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| Me and my co-teacher, Mr. Lee! |
Last Wednesday, June 6th, was Memorial Day here in South Korea. Like home in the US, it's a national holiday. My co-teacher (he's the teacher in charge of all my affairs, pays my rent, takes me to school, etc) invited me to go to a nearby town, Yeongju(영주), to visit some cultural and historical sites. It was really amazing!
First, we visited the Yeongju Ginseng Market(영주 인삼 시장), which was really neat. It was a long building that really reminded me of flea market buildings back home, but instead of many different booths, it was just rows of booths selling ginseng in all different forms. We tried ginseng tea and dried, honeyed ginseng. They were really good, rather like fruit snacks. I ended up buying some to bring back home.
Next, we visited Sosuseowon (소수서원), which is the first Confucian academy built in Korea in 1542. It was absolutely gorgeous, framed with a beautiful river, bridges, gardens, and lotus ponds. After this, we ate pajeon, Korean vegetable pancakes, as a snack and then headed to our final stop of the day, the nearby Buddhist temple.
Buseoksa (부석사) Temple was built in 676, and has been renovated several times since then. "Bu" (부) means "floating," "seok" (석) means "rock," and "sa" (사) means "temple," so it's also called the Floating Rock Temple. The legend of the temple is very famous: lady Seonmyo and the priest Uisang met when he went to Dang (Dynasty of China) to study. When Uisang told Seonmyo he had to go back to his country, Seonmyo despaired and jumped into the sea and drowned. After death, she became a dragon. Seonmyo followed Uisang to Korea to protect and be with him. When Uisang ran against a crowd that had gathered to stop him from building Buseoksa Temple, Seonmyo brought three stones into the air. Because the stones had floated above the ground, the temple was named Buseoksa Temple.
It was very beautiful, and we had a very funny moment. I've said before that South Korea is this crazy kind of juxtaposition of the old and the new: right next to each other you'll have traditional homes and temples and high-rise apartments and office buildings. Well, here we are praying inside the temple... when the monk's cell phone rings! I had to stifle the giggles.
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| One of the guardians that wards away evil at the entrance to the temple grounds. |
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| View from one of the balconies on temple grounds. |
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| The monks ring this bell every day at 6am and 6pm. |
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| Traditional drums. |
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| The main temple, this is where the offending monk resided! |
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| Stone Buddha |
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| My co-teacher insisted I get a picture! |
So, it was a very good day. After all the sight-seeing, we had a delicious late lunch, during which I ate waaaay too much and then passed out in a food coma the moment I got home. I'm glad I did this, and it was nice to spend time with my co-teacher before I have to leave. Only 35 more days now...
