Day 6

Today we got up bright and early to check out of the hotel. I immediately had a fight with my suitcase because tell me why my stuff suddenly isn’t fitting anymore. After checking out, we loaded our luggage onto the bus and said goodbye to it since it was going to meet us later.

We then headed to the train station where I got Dunkin’ and Paris Baguette. The Korean Dunkin is SO good, and Paris Baguette had salt bread and crème brûlée donuts that looked amazing. After that, we hopped on a train for about two hours before stopping for lunch at a traditional Korean restaurant.

After lunch, we got back on the bus and arrived at a temple, where we would actually be staying for the night. I’m not going to lie, the temple stay was definitely one of the most interesting experiences of the trip so far, but I’m really glad I got to do it at least once.

The first thing we did when we arrived was change into the clothes everyone wears there: an orange vest and brown tie-on pants. I honestly think my pants were tied wrong the entire day. While we were getting settled, we also ran into another group staying there. They were graduate students from UNC, and one of them was even a Pitt alum. It was honestly kind of crazy meeting people from “home” while being all the way in Korea.

Our first activity was watching Sunmudo being performed outside. After that, we went into another building where we got to learn Sunmudo and yoga ourselves for about an hour. Then they taught us how to do the prostrations that are part of the 108 prostrations practice before dinner.

Dinner was probably the most different meal we’ve had on the entire trip. The monks and temple don’t allow meat, dairy, or certain other ingredients because of Buddhist beliefs about not harming living things. Since meat has been such a big part of a lot of our meals on this trip, having a dinner like this was honestly both humbling and refreshing.

After dinner, we went back outside near the stage where the temple had prepared a performance for us. They did a fan dance, and I loved their outfits so much. There was also yoga and more Sunmudo performances. We ended the night by taking a huge group picture with the UNC students before heading to bed early because tomorrow starts at 5:00 a.m.