Golgulsa Temple Stay

An image for you: We board a bus numbered 100/150 at the Gyeongju bus terminal in South Korea. Armed with minimal directions we tell the bus driver “Golgulsa?” He’s a jolly seeming man who nods vigorously and kind of bounces up and down in his seat while saying something we can’t understand in Korean. He then smiles and waves us onto the bus. We grab seats in the middle of the bus and it soon takes off. Thankfully this driver is pretty good and doesn’t seem to run red lights or honk angrily at anything in the way as most other buses do. The next instructions we have written down tell us to take this bus for 40-45 minutes until we reach a three-way intersection stop called Andong. The bus is now stuffed full, largely with older Korean woman talking away. We stare out the window as we leave the city and head out into the beautiful, mountainous countryside. We come to a stop that we think might be ours (it’s the first three-way intersection we’ve seen and the timing’s about right), and all get up to get off, asking “Andong?” to the people around us. They shake their heads and smile and wave for us to sit down. A very old woman enthusiastically pats the seat next to her and pulls me down into it. She then proceeds to chat with me in Korean. I smile and try to nod my head at appropriate times. Now the entire front of the bus seems to want to help us get to Andong. The next stop comes up (it’s also a three-way intersection, there are a lot of them as it turns out) and we again get up to look around. Six ladies’ hands fly up in the seats in front of us, waving in near unison for us to wait. We can’t actually see their heads while sitting down since the bus seats are so high. This happens several more times until we do reach our stop. At this point there is much talking and waving, this time urging us to get off the bus. The lady next to me gently pushes me out of the seat and on my way. We say thank you many times to the women as we leave the bus to their goodbyes. It was definitely one of those moments of extreme kindness and nonverbal connection that you hope to find in your travels.

The purpose of the bus trip was to take us (Anne, my friend Kate who is teaching English in Korea, and me) to Golgulsa, a Zen Buddhist temple nestled into the valley of a mountain in the southeast of the country. The word Golgulsa means stone Buddha temple and it was originally built into the rock mountain side in the 6th century. The temple contains a large sculpted Maya Tathagata Buddha and twelve rock caves; it is also the only rock cave temple in Korea. Today the caves still exist and each has a shrine used by the monks, but most of the temple activity takes place in several traditional style Korean Buddhist buildings. Golgulsa is also the world headquarters for Sunmudo. Rather than self defense, Sunmudo is actually a combination of Zen yoga, martial arts, and gymnastics, and it is a way to attain enlightenment through harmonizing the body, mind, and breath. Practitioners use Sunmundo to enter a state of spiritual concentration, samadhi, and ultimately nirvana.

Our agenda for the stay was this:

17:30 – Dinner

19:00 – Chanting

19:30 – Sunmudo Training

22:00 – Bed

4:00 – Wake Up

4:30 – Chanting

5:00 – Sitting Zen/Meditation

5:30 – Walking Meditation

6:30 – Breakfast

8:30 – Sunmudo Training

10:00 – 108 Bows

10:30 – Sitting Zen/Meditation

11:00 – Teatime with Sunmudo Master

11:50 – Lunch

The temple stay experience was very moving for me, and while I didn’t master clearing my mind during meditation, it did provide me with a chance to reflect on the trip so far and slow down. Perhaps the moment that was most wonderful was during the evening. We climbed up the long stone staircase after dinner that led to two temple buildings, one above and one below us. Standing in the cold winter air, we could look out and see silhouettes of distant mountains and stars blanketing the sky. While we were standing in silence, we heard a slow, purposeful triple knock of a woodblock. Then a monk with a deep voice began chanting in the temple above us. Then there were more knocks on woodblocks and two more monks in the temple below us began chanting together. We stayed for a long time on the mountain, listening to the beautiful voices of the monks, finding peace in the moment.

-Julie

food food FOOD

During the past week, I have learned a very important thing about Korea that no one tells you: the food is incredible (and endless).

 Top meals of the country (which includes almost every meal that we didn’t get from 7-11):

1) First night: The co-teacher of our friend, Kate, who we are staying with, took us to a vegetarian restaurant. It was here that we first learned how Koreans eat- 10-20+ little dishes are put anywhere on the table where there is room and everyone at the table uses their chopsticks to grab whatever they want out of the dishes. Additionally, between tofu that was made earlier that day in the restaurant and a soy-based product that had the exact texture, taste, and look of marinated beef, it was clear that Koreans have mastered a variety of vegetarian foods.

2) Second day: We went to visit the school where another one of our Madison friends teaches English and her co-teacher and school principal insisted on taking us out to lunch. Again, our table was loaded with over 20 different dishes, this time including warm pumpkin soup, a grilled fish for each of us, and Bulgolgi, which is a traditional Korean dish with broth, very tender beef, and vegetables.

3) Third night: One of Kate’s adult students owns a restaurant and invited us for a meal cooked especially for us. The meal included a giant salad topped with red, orange, and yellow bell peppers, Korean-style chicken soup that has an entire small stuffed chicken in each individual bowl, and raspberry wine.

4) Fifth night: We took a bus out of Seoul to the south-eastern coast of the country, for a weekend break from the city. A friend took us to a Shabu Shabu restaurant, which was originally a Japanese dish, but migrated to Korea years ago. This was easily the best meal that I have eaten on the trip and I do not expect it to lose this ranking any time soon. Basically, you sit down at a table that has heated bowls built in to the table. Everyone orders a type of meat (typically chicken, beef, or pork) and then the bowls are filled with broth that is brought to a boil. Each person then receives a plate of meat shaved as thinly as possible, along with a giant plate of uncooked mushrooms, cabbage, noodles, and other ingredients. First, you add the vegetables to the boiling broth and they slowly cook. Then, with chopsticks, you dip a slice of meat into the boiling broth and it cooks immediately- tender, delicious, and flavorful.

5) Sixth night (yesterday): The day before Julie’s birthday, and finally on our own to find food, we wandered the streets trying to figure out what we wanted to eat. Suddenly, a neon sign caught our attention and we knew exactly what we wanted- greasy pizza from Pizza Hut. Alas, even the best food in the world needs a little variety sometimes…

After this week of delicious food, we decided to venture out on our own this afternoon, certain that with this kind of track record, we couldn’t go wrong. After biking around the city for a while, we found ourselves at a restaurant with nice pictures of food outside, so we decided to go in. Unlike most of the other restaurants that we’d been in so far (alone, at least), not a single thing on the menu was in English and the owners did not speak any English. Ready for an adventure, we pointed to the first 3 items on the menu, completely randomly, and hoped for the best. The man taking our order tried to express his disapproval with our choices but the language barrier was too much and we didn’t know what to do except insist on our choices, not sure how we would ever make a more educated decision. Within minutes, the man brought out the usual 10 bowls of food, including a plate of raw meat that we were to cook ourselves on the giant heated skillet at the table. We quickly set to cooking, satisfied with our choices of beef, dumplings, and….some round pieces of mystery meat. Luckily Anne, our courageous eater, volunteered to try the first one and, unfortunately, identified the pile of round meat pieces as intestines. Clearly, the man had known we were Westerners who were not accostomed to eating intestines and tried to warn us, but we were just a little too stubborn.

 -Luthien

Squeaky Clean and Content

We haven’t written a post for a while, which should be representative of how much fun we have been having since commencing this journey almost two weeks ago. We are currently lounging in a swanky love motel in Gyeongji, South Korea, after a fun night out on the town in oceanside Busan last night and some long bus rides through the beautiful mountains in the southern part of this country. South Korea thus far has been very colorful and friendly, filled with good food and peaceful experiences.

One of the highlights of this country that we have enjoyed thoroughly was the jimjilbang or traditional bathhouse in a northern suburb of Seoul. We entered this glorious place down an escalator from the street level around 11pm on a weekday and sort of entered into a parallel universe. The experience was quite awkward and intimidating at first because we couldn’t quite communicate the fact that we wanted to stay overnight to the non-English speaking receptionist. Once inside we knew we needed to shower off and then explore the vast array of spa options. The bath included many different pools at different temperatures and with different jetstreams– one that was even infused with green tea. We mistakenly entered the children’s bath at first and received a few awkward stares and finally a broken English explanation. While our evening spa experience was relaxing after a long and cold day, we definitely wanted to investigate the place further and at that point had absolutely no idea where we were supposed to sleep or enjoy the other amenities.

While bathing, a kind Korean woman sat next to Luthien and started speaking with her in English and was generous enough to later give us all a tour of the entire jimjilbang after we were cleaned up and dressed. The building was much larger and fancier than we were expecting from our just-over-$7 charge. She lead us through about 5 saunas, 3 sleeping rooms, and the ice room upstairs. There were places to use the internet, watch television, view films, play ping-pong, and exercise. We sat and chatted with the wonderful friendly woman in the ice room (her favorite) for quite a while, or at least until we were ready to fall asleep on the cold floor. She was curious to how we had heard of such a place (the answer was through a friend’s Korean friend) and explained that the reason she was so kind to us was because she was so impressed by the kindness of Americans she had met a few years back in Iowa in the states, knowing that someday she wanted to return the favor to Americans in Korea, and finally now having her chance. Her English was great, but even more impressive were her kind gestures, helpfulness, and curiosity about us. She just reconfirmed my philosophy about traveling with an open-mind and an accepting smile and receiving random kindness from strangers as a result. The Korean people we have met thus far have been extremely kind and sharing, but this woman really changed our spa experience to something comfortable out of a bit of awkwardness.

In the morning, the three our us sort of went different directions and utilized different areas of the jimjilbang. I fell in love with this ridiculous crystal sauna, a domed room covered in quartz crystals and huge cracked geodes. I also enjoyed the peaceful room with heightened levels of oxygen and the clay sauna infused with the smell of Korean tea and other herbs. The baths downstairs were great, especially when I rotated between hot and cold treatments and one that massaged my back with strong water jets. While I could go on and on about this affordable and wonderful spa experience, the point is that we had an amazing time attempting to integrate into this traditional Korean pasttime and much of that was because of the kind woman’s generous patience and explanations. We left the building before lunch to go off to the north to help teach in an all boy’s private middle school that Julie’s friend Christina Hanna works at; we rode the metro completely at peace with the world. Relaxed, refreshed, and inspired by someone’s kindness.

That’s it for now,

Anne