4 AM we wake up to a "dong" sound. It was pitch dark, pouring rain, and we had to climb up steep hills with rough paths to get to our morning chant/prayer. After the chant we stayed at the same place for meditation-30 minutes of silence. Peacefulness. Quiet. Nothing in the world could disturb me.
Since, it was raining, we did not do the meditation walk nor the community service- so we did tai chi and then got to relax for about 30 minutes. At 6:30 we had breakfast; Taz had my tofu b/c it may have had milk and we can't waste food. :(
We got another break and then went to Sunmudo Training around 8:30. Today was different it was more focused on breathing and flexibility with a yoga twist. There were obviously things I simply could not do like they wanted- but, I tried. At 10:10 we had tea time. Everyone sits in a circle and mingles and chats. It is here that we learned that South Korea has a program for at-risk teens; they are sent to this temple to learn about discipline and respect. For Sunmudo class, they came in late, and then one of them started fooling around with her mini mirror; the instructor yelled "stop" at her after which the Master from last night came out to help. The 3 boys out of the group were not too bad, but the girls were tickling each other and tearing the yoga mats and throwing the pieces at each other. At the end of class, the instructor makes them clean up. The instructor looks at me and shakes his head; I say kids, he agrees. The girls did as told but attitude is always present. Anyways during tea time we asked how they are liking it. The girls were indifferent and one boy said it is comfortable. Taz couldn't stand the silence during tea time so she started to ask different questions. Right after tea time, a girl who is studying at the school lead us in 108 bows which is literally kneeling, bowing, and standing up again 108 times. The teenage girls gave attitude and the instructor asked the translator to tell them that to continue they have to be part of the team; one continued to refuse-translator stated not to worry about it. Obviously, the instructor was frustrated but we continued with what we were supposed to do. I decided I was going to challenge my knee and do the 108 bows. She said we could do a half bow (stand and bow) if we were in pain, but I wanted to try and I did it! Wohoooo!
The templestay was almost done! We went hiking back up the hill one last time :) to see a Sunmudo Demonstration. We barely made it back in time for lunch. The rice wasn't even out because lunch was about the end. The cooks filled our bowls so much rice that Taz and I had to force eat the rice as again, -no waste! After lunch, we checked out! We walked towards the road and got a bus right away- I fell asleep on the bus back to Gyeongju. We were looking for our place to stay (the guesthouse) and this lady comes by and looks at the picture on my ipad. She was soooo excited to help us. She was laughing, jumping up and down, running, just excited. She got us to our guesthouse.
We had to wait till 1500 for our rooms. So we waited (1.5-2 hours). We decided to have tea. Taz sat down and had tea while I had hot water with sugar. I didn’t like the taste rice based tea. We met another person staying here from France. He told us what he has seen. I got to practice my French. After he left, we planned out our trip. After we got our rooms we took cold showers and began to tour.
We saw Cheonmachong Tomb and Deneungwon Royal Tomb from the outside. We then went to world heritage site, Cheomseongdae Conservatory. We proceeded towards Wolseong Fotress-en route we saw the Seokbinggo Ice Storehouse, Gyerim Forest, and Wolseong Park. We later watched the Silla Palace Movies. We walked toward Donggun and Wojji Park, not knowing that it was Anapji Pond; they were all one in the same. We wanted to see this at night. We went to ask if we could get a re-entry stamp; nope the ticket is only good for one time entry. We left. Maybe we will return.
We spent almost 20 minutes trying to find a place to eat dinner. We stopped in front of one guy's store; he made sushi, Korean style in front of us- Gimbap. We shared 1 vegetarian sushi cut into 10 pieces. We kept walking and went into a store for the famous bread, and they could give us ingredients in English! I can eat them! We were so hungry that we had two right there. We found a Chinese restaurant, yes, in Korea. I ordered cold noodle Beef :D We ate the sushi while waiting for our food. Our food was not too yummy, but we ate a little bit and left. Now I am back at the guesthouse, updating the blog and about to crash. Thank goodness for protein bars!!! I was still hungry so ate one.
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