Winter in Korea

I flew from Bangkok back to Seoul on an overnight flight on New Year's Day, then immediately had a full week of school to look forward to. I had booked a temple stay at Bongeunsa Temple for that Saturday and I seriously considered canceling it, since sleeping in my own bed sounded extremely appealing, but I persevered and did the temple stay anyway. I'm really glad I did because it was something I had wanted to do since I got to Korea, and it seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to sleep at a Buddhist temple.

The itinerary for the temple stay started with assigning rooms (my roommate was a lovely French woman) and taking a tour of the temple. This is the third time I went to Bongeunsa so I didn't take any photos of the grounds, and I apologize for that because it is a beautiful temple. But you can see it in my other blog posts (including this one) Next we learned how to complete a traditional Korean tea ceremony.

Tea ceremony instructor

Tea set

We also did the traditional monastic activity of copying sutras (Buddhist scripture) in golden ink. I took a picture of the before and after so you can see my tracing handiwork.

Not awful for someone who can't even read hangul!

This is the English translation of my sutra, which is interesting, to say the least

I had made it 11 months but finally it was time for me to sleep on a traditional Korean floor mat. After all that avoiding, it actually wasn't as bad as I feared, and I did manage to get some sleep.

The meditation set up in the Traditional Culture Center at the temple

Watching monks play the traditional dharma drums and ring the gong

The view from outside our room

Our meals were also included and we ate what the monks eat, so we had vegetarian meals for dinner on Saturday and for breakfast on Sunday morning. We got up at 4:15am on Sunday morning to attend the morning yebul, or the Buddhist prayer service, and got to practice our prostrations, which is when you kneel down, touch your head to the floor, and then come back up to a standing position before you do the whole thing again. Monks do it 108 times to "free themselves from the 108 defilements or the sources of sufferings." We only did it about 10 times and I'm so out of shape that I thought I was going to fall over so kudos to the monks. We then had some "free time" before breakfast, which is when I went back to sleep, and then did a meditation with a monk after breakfast where I fell asleep again. So overall I'm very glad I did it but there was too much downtime, for my taste, and I don't think it's something I would consider doing again. But no regrets; I love a unique experience!

The following weekend was a bit more fun; my friends and I went to a board game café and then bowling. I went to Japan the following weekend because we had two days off from school for Lunar New Year (and you can read more about Japan here).

During the last Saturday in January, I did a day trip to the Hwacheon Ice Festival with Chloë, Peter, and Ailbhe. The festival is most famous for ice fishing for sancheoneo (mountain trout), but we went snow tubing and ice sledding and to see ice sculptures. Overall it was an incredibly fun day!

Snow tubing at the Hwacheon Ice Festival

Peter took this great snowtubing video

Snow sculpture at the ice festival

We also got to try ice sledding, which is like sitting on a little board on ice skates and you use the wooden picks to propel yourself around. It was a lot more fun than I expected!

A better representation of the ice sleds (and me and Ailbhe!)

Posing with the ice sculptures

I wanted to go to this festival specifically for the ice sculptures and they really didn't disappoint!

The following weekend was what I jokingly referred to as my "weekend of culture," because I went to see NANTA, a show that's like if STOMP took place in a Korean kitchen. It's lots of percussion while chopping vegetables, which I know sounds weird but it's just because it's hard to describe. I really enjoyed it. Then I also went to a candlelight orchestral concert of ABBA songs that evening. It was a 10/10 day overall.

The NANTA stage before all the percussion began

Candlelight ABBA concert

The following weekend was unusually quiet for me and I did almost nothing, honestly. The highlight of my weekend was going to get Indian food by myself (LOL). But on February 18, Ailbhe and I took a train outside the city to visit the Garden of Morning Calm (the same botanical garden we went to last April) to see their winter light display. It was so pretty and nice to have an evening out of the city.

Garden of Morning Calm winter light display

This weekend is my last in Seoul. I did as much ahead of time as I could so that I'd be able to have fun during my last weekend in the city and wouldn't be stressed about packing and such, so I was out and about both days!

On Saturday, I got a facial (Gotta take advantage of that Korean beauty while I still can!) and then visited Café Greem, a well-known 2D designed café, which is like walking around in a cartoon!

On Sunday, I went to the Common Ground shipping container mall and had ricotta pancakes for brunch, which were delicious.

Then I went to an immersive Gustav Klimt art exhibit before meeting my friends for dinner in a quirky neighborhood called Mullae where we got a bunch of stuff to share.

It was an excellent last weekend in this city that I love (I will miss the incredible subway system so much when I go home). Between leaving my students and my friends here, I have a very emotional few days ahead of me, but it's also pretty exciting that I'll be flying away in three days!