Gakwonsa Temple and Oeam Folk Village

Aaaand I'm back! I haven't blogged in awhile because we haven't gone anywhere for several weekends. We've been putzing around at home. I didn't feel like I had anything remotely interesting to write about. But on Sunday we went to two wonderful places!

First, we met our friends about 45 minutes south of here in Cheonan at the Gakwonsa Temple. It turns out its a Buddhist temple built to pray for the reunification of North and South Korea! I have never been to a Buddhist temple before so I'm really glad we went because it was absolutely amazing. Its a serene setting at the foot of a mountain.

These stairs going all the way up to that cone thing at the top is one way of getting there. We drove.

The cherry trees are blossoming!

 
The entire grounds smelled of incense. We even saw a few monks walking around carrying large bags of rice. One of them, who we came in contact with, was an elderly man with such a sweet smiling face similar to the Dalai Lama. He cooed at Jonah and said something in Korean. It was pretty thrilling. I think its amazing that they let anyone off the street come into their special, sacred spaces. We climbed the stairs to the main temple, took off our shoes outside and opened the large wooden doors to go in. The first thing you see is the giant altar with three golden statues (not sure if they're all Buddha or what) and the incredibly detailed designs painted and cut into the walls and ceiling. The ceiling is probably three stories high.

The main temple

The front altar

The three frames against the wall are lit candles.

Food offerings: fruit, tofu, cakes, etc.

I have a feeling I wasn't supposed to be taking pictures, but it was just an itty bitty phone camera! There's no way I could explain all the details and even my pictures don't do it justice. There were only a few people in there at the time and no monks, so I hope they didn't mind. Later on, I heard a monk chanting inside so I went back in to listen and this time did NOT take any pictures. He was sitting on the floor sideways to the altar and reading/singing words from a page. He would intermittently ring bells and tap a hollowed out gourd with a stick while he was chanting. The air was chilly, his voice was loudly echoing and it smelled like incense. The whole thing was just really interesting and beautiful.
We walked up a short trail to see this bronze Buddha.

Lanterns blowing in the wind

This is just a small amount of the roof tiles they have stacked up everywhere. Each one has a hand-written prayer on it by a visitor.

I'm not sure what this structure is for but the horizontal line in the middle is a log that they pull back and release to hit the bell in front of it. I wish we could have heard the gong!

As a Westerner, it can be disconcerting to see what I think of as the Nazi symbol. But in Buddhism, the swastika is a symbol of good fortune, among many other things. Plus, here the symbol is lying square and the arms face counter-clockwise. The Nazi symbol is turned on its side and the arms face clockwise.

Toby and I had to go to use the restroom and opened a door to find this. I was prepared to "go native" but he backed away saying, "NO I don't want that!" We tried a few more stalls and finally came to this...

Oh, thank heaven! A regular toilet!

A little bouquet from me boy.

So that was the Gakwonsa Temple visit in the morning. Next we drove about 30 minutes to the Oeam Folk Village. It was built around 500 years ago and some of the homes still have families living in them, operating the farmland and carrying on the same traditions like wine-making and thatched roofs. 

Our first stop was lunch at one of the little restaurants on site.

This little cutie is a sweet potato dumpling filled with smashed beans and fried. It was soft and crunchy and such a nice sweet/bland change from the spicy, lip-burning, nose-dripping food we always eat. (It hurts so good, though.)

Spicy, lip-burning, nose-dripping cold noodles with greens. The other bowl is more spicy greens in cold broth, but a slightly different flavor. And then a bowl of some kind of warm broth. Aaaahhhh, so good, whatever it is.

No permit crossy this bridge!

The rock walls curve around each house and street. They're at least 5 feet tall and about 3 feet wide of rock standing in a straight pile. No mortar!

A real thatched roof that they re-do every few years.

Enjoying the ride.

Pots of fermenting bean paste and kimchi.

Its pretty now but I'm told it will be stunning this summer when everything is green and lush.

I'm so glad we got out of the house and did some touristy things again. We were all exhausted from a long day of walking and exploring more of Korea's special places. And to top it all off, we saw this elderly couple on our way home, driving right alongside cars on a four-lane highway...

Oh, Korea!