korea bucket list: templestay.

last weekend, i had to opportunity to spend the night at a buddhist temple. i'd read about templestays on various blogs and websites as i was getting excited to move over here and obsessively looking up any and all cool things to go do. so when i got the invitation to tag along with corey and three of his coworkers, i took full advantage.

the temple we stayed at is called golgulsa temple, located in gyeongju. it was pretty much exactly what i was hoping for -- secluded, on the side of a mountain, gorgeous scenery and buildings...

the purple pin is (sorta kinda) where i actually live, and the blue dot is where the temple was. we had to take a bus to get down there, but it only took a few hours and it was a pretty drive.

after taking the bus across the country, we had to hop onto a local bus, which dropped us off in the middle of nowhere. we wandered down the street and finally saw this off to our left. the gate!

i don't know if i'll ever get over the colors and details at these temples. so gorgeous.

looking out onto the street from the entrance gate/temple grounds.

after getting checked in and dropping our bags in our rooms, we had to get changed into our snazzy templestay uniforms and head to dinner. poor corey wasn't allowed to eat with us girls though -- meals are divided by gender.

after we ate dinner we headed to a building farther up the hill for an orientation video and the evening chanting. it was really, really cool to listen to the chanting. apparently the temple does a sort of bootcamp for kids during their winter vacation? there was a group of elementary-aged kids who actually seemed to be enjoying themselves, so i'm going to guess that was just more of a camp... but there was also a group of high school boys and they looked like they hated life. someone compared it to bootcamp... except buddhist.

anyway, some of our activities were mixed with these kids, including that evening's sunmudo lesson. i think the sunmudo lesson was one of my favorite parts of the templestay experience. as a dancer, i've always been fascinated by martial arts, but i've never really tried any of them. we had an hour and a half lesson and it was pretty awesome. started with a very yoga-like warm up and then what followed reminded me of tae chi, ballet, and maybe a little bit of kickboxing? it was a very, very basic lesson, since everyone in there was at a beginning level, but still wore us out.

this is a video of sunmudo training that was made by the people at the temple (apparently they have their own youtube channel...). the monk on the ground at the beginning was actually one of the two who taught the class i took. he was kind of intense.

after our sunmudo lesson, it was 9pm, and lights out was at 10pm since the morning's activities started at 4:30am with some chanting and meditating.

not a bad place to be at 4:30am, i think. however, i totally failed at meditating. you're supposed to empty your mind and focus only on your breathing. instead, i was focusing on not falling asleep in a sitting position. and how did i do this? i started composing this blog entry in my head. sorry, buddhism. i tried. but i was very sleepy.

this was pretty much what we ate for all three meals we had at the temple. it was also very important to only take what you would actually eat -- you could go back for seconds, but you were not to waste even a single grain of rice.

this was the building we stayed in.

so besides the sunmudo lesson, my other favorite part of the templestay was our teatime with a monk! he was really, really awesome. very funny. we asked him questions and he answered. very honestly, too. it was pretty damn cool.

after teatime, we trekked up the ridiculous hill to finally do some sightseeing. we'd walked up and down the mountain, but it was either late at night or very, very early in the morning. you probably can't tell from this picture, but this hill was killer. seriously the worst ever -- especially since it was the third (or fourth?) time we'd been up it.

then after the hill, there were stairs. like, a lot of stairs.

iiiiii can show you the wooorrrrlllddddd... (i was singing songs from "aladdin" pretty much all weekend... everyone wanted to kill me, i think.)

on the way up... lots of stairs (some were treacherous) to see:

carved into the rock!

tucked into a cave in the mountain.

then we got to watch a demonstration -- the first part was traditional dance, which was absolutely gorgeous.

and then there was a sunmudo demonstration! it was pretty cool to see some of the monks showing off their skills. very impressive.

haha. yeah.

gettin' packed up and ready to checkout. the rooms we stayed in were also very traditional.

and we slept on mats/comforters on the floor.

it was a damn cool experience. i'd definitely like to do it again before i leave korea. different temples seem to have different specialties/focuses, so i'm planning to do some research and see what else is out there.

korea bucket list: everland (round one).

so, first things first: i love amusement parks. like, i love them. i'd heard about everland, so when a couple friends from work, brianna and kim, wanted to go one wednesday when we were all free, i couldn't resist. yeah, it's january. yeah, it's outdoors. but we thought it would still be a good time. (plus a friend of brianna's was visiting from the states, so it was a special occassion.)

everland is pretty damn adorable. totally decked out for the holidays/winter, too.

a fancy decorated fake tree! they reaaaaally take decorating seriously.

the ladies: kim, gina, brianna, yours truly.

first stop once we got into the park was food and hot chocolate. everyday is a holiday at everland resort! even in january when it's 19 degrees outside.

i'm sure this is supposed to say "anytime is funtime" but i like "an me is funtime" better.

adorbs!

nutcracker music was still playing in this area even though it's january. :)

the first ride we went on was called "global village" -- so it was basically they version of the small world ride at disneyland. nice cultural stereotypes, annoying little song, and creepy dolls. this was part of the display for the u.s. -- football and cowboys. you can see the small golden gate bridge that went overhead and on the other side was a display all about broadway. ha.

next was a ride on the royal jubilee carousel.

so, so cold.

and sleepy-looking.

3-d movie that was all in korean, but it was about little animals going on a quest, so it was still cute.

so they had a petting zoo... pretty standard, except when we went over to the sheep i noticed something odd -- they had rosy cheeks. yep. they wouldn't hold still long enough for me to get a good picture, so this will have to do. you can kind of see it... oh, korea. you would.

probably my favorite part of our trip to everland -- and what made going in january totally worth it -- was the sledding. you grabbed a tube, waited in line, hooked it to the rope, and got pulled up the hill.

top of the hill! waiting to be told to get into place and slide down.

the second time we did the two-person tubes. managed to get a picture of kim and brianna as they hit the bottom of the hill. sooooo much fun.

please reenter after existing.

frozen but having fun.

everland! the view from high up by the entrance to one of the sledding hills. the rollercoasters weren't running, unfortunately. we figured it was probably because of the ice/snow/freezing weather. next time i'll go when it's warm outside.

we went on a handful of rides. definitely gravitated towards any that were indoors... besides the small world ride, a couple sledding hills, and the carousel, we walked through a fun house, saw a short 3-d movie, and went on a ride with a pretty clever rotating room trick -- the room rotated around us, but the seats tipped and tilted, so it felt like we were the ones rotating... and then we headed over to the zoo/safari section of the park.

another pretty cool thing we got to do was their safari ride. they have lions, tigers, a liger, and then a bunch of bears. we all piled into one of those buses with the huge windows and they drove us through the enclosed area where the animals live. the picture of the lion sitting is a pretty good representation of how close some of the animals were -- it was pretty awesome. i've never been that close to big cats before. the tiger at the bottom left was from another section -- he and a lion cub were in a cage together, just hanging out and prowling around. being adorable.

i wanna be this guy. seriously. what a life.

the monkey house was pretty cool, too. never been that close before.

fennec foxes! i neeeeeed them! all of them.

i very nearly bought these so i could have my very own fennec fox ears.

a musical show! pretty cute.

oh, everland. you were fun. it was cold, but still fun.

oh! one random/funny thing from our day at everland... when we were in one of the zoo animal buildings, guess what they had on display? next to the meerkats and tiger/lion cubs? dogs. yep. dogs. a small fluffy one and a long-haired daschund. because dogs are... zoo animals? we got a good laugh out of it. strange.

i'd definitely like to go back when the weather warms up. the rollercoasters are calling to me. even though we were freezing to death, it was a whole lot of fun. but round one at everland? a success.