Living the Country Life

I am loving being in Seoul; the city is always up to something, be it clubbing during the nights or shopping during the day, to the smells of cooking meat drifting from the grilling restaurants mingling with the warm smells that waft from the many street vendors that dot the streets. From the rushing cars and the "always moving" mind set that Seoul lives by, I have pretty much learned to adapt, with a few minor things that I probably will never get used to (totally different post).  But what about life outside of the globalized capital?

Before school started, CIEE took us on a 3 day, 2 night excursion to the Chungcheongbuk-do and Gyeongsangbuk-do provinces to see the mountain ranges, temples, and historical sites that dot the sides of the forested slopes. We left the Global dorms around 8:30 in the morning and started the three hour drive out of the city. I really did try to stay awake for the whole ride out so that I could watch the scenery change and get a feel of where we were gong to be staying, but sadly I passed out after the first hour. I'm sorry, but when I had my music playing and the bus was swaying  with the road, I could not keep my eyes open, and anyone who has been with me for long car rides knows that I am terrible at staying away for longer than an hour once the car starts to move...

Anyway, when I woke up after we stopped at a large rest stop, think restaurants and stores (much like in Southern France) we were only a couple minutes away form our first stop which was the Sobaeksan National Park. I loved the park, we walked up a path to a stream to have lunch in and among the rocks.

 I really felt at home there because everything reminded me of North Carolina, especially Sugar Loaf mountain! After lunch a few of us decided to walk up the path to a small Buddhist temple that was on the top of the mountain. Well, we walked for about thirty minutes to an hour and we still had not made it to the top, so I decided to turn back early so that I would make it back to the bus on time. Well even though I did make it back on time and the people who kept on going were late to the bus, I was really only like 5 to 10 minutes away from reaching the temple when I turned around on the path. At least I was able to find theses really cool rock stacks along the way!


But it turned out ok, because the next place that we went to was the Buseoksa Buddhist Temple that was one of the largest and main Buddhist temples in ancient and modern Korea. Buseoksa was pretty cool. Since it was a working temple, I could not take too many pictures inside of the buildings, but the sculptures and murals were amazing!

Every piece of roof and ceiling were decorated in colorful designs and had been updated, so everything looked new and bright. But in and amongst all the "newness" was natural wood that had been worn smooth by hundreds of years of touching by visitors and monks a like.

Even though the day was a little overcast, meaning we could somewhat make out the mountain ranges peaking out in the distance, the way that the late afternoon sun shown between the trees in the forested parts of the temple were just magical. I also learned about the rock stacks that I saw everywhere. They are part of a Korean "wishing" system. When a person sees a sight or feels a spark of divine inspiration, they are to add a rock to an existing pile or create a new one and make a wish. If the pile falls, then the wish will not be granted, but if the pile stays, then the wish will eventually happen. Let's just say that I made lot of wishes that day and even created my own pile!

For dinner, we ate at a small family run restaurant down the road from the temple's main gate. The chicken was pretty good, especially when we dipped the pieces into a salt and sesame mixture. But my favorite part of the meal was the mountain fresh veggies and the apples that we got to eat for dinner.  Just to let you all know, produce, esp fruit, is crazy expensive here in the city and I had been craving apples and fruit since I arrived because this is the start of apple season back home in NC; so that apple was a Godsend!

Later that night, we went back up to the temple to watch the night prayer service that the monks hold every night. A few of us were given the option of sitting in the back of the temple during the chanting and bowing part of the service. I ended up being part of that group that hung in the back of the main temple. I personally did not participate in the bowing and chanting, but I did sit and listened to the service. It was calming sitting in the dark with the smell of incense burning in the background and the sounds of the monks' chants setting the mood in the hall. At one point the golden Buddha in the center of the room seemed to be moving, breathing in and out at the same time as me. Of course it was an illusions spurred by the flickering candle light and my eyes staring down the statue, but at the time is was spiritual and deeply stirring.

Now I know a few of you reading this will wonder why, a Southern Episcopalian would find a Buddhist ceremony spiritual, but let me tell you what one of my aunts told me when we visited her in China a few years ago and went to the Lama Temple in Beijing. When I asked her why she loved to go to the temple when she was not Buddhist, she told me that even though it is not a "house of God" that he could still hear us and it was still a  place where we could get close to him. So that is what I did, while the monks were chanting and bowing, I sat there enjoying the atmosphere and thanked God for allowing me to have this opportunity to study in Korean and learn more about myself and the world through this experience.

After the ceremony, those of us that stayed in the temple were the last ones to leave the compound, so we had to walk down the mountain in the dark. Again I just kept getting flashes from when I had to walk down to our mountain house in the dark after watching the sunset from the outer laying cliffs on the western facing side of the mountain. wen eventually made it back to the bus after buying some snack from the corner store where I was told by the lady running it that I did not nee to use the super polite form of thanks that I have learned to use here in the capital. That night we stayed in traditional houses. This place was also a museum, so there were mannequins and such in rooms by ours (that I found in the morning thankfully!). I really liked the rooms and slept perfectly fine on the floor with only a thick comforter.

the inner courtyard of my house that I stayed in

The next day, we packed up our bags and put them on the bus while we toured the village that we stayed at and learned all about the next stage of Korean history that came after Buddhism, Confucianism. We toured the old Confusion school that was nearby and also learned more about the Confusion way of life and how it created the hierarchy that still exists in Korea today.

we even learned about calligraphy and decorated our own fans!

After the tours, we started to drive to the next village on our schedule. But on the way, we stopped at the Korean ginseng hall and got a brief rundown of the ginseng market and how Korean ginseng, especially red ginseng is very coveted around the world. For dinner that night, we had samgupsal, or grilled pork belly!

That night we stayed at a resort in a nearby town. Very modern, at least compared to  the village we stayed at the night before. Since we had the night off, we all just hung out in each others' rooms and bonded over games, drinks, and music (some of us more than others).

For our last day, we went to Mungyeongsaejae Park and explored the ancient defense walls and the trail up the side of the mountain.

I walked up to the second gate and then decided to head back down so that I could visit the filming set that SBS (a major broadcasting center) had built for the filming of their historical dramas. One the way back down, I ran into a group from my program that had found a group of kids that were under the care of a single nun, so they were helping the kids down the mountain. OMG, these kids were adorable and so cute. We ended up hanging with this group for about an hour, just talking and playing with the kids. I was a little hesitant, just because I was not sure about what the lines were for interacting to kids that are not part of your group. But in the end it was fine. One of the little boys even came over to me and called me "noona" (older sister) and asked for me to help him put his shoes back on.

Once the kids left, I did go visit the filming set and looked around. It was really cool, because there was a smaller replica of the palace here in Seoul that I had visited a couple weekends before. But what I liked was that on the outside, the building looked real, but when you looked into them, you could see the plywood and leftover chairs from filming. Even the stone bridge that they had was made from set materials; the bottom was stone, but the top part was made of rubber sculpting cement and was squishy, like the floor of a water park.

Throwing what I know

Love in AOT!

For our last activity, we went to a pottery museum and created our own pieces that are going to be fired int he traditional way and will take about a month and a half to bake. But it was fun to feel and mold clay between my fingers again. Even though we were not really making the bowls (we were using stamps and molds) I had a lot of fun.

Once everyone was finished, we got back on the bus and make the three hour drive back to Seoul. The staff had put on a movie for us to watch about a North Korean Assassin and the South Korean Detective working together (still need to find the name of it...), even though they were pretty sure that most people were going to pas out and sleep the whole way. Well they were right. I thin I was one of eight people out of the group of 36 who stayed awake for the whole drive.

Even though it was a few weeks ago, now that classes are picking up and I am starting to get used to the bustle of the city, I still like thinking back to all the peaceful and historical insights that I gain while in the countryside of Korea. Really wishing that I am able to get back out there sometime later this year.