I apologize for not writing this in a timely manner. We didn’t have WiFi at the temple, and I think the adrenaline has been wearing off the past two days. But don’t worry, I’m going to catch up on the last few days.
This post is about Saturday, May 9th, when we left Seoul to go to Gyeongju and Golgusa Temple.
Leaving Seoul
After leaving our hotel in Seoul relatively early, we went to Seoul Station to catch the KTX train. Thankfully, we did not need to bring all of our luggage with us since we had put most of our larger suitcases in a truck that would meet us at our final destination. We got to the station early, so we got to explore. It was really neat because there were a bunch of nice restaurants and coffee shops, and even a clothing store. Some of the restaurants seemed like places I would want to go even if I wasn’t riding a train. The train was cool, it was super fast. I think we reached a high speed of 305 km/hr, or 190 miles/hour. We rode that for about two hours to Gyeongju, and then we went to get some lunch. We stopped at a restaurant for lunch where I got some bibimbap. It was really good.
After lunch, we finished our journey to Golgusa Temple via coach bus.
Temple Day 1
Once we got to the temple, there was quite a bit of miscommunication. Thankfully, all of our luggage made it there safely, but we had to drag it around everywhere because we kept getting different information on what building we were staying in. Finally, we figured it out and could get settled in. The girls were split between 2 rooms, with 5 in my room (including myself) and 4 in the other room. The mattresses were very hard and uncomfortable, there was no AC, there were only two power outlets (one of which was on the ceiling, and yes we did in fact use it because Emily came prepared with a super long phone charger). We had to take off our shoes before entering any of the buildings in the temple, which I was fine with since I wore socks but I wish I had brought shoes that were easier to slip on and off. We also had to wear pants that looked kind of like parachute pants, and these orange vests. I was not very fond of our outfits due to the style and the color, but at least we only had to wear them two days.
After we got settled in our rooms, we watched a performance that was basically some of the staff (they weren’t monks, I believe they just worked at the temple) doing a dance type thing. I don’t know the best way to describe it and of course I forgot to take pictures/videos. After that, we had orientation which was basically just going over etiquette and rules, and we did some training: basically yoga and some Buddhist movements, I don’t want to say dance because it wasn’t really a dance. Again, not sure how exactly to describe it.
After all that, we had the opportunity to do the 108 prostrations with one of the monks. From my understanding, this is a Buddhist ritual that they do as an act of repentance. It involves kneeling and bowing to the floor 108 times, each time for a different reason that they want to repent (i.e. hurting other people with words, being greedy, taking things for granted, etc.). Some of them were more about repenting for being a bad person/wanting to be a better person, and some of them were more Buddhist in that they directly referred to the Buddha. Several people opted out for religious reasons, but I was curious to see what it was like, so I participated. I was surprised at how few seemed to be specific to Buddhism, because a lot of the prostrations were about being a better person.
After the 108 prostrations, we had dinner. There is a rule that we are not allowed to waste food, so any food we put on our plate we had to finish. I made sure to eat every last crumb that I was able to pick up with my chopsticks. For some reason I decided to leave all the spiciest food for last, and it was spicier than I would’ve preferred, so I took a while to finish, but I did eat all the food. I thought it did taste good, just some of it was too spicy.
After dinner, we got to watch another performance. This time, it was more of a musical performance with dancing and traditional instruments and singing. There was also some yoga where several people joined one of the monks. I’ve learned that the monks are very flexible and strong, and can do some very complicated and difficult poses. It was kind of funny to watch everyone else try to do some of them.
After the performance, some of us wanted to walk up the big hill to see the Buddha carved into stone. However, one of the monks stopped us when we were part of the way up and warned us about the wild boars, so we headed back down. Then I got ready for bed, talked to my roommates for a little bit, then went to bed on the very uncomfortable mattress.
Stay tuned for Temple Stay Part 2.