We woke up early, and headed for 범어사 temple early in  the morning. It was quite a journey, and with some help from passerby, we managed to hire a cab and took us up the mountain, about 10 to 15 minutes ride. Our big luggage was a hassle and we had trouble dragging it.  A sense of relief was felt when we were attended by the monks in the temple. We reached the temple at about 12, if I remembered correctly.

I thought I've planned this trip up the mountain too early, because we haven't had our lunch, and I was a little worried where we should have lunch after putting our luggage, but I was thankful that the temple provided vegetarian lunch for us. It was alright, very simple lunch with 3 vegetables inclusive of a Kimchi dish and soup. The person led us to the area where we put our belongings. I didn't have any expectations of the number of people that signed up for templestay, but there were very little people when we arrived. It was around over 20 people and we were shown some introductory video before the start of the lessons, and self-introduction session where we told each other our names and the reasons for signing up for this templestay, both in Korean and English whenever possible. Almost 35 - 40% of the people were foreigners, and they segregated Koreans and foreigners so that the translator can translate for us.

We were taught the proper way to pray, the significance of the different areas that houses the different Buddhas. We toured around the temple. Before we could eat dinner, we recited this mantra. There were tons of rules to follow in the temple, like bowing to monks or anyone you see in the temple ground as a form of respect. We presented flowers to the Buddha during the flower offering ceremony, and made our own 108 prayer beads mala. During the ceremony of making the bead mala, we have to bow 108 times and we could make 108 wishes, where I felt miserable during the process but good after the ceremony. We walked Then, it was time to sleep and males and females were separated as usual. After brushing my teeth, we headed to our dormitory to sleep, where we found this grasshopper, as big as my palm, resting in the small room, and we were asked to leave it alone. The monk told us we could wake up to observe the drum ceremony at 3 in the morning, and I was determined to watch it.

Labels: Invasion #2

written @ 8:27 PM