Today I woke up excited for a hike! I love the outdoors, so I was geared up to trek through the mountains. Today, we hiked Bukhansan National Park. The trek up the hill was so scenic. Since it rained yesterday, it was quite damp, but it was so green and bright! 

When we got to the top of the temple, I was completely in awe of the beauty of the setting. The temple was adorned with paper lanterns. The white stone of the temple looked so bright under the noon sun. It was so quiet and peaceful on the temple grounds.

Towards the top of the temple, there were 108 stairs. I learned that climbing those stairs represented overcoming the 108 human desires in Buddhism. I felt like I connected with the temple when I was up there.

After we finished exploring the temple grounds, we went down the trail to go get lunch! We went to a traditional Korean restaurant for lunch. I tried acorn jelly for the first time! It was an acquired taste.

We had a break at the hotel, and then we got ready to go to our cooking class! At the cooking class, we were instructed by a woman named Ellie, who often collaborates with netflix and various kdramas to create food and film cooking scenes.

She taught us how to make bibimbap! Since I am vegetarian, I made the dish with soya instead and it was so delicious. The dish was surprisingly not too difficult to create. The dish’s creation emphasizes cutting all of the pieces in a similar manner and assembling the components separately. Bibimbap greatly emphasizes having 5 colors in the dish. It was super rewarding to cook the dish ourselves and we even got a certificate with our name written in Korean to celebrate the feat!

Today was so fun, and I cannot wait for the next!