floor. And the food was the best part, absolutely amazing and veggie!
So what was the bad part? Meditating! Since it was my first time at any sort of meditation of course I am bound to dislike it, but I felt that the head monk (who was American!) was not very clear about the purpose of meditation. I also disagreed with many of their ways of life, such as meditating to simplify your mind, as in only think of the moment and not have any sort of thoughts (what about imagination? creativity?). Of course meditation is to clear your mind but that can also be done while thinking of the outside world.
Overall it felt like a selfish way to live. More so because it didn't seem like these monks were giving back to the community with their work or 'wisdom'. Of course this is only one temple but it has tainted my perspective.

 It was a great experience nonetheless, especially since I had been pondering about doing a yoga retreat while in India during my travels in a few months. I guess I'm just not cut out to sit still for so long and think about nothing. I've always known I lacked self-discipline but this also pointed out what my real thoughts were on this whole eastern religion thing. At the end it seems like all religions are the same. While chanting in the temple at 4am on a Sunday I totally felt guilty because I refused to go to church and do the same with my mother because it felt so staged. This was no different, except that I had no idea what I was chanting since it was all in Korean.

Of course there is a huge difference in that Buddha isn't prayed to, he is a teacher but if that is the case, why must we chant to him in a prayer-like form? People are needing to be guided, needing for someone to follow. In Buddhism it seems Buddha was the only one that really knew the deal. Of his followers more than less of them don't really seem to get it as much.

And this is just one person's opinion. No harsh feelings.

Korean Baseball Fever

I'm not a big fan of baseball but I was told by many people that baseball in Korea is worth a try. So of course, I took the recommendation and finally went to a baseball game at Jamsil stadium which is practically in my backyard.

A sporting event in North America means big bucks. In Korea, a great seat costs you 8,000 won (= $8) AND you have to tell them which team you are rooting for so they can give you the right seating area, but no assigned seating (yet they have seat numbers in movie theaters!).

I went to see an LG Twins vs Samsung Lions game ....
there are only 8 baseball teams in Korea and since this country is a corporation, their teams are owned and named after the company, not the city they originate from. Also, there is more than one team that come from Seoul, LG is one of them. Seeing that we were at their home stadium it made sense to root for them.

The baseball game itself was boring, as always. There barely any hits or runs. But the real entertainment wasn't the game, it was the fans! Almost everyone had clappers and there was a small stage in front of the seats where the cheerleaders would dance and get the crowd going. There was also a man with a whistle who would co-ordinate cheers with the crowd. It was unbelievable!

And this was just the warm up. If and when there was a run, it was 20x more the excitement, cheering and dancing.

Koreans love their teams and are pretty damn loyal. Everyone wore colors of their team, but majority of the people wore team shirts, jerseys, towels, hats, you name it! Then again, a team jersey is only 13,000 won!!
I still don't feel baseball is for me, even though they had guys walking around with beer kegs on their backs in the stadium, but I was really glad I did get to experience a real Korean baseball. I have never seen anything like it, and this was just a regular Sunday afternoon game. I wonder what the playoffs would be like!!
The one bad part about going to a sporting event in Korea though is the stank of dried fish and squid because in this country, there are no hot dogs and peanuts at the game. It's dried seafood but thank goodness, there is plenty of beer.

Korea's Hawaii

The great part about being in a small country is that you actually can scope out a city in a weekend. A few of my co-workers and I took a cheap flight to Jeju this weekend. At first I was skeptical about how much we would actually be able to see but after being here its amazing to see how small this place really is.
Renting a car is the best bet for Jeju and being with Koreans is a great plus since you do need a license and some Korean navigation skills to do so.

After flying in Friday night we wanted to go to Shilla hotel for drinks since we had heard it was nice and classy. We didn't realize it was at the bottom end of the island and we were couchsurfing in the north, in Jeju-si, the main city. But it turns out it only takes 40 mins by car to reach the bottom which is amazing!
Unfortunately the hotel bar was closed but it was as classy as expected. So we took advantage of the photo ops and rested for a big day Saturday.

We started the day in Sapchikochi which is a great lookout point on the east part of Jeju. You get a great view of the crater which Jeju is famous for since its a volcanic island. This makes the rock formations on the island black and lava-like which is a very distinct feature which many Koreans come to see here. So this makes Jeju one of the most popular vacation spots known as Korea's Hawaii (altho that MAY be a long shot!) due to its tropical temperature in comparision to the mainland.

Udo Island is also of the east coast and is a 15 min ferry ride. It is called Udo (meaning cow) because Koreans claim it looks like a reclining cow. This is also where the hanyeos are which are women divers who dive with no gear in any weather condition. Unfortunately we didn't get to see any probably because it was a pretty rainy and windy day.
Udo was very rural, with cows and horses and lots of green scenery which was a fresh change from city life. Udo also has Korea's only white sand beach but it's a fairly small stretch like most beaches in Jeju. It's seems pretty small and inessential in comparision to the beaches of anywhere tropical yet Koreans come to Udo specifically for this.

Jeju lava rock

We ended the night with a visit to Love Land which is a sex museum displaying gigantic displays of phallic sculptures. The irony was that this was located in a country where the emphasis is solely on love, not sex and I have yet to figure out how Love Land is successful in this culture.

Sunday was another big day which we started by hitting the breakfast buffet at Shilla (yep, we love that place!) which was amazing! It gave us the energy we needed to hit a tea plantation, followed by the chocolate museum (which was the most disappointing part of our trip due to the fact that museum was more of a display of tacky collector items). We ended the day with some much needed beach time at Jagmun beach where the water was divine! It's a shell beach where the sand feels great on your feet and the shells are beautiful. Being a teacher, I collected a bagful of shells for crafts.
Jangmun Beach

 Like all things in Korea, Jeju as well is over-rated. Being on a peninsula you are financially limited to where you can go which is why it makes sense that Jeju is honeymoon island for Koreans who would rathar spend a quarter of the cash and hit up an island that is in their vicinity. It saves not only cash, but also time which to Koreans is just as precious as the wons.

We returned to Jeju Sunday night, an hour and 10 mins to get to Seoul. Not bad, not bad at all.
It felt like a hop, skip and a jump of a vacay.