Korea - Day #7 (May 5, 2011) - Temple Life & Hong Dae

Today is Children's Day in Korea so we decided to go some place where many children might not be around.  We thought it would be a good day to go experience a Temple Stay; however, we were discouraged to actually do a Temple Stay since we would be staying at a temple overnight and getting up at 3:30 in the morning.  My family didn't think that we were able to get up at 3:30 with the monks, fold our legs and meditate for 30 minutes and/or bow 108 times.  We found a two hour program called a Temple Life at Bongeunsa temple in the Gang Nam area.  The program included a tour of the temple, meditation with a monk, learning to drink green tea properly, and making a lotus lantern.  The temple was very nicely decorated with lots of lanterns for the lantern festival on Saturday.  It was a great time for us to be at a temple to enjoy all preparations of Buddha's birthday and the annual lantern festival.

Before we headed out to Bongeunsa Temple, we stopped at nearby Samsung Coex building which has many high-end stores.  My sister came up to Seoul from Daegu to spend sometime with us.  First we stopped at Cold Stone Creamery for mid-afternoon snack.

Four flavors of goodness

Interesting looking building

Do we look skinny?

A Lantern for the festival

Korean Monster

Statue at the front gate of  temple #1

Statue at the front gate of temple #2

Statue at the front gate of temple #3

Statue at the front gate of temple #4

Stone stacks

PungKyoung - Buddhist's bell

Door

Making Lotus blossoms

Lotus leaves

Completed Lotus

After all these exciting activities, we went to HongDae (HongIk University) which was known for fine arts.  There were many galleries, design studios, shops full of uniquely designed goods, and many restaurants and bars.  We spent some time looking around and went to eat Budae Jjigae (mixed meat soup - hot and spicy).

HongDae Main Street

The store where I bought many uniquely designed items

Budae Jjigae - Mixed meat soup