Wow, where has December gone? Time has been flying here in the SK and suddenly I find myself on the precipice of 2009. I must say I am happy that Christmas is over. I had these grand plans for Christmas. My entire Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were filled with great plans with my friends. Instead, I came down with the stomach flu on Christmas Eve and was forced to spend my entire Christmas holed up in my apartment. It didn't even feel like Christmas, which I'm kind of okay with because it prevented me from being homesick.
On Saturday my sister arrived in South Korea. She will be staying until January 8th. We promptly moved from the airport, to my apartment, to a late dinner with a bunch of my friends who were quite excited to meet her (ah, I love my friends here). Yesterday we headed to Insadong in Seoul, a large shopping area with lots of shops selling traditional Korean items. After, we returned to Bupyeong to eat at my favorite bulgogi place with a bunch of my friends. In true Kate form, she was the first person I've met who did not enjoy the Korean pancakes they make at the restaurant. I think Korean food has been a bit of a disappointment to her thus far. Tonight we're going to try a new Indian restaurant and then see Twilight with Chrissy.
I apologize for the brief post, but I'm rather busy at the moment. I'm hoping to feature Kate as a guest blogger while she's here. Stay tuned.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
Buddhist Boot Camp
This past weekend I attended a temple stay at a Buddhist temple for one night. Now it should have been a relaxing, spiritual experience where I learned more about Buddhism and myself. Well, I did happen to learn a little about Buddhism and myself, but it was far from relaxing. Allow me to share with you my findings:
1. I NEVER want to be a Buddhist monk.
2. I have horrible posture.
3. Three o'clock in the morning should be a time reserved solely for going to bed, never for waking up.
4. I enjoy arts and crafts.
5. Buddhist monks smile a lot.
We started our temple stay with new uniforms that we had to wear the whole time we were there. As you can see in this picture, they were low on the sex appeal meter, but ranked high in comfort.
I kind of look like the ballooned version of Violet in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. After we changed out of our normal clothes, we had an "orientation" where they explained a bit about the schedule and the temple. I soon realized something that would plague me for the rest of the trip. I hate listening to translators. The man who led the weekend spoke Korean while another man translated for him. I couldn't focus long enough on someone speaking between translations to understand what was going on. The translator also spoke incredibly softly and was not adept at using a microphone properly. Holding it five feet from your face will not create the desired voice magnification that one expects when using a microphone. During orientation we also practiced our bowing. The bowing reminded me a bit of getting into yoga's child's pose from a standing position. I found it rather pleasant. Little did I know how painful it could be.
Our next event was a meditation walk where we walked for about a quarter mile through the forest. We were supposed to concentrate on our feet and walk at a snail's pace. I instead admired the beautiful scenery around me (we were in a gorgeous mountainous area of Korea) while trying not to focus on how cold my hands were. I could only fixate on about three of my steps before my mind wandered again. When we reached our destination we released all of our negative energy by yelling "Yah" at the mountains. It was very cathartic.
My favorite part of the Buddhist lifestyle may be their diet. They are vegetarians and so dinner was pretty amazing for me. I didn't have to pick out any meat unlike my school lunches. The only downfall with dinner was that we were expected to eat everything that we took from the buffet line. Normally I'm not a picky eater, but when faced with the rule that I must eat eveything, suddenly every spoonful of rice became very hard to swallow. I mistook a rice cake bean thing for a chocolatey dessert (what was I thinking? I'm in Korea after all, there is no chocolatey dessert) and I just could not bring myself to finish it. So I tucked that away in my pocket, but I did finish the rest of my food.
After dinner, we did some chanting, spoke with a monk (really, he just spoke to us and barely answered any questions), had tea, and made a dream pouch. They then told us we would put our things in our sleeping area and proceed to the temple to do our bows. It seemed rather innocuous until we began our trek up a steep hill in the cold loaded down with all of our stuff. I did not see that one coming.
Once we put our things in the sleeping area, we proceeded up another hill and some steps to the temple. This was a really neat area with lighted lamps all over, and an altar with a Buddha. Here we had to perform 108 bows. The number is somehow derived from the six senses: sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, and consciousness. Then that number is multiplied by six. Then that is multiplied by three for the past, present, and future. So they ended up at 108. We began our bowing which did not seem so bad at first. They told us we would all do 50 together and after that, if we wanted to stop we could. By 50, my legs were burning a bit, but I decided to carry on. For some reason I felt the need to bow the full 108 times. That was a mistake. By the last twenty, I was struggling to push myself up from the ground. A lot of people were smarter than me and stopped long before 108.
At 10:30 pm, we all went to sleep in our sleeping quarters. We slept on the floor, which I've gotten very accustomed to while traveling in Korea, so that was not a problem at all. Actually, since the heaters are located in the floors here in Korea, it's actually kind of nice.
Our wake-up call was at 3:00 am. Even as I write this I am starting to feel physically ill just thinking about waking up that early. It's just not right. That hour should be reserved only for stumbling home from a night out with friends. As my bff Chrissy put it so eloquently at 3:10 am, "We're paying money to wake up at 3:00 am." Yeah, I think we're a little crazy. After we woke up, we had to trek back up the hill and stairs to the temple again. We did some bowing and chanting. I was severely regretting those 108 bows because I could barely pick myself up from a kneeling position. I'm telling you, if you want some thighs of steel, I will teach you these bows.
We then walked back down the stairs to another temple where we had meditation for about a half hour. I always imagined meditation to be calming. This was not the case. We sat on the floor in a cross-legged position with our backs straight. During meditation, all I could meditate on was how my whole right leg was asleep and how my back hurt from sitting up straight. Unfortunately I did not come across any enlightenment. After meditation we had a 45 minute break and everyone used that time to fall back asleep.
We then trekked back down the hill to have a traditional Buddhist breakfast. It requires a lot of precise bowl using and cleaning. Once we were finished with the meal, we were supposed to wash our bowls with water and then drink that water. It was supposed to change our perspective. In theory, we had just eaten from the bowls, so drinking the water shouldn't be that bad because it was the stuff that we just ate. But it is food remains filled with water, not exactly appetizing. I somehow got out of doing it because drinking cloudy water with rice and kimchi bits in it did not appeal to me at six in the morning.
After breakfast, we had free time. Many of us laid on the floor and slept for another hour. We then had arts and crafts time, which may have been my other favorite part of the stay. We made lotus lanterns out of tissue paper and glue. Here is a picture of my lantern:
I will proudly display it in my apartment.
We then trekked back up the hill to the temple where we had to do 108 bows while we strung 108 beads on string to make a necklace. They felt sorry for us lazy foreigners who are not in top bowing form, so if we wanted to bow for every two or three beads we could. As it were, my thighs were burning just from sitting on the ground, so I bowed for about every five to ten beads I strung. We then chanted and walked around the temple and hung our dream pouches. After that we took a picture with the monk. He told us to yell "Tom Choo" as the pictures were being taken. I thought this was some Buddhist tradition that they engaged in while taking photos. Instead, he was actually saying "Come True", as in our dreams in our dream pouches would come true. So I was yelling "Tom Choo" not realizing that I was supposed to be speaking English.
Next we had lunch. Again, can I just say that I love the Buddhist diet? That is the one thing that I could get used to as a Buddhist monk. (Well, I guess I am already used to it since I am a vegetarian, but whatever, I'm trying to focus on the positive.) After lunch, we changed back into our clothes and headed home.
Now I may be painting the experience in a bit of a negative light. And I kind of mean to. Most of the time I was looking forward to it being over. But I must say that it was an "Only in Korea" experience and I will never get to (or choose to) do something like this again, so I look back on it with the idea that I'm glad I did it, but I'm even happier that it's over.
I give the monks a lot of credit for having that kind of discipline, for shaving their heads (I mean, if Britney Spears can't pull off a shaved head, I certainly couldn't), for giving up most of their possessions to be so devoted to a religion. I do think there are a lot of great aspects to Buddhism, like meditation (although I prefer the walk to the sitting up straight), and getting rid of negative energy and gaining positive energy. And I appreciate those aspects, but I will appreciate them from afar.
By the way, you can see pictures of my weekend here:
Temple Stay
I borrowed some of these pictures from my friends and some are mine that I took. Check back often because I will be posting more once I steal them from my other friends (which is very un-Buddha-like of me... sorry).
1. I NEVER want to be a Buddhist monk.
2. I have horrible posture.
3. Three o'clock in the morning should be a time reserved solely for going to bed, never for waking up.
4. I enjoy arts and crafts.
5. Buddhist monks smile a lot.
We started our temple stay with new uniforms that we had to wear the whole time we were there. As you can see in this picture, they were low on the sex appeal meter, but ranked high in comfort.
I kind of look like the ballooned version of Violet in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. After we changed out of our normal clothes, we had an "orientation" where they explained a bit about the schedule and the temple. I soon realized something that would plague me for the rest of the trip. I hate listening to translators. The man who led the weekend spoke Korean while another man translated for him. I couldn't focus long enough on someone speaking between translations to understand what was going on. The translator also spoke incredibly softly and was not adept at using a microphone properly. Holding it five feet from your face will not create the desired voice magnification that one expects when using a microphone. During orientation we also practiced our bowing. The bowing reminded me a bit of getting into yoga's child's pose from a standing position. I found it rather pleasant. Little did I know how painful it could be.
Our next event was a meditation walk where we walked for about a quarter mile through the forest. We were supposed to concentrate on our feet and walk at a snail's pace. I instead admired the beautiful scenery around me (we were in a gorgeous mountainous area of Korea) while trying not to focus on how cold my hands were. I could only fixate on about three of my steps before my mind wandered again. When we reached our destination we released all of our negative energy by yelling "Yah" at the mountains. It was very cathartic.
My favorite part of the Buddhist lifestyle may be their diet. They are vegetarians and so dinner was pretty amazing for me. I didn't have to pick out any meat unlike my school lunches. The only downfall with dinner was that we were expected to eat everything that we took from the buffet line. Normally I'm not a picky eater, but when faced with the rule that I must eat eveything, suddenly every spoonful of rice became very hard to swallow. I mistook a rice cake bean thing for a chocolatey dessert (what was I thinking? I'm in Korea after all, there is no chocolatey dessert) and I just could not bring myself to finish it. So I tucked that away in my pocket, but I did finish the rest of my food.
After dinner, we did some chanting, spoke with a monk (really, he just spoke to us and barely answered any questions), had tea, and made a dream pouch. They then told us we would put our things in our sleeping area and proceed to the temple to do our bows. It seemed rather innocuous until we began our trek up a steep hill in the cold loaded down with all of our stuff. I did not see that one coming.
Once we put our things in the sleeping area, we proceeded up another hill and some steps to the temple. This was a really neat area with lighted lamps all over, and an altar with a Buddha. Here we had to perform 108 bows. The number is somehow derived from the six senses: sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, and consciousness. Then that number is multiplied by six. Then that is multiplied by three for the past, present, and future. So they ended up at 108. We began our bowing which did not seem so bad at first. They told us we would all do 50 together and after that, if we wanted to stop we could. By 50, my legs were burning a bit, but I decided to carry on. For some reason I felt the need to bow the full 108 times. That was a mistake. By the last twenty, I was struggling to push myself up from the ground. A lot of people were smarter than me and stopped long before 108.
At 10:30 pm, we all went to sleep in our sleeping quarters. We slept on the floor, which I've gotten very accustomed to while traveling in Korea, so that was not a problem at all. Actually, since the heaters are located in the floors here in Korea, it's actually kind of nice.
Our wake-up call was at 3:00 am. Even as I write this I am starting to feel physically ill just thinking about waking up that early. It's just not right. That hour should be reserved only for stumbling home from a night out with friends. As my bff Chrissy put it so eloquently at 3:10 am, "We're paying money to wake up at 3:00 am." Yeah, I think we're a little crazy. After we woke up, we had to trek back up the hill and stairs to the temple again. We did some bowing and chanting. I was severely regretting those 108 bows because I could barely pick myself up from a kneeling position. I'm telling you, if you want some thighs of steel, I will teach you these bows.
We then walked back down the stairs to another temple where we had meditation for about a half hour. I always imagined meditation to be calming. This was not the case. We sat on the floor in a cross-legged position with our backs straight. During meditation, all I could meditate on was how my whole right leg was asleep and how my back hurt from sitting up straight. Unfortunately I did not come across any enlightenment. After meditation we had a 45 minute break and everyone used that time to fall back asleep.
We then trekked back down the hill to have a traditional Buddhist breakfast. It requires a lot of precise bowl using and cleaning. Once we were finished with the meal, we were supposed to wash our bowls with water and then drink that water. It was supposed to change our perspective. In theory, we had just eaten from the bowls, so drinking the water shouldn't be that bad because it was the stuff that we just ate. But it is food remains filled with water, not exactly appetizing. I somehow got out of doing it because drinking cloudy water with rice and kimchi bits in it did not appeal to me at six in the morning.
After breakfast, we had free time. Many of us laid on the floor and slept for another hour. We then had arts and crafts time, which may have been my other favorite part of the stay. We made lotus lanterns out of tissue paper and glue. Here is a picture of my lantern:
I will proudly display it in my apartment.
We then trekked back up the hill to the temple where we had to do 108 bows while we strung 108 beads on string to make a necklace. They felt sorry for us lazy foreigners who are not in top bowing form, so if we wanted to bow for every two or three beads we could. As it were, my thighs were burning just from sitting on the ground, so I bowed for about every five to ten beads I strung. We then chanted and walked around the temple and hung our dream pouches. After that we took a picture with the monk. He told us to yell "Tom Choo" as the pictures were being taken. I thought this was some Buddhist tradition that they engaged in while taking photos. Instead, he was actually saying "Come True", as in our dreams in our dream pouches would come true. So I was yelling "Tom Choo" not realizing that I was supposed to be speaking English.
Next we had lunch. Again, can I just say that I love the Buddhist diet? That is the one thing that I could get used to as a Buddhist monk. (Well, I guess I am already used to it since I am a vegetarian, but whatever, I'm trying to focus on the positive.) After lunch, we changed back into our clothes and headed home.
Now I may be painting the experience in a bit of a negative light. And I kind of mean to. Most of the time I was looking forward to it being over. But I must say that it was an "Only in Korea" experience and I will never get to (or choose to) do something like this again, so I look back on it with the idea that I'm glad I did it, but I'm even happier that it's over.
I give the monks a lot of credit for having that kind of discipline, for shaving their heads (I mean, if Britney Spears can't pull off a shaved head, I certainly couldn't), for giving up most of their possessions to be so devoted to a religion. I do think there are a lot of great aspects to Buddhism, like meditation (although I prefer the walk to the sitting up straight), and getting rid of negative energy and gaining positive energy. And I appreciate those aspects, but I will appreciate them from afar.
By the way, you can see pictures of my weekend here:
Temple Stay
I borrowed some of these pictures from my friends and some are mine that I took. Check back often because I will be posting more once I steal them from my other friends (which is very un-Buddha-like of me... sorry).
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
TKD!
Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures at our tae kwon do exhibition, but I did pilfer other people's pictures. You can see them here:
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