I just realized…

The reason I’m sick again just may be the communal kitchens. Most of these kids don’t possess the ability to really wash dishes. Hmmmmm.

Anyway, some nice old guy dropped some knowledge on me today. I had commented that most of the fish market workers were women. He said that after so many Korean men didn’t come home from the war, the widows turned to the waterfront to support their families. Most of those women are gone, but passed their stalls on to their daughters. So any man working there, is actually working for their wife or mother or mother in law.

Today’s only activity was a trip to another temple, Beomeosa. It’s an older one, some of the elements are from 890. Such a pretty day.  

A gal named Pan chatted me up for a while. I think she wanted to practice her English. She told me about a lot of stuff: all about her friend in Seattle (Alzheimers), her 40 years in Florida, why she was back in Korea (studying Buddhism), where she was renting an apartment, how much she paid for it, her apartment in Seoul and how much *it cost, that she was a US citizen, how she got her visa, when it expired…anyway, she was interesting. She liked talking as much as I do lol. After a while her friend came over and handed out candy. Nice.

The metro ride took me back to my bed and a nice nap. Dinner was pho (Vietnamese chicken noodle soup).

Here’s todays pictures…

This temple was very easy to reach by bus. I just followed all the other hikers off the bus and we were there!

These turtles have something to do with the creation of the universe in Buddhism

This is a hand washing station to use before worship. It’s always nice when it’s more than just some plastic bucket. Also the strawberry scrubby amused me
In some schools of prayer, a painting is preferable to a statue. I have no idea why.

This is the oldest building, from the 1600’s. Not too shabby considering the fire problem in dried up old wood

This is where the paper money is burned up. A lot of temples don’t use the paper money bc it’s not environmentally friendly

The temple is systematically rebuilding the halls, one at a time. It’s a very time consuming process and expensive process. To retain the historic significance is paramount, followed by quality of construction using old timey techniques
This is the oldest thing here, from the 800’s

There are so many people here visiting and studying they gave up on landscaping
These signs are actually really helpful. If you don’t see one, you’re basically free to poke around at will

I can’t guess how heavy this rock is
You can see these cranes still in the rivers of Korea.
Froggy thought ice cream would make me feel better. He was right

Leave a comment