Seen one seen them... well... Maybe not!

I have visited about 7 temples in Korea now and I was beginning to think that it was a case of “seen one seen them all”. Following my trip to Haeinsa Temple on 20 Novermber about 1.5hrs outside of Deagu that impression has slightly altered.

Before that though I took a lovely trip on the day of Halloween (31 October) to Eun Haesa temple which was about 35min outside of where I stay in Yeongcheon. At 10:30 on that Sunday Sandy, Colleen and I had decided to have a pick-nick and watch some of the autumn season from this temple. Colleen had been there before. She had gone with her teachers from School and recommended it to us so Sandy and I gladly took up the idea. We were not entirely sure where to catch the city bus to get there but after asking at a restaurant we climbed onto the correct bus.

The bus ride was pleasant enough and the actual venue of our pick-nick was even more beautiful.

We were hoping to see the true spectrum of winter colours but we didn’t have enough time to take the hike up to the main temple area to overlook the valley. Instead we just wondered around the base of the hill and found a nice grassed area where we laid out our two blankets and set out our food.

On the menu was the following:

Gimbap, Peanut butter and Jam sandwiches, Apples, chocolate sponge cake, Bean paste pastries, strawberry wafers, and chocolate biscuits. To drink we had and OJ Liqiufruit each and a chocolate milk.

It was a very enjoyable lunch and afternoon but there was one problem... how do we get back home. We believed there was a bus that came at about 15:00.

The bus did come.

The bus then left.

Were we on the bus... No. (The driver of the bus refused to take any passsangers)

So we waited  for what we thought was another bus, and there was another bus

The bus came.

The bus then left.

Were we on it? We tried but found out that it was not going our way, so we climbed of, thus... No.

HOW DO WE GET HOME!!!?? We were stranded and had been for about an hour. Our last resort was to call one of Colleens Co-teachers to try and help us. As we were standing around looking like stupid lost foreigners, a little Rav-4 type car pulls up and we manage to establish that they were offering us a lift as they were going back to Yoengcheon.

The car in question was filled with 3 older gentlemen who were at the temple to hike. Neither of them spoke a word of English but we were so grateful that we climbed in and off we went. Admittedly thoughts of every hitch-hiking horror movie briefly crossed my mind, but they quickly vanished with the chatting that ensued in the car.

I was certainly not the centre of attention. I think the fact that I was standing with two lovely ladies (Being Western Women helped them as well I think) helped me get the ride. I maintain that if Sandy and Colleen were not with me I would not have gotten a lift. Needless to say I was ignored but the gets for 30min of the 35min trip and was quite relieved at that to be honest. They focussed their attention on Sandy and Colleen. There was nothing in it, so both ladies gallantly tried to communicate with the guys. I eventually piped up when Colleen was trying to tell them where in Yeongchoen we were going. We were happy for them to drop us at the bus terminal but once we got there, the gents graciously offered to drop us at our flats as they didn’t want us to spend money unnecessarily. They were a lovely bunch of guys and even agreed to have a photo with the ladies once we got to our blocks of flats.

Now to Haeinsa Temple...

On the weekend of 20 November, neither Sandy nor I had anything planned. I had gotten back in contact with Chris Walsh (the Kiwi who has been here for 3 years) earlier in the week, as I had not seen or spoken to him for at least a month and a half. We were chatting during the week and he mentioned to me in an email that he and James Lee (See “Andong die ada hand Darren” if you are unsure of this name) were going to Haeinsa temple to see the Antient Buddhist blocks located at that temple.

A little history lesson now...

These carved blocks housed in the temple are in essence a library of Tripitaka (Buddhist scriptures). There are about 81 340 wooden printing blocks that date back to the 13^th century. These blocks are the 32^nd national treasure of Korea and in 1995 the temple grounds were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A remarkable little fact about these blocks is that of the 52 382 960 characters in these printing blocks there is not a single error ( - so no tipex required, hehe – sorry a little joke there). The buildings in which the blocks can be seen are temperature controlled (despite not being entirely closed from the elements) and no tourists are allowed in. You are not even allowed to take photos of them (My friend Soekie went to the same temple a week or 2 before and hand managed to get some covert pictures – which I have co-opted for the use of this blog)

... back to the blog - if you are struggling for time, please watch the video below and hopefully you will be able to read the rest at a later date

I, rather presumptively, asked if Sandy and I could join them on their trip and Chris, happily for us, said “please do”. So at 09:35 on the Saturday morning Sandy and I met Chris outside our building and we all walked to the train station. The day started with a bit of a chill in the air but I was certainly confident of withstanding the ills of the weather, even if Sandy was dressed as Chris said: “Nanook of the North”.

Once we arrived in Deagu, we jumped on the subway and got to the Bus station, grabbed some Gimbap and hopped on the bus to Hapcheon where the temple was. Both Sandy and I were lucky to have a little nap on bus and we arrived raring to go. We walked around the base of the temple site for about 10min and then headed up to the temple to see what there was to see.

At the temple I went into the souvenir shop and got a couple of things but really the rest of this section is best summed up in a series of pictures taken by Chris, James and Myself (all of us are trigger happy with our cameras so there are some great pictures - mostly in the video.

Sandy and I with James



After we were done walking around...

 we went down to the tea room at the temple entrance

I ordered the most fantastic homemade yoghurt. It was plain yoghurt with honey and topped with Kiwi and man was that a big bowl of yoghurt!

It was so go though that James eventually caved to his desire and ordered himself a bowl after he had finished his Juju Berry Tea. For the record Chris had fresh Kiwi Juice and Sandy had Pomergranite tea (I think). Once finished we got back on the bus after a sprint to the bus station...

Well, let me explain – the bus was leaving at 16:20 and it was 16:10. The idea was that I would run to the station and get us tickets and hopefully we would all get on the bus. I got to the station in time, closely followed by Sandy but Chris and James were nowhere to be seen. I give James a call and find out that one could buy bus tickets at the entrance to the temple and could catch the bus from there. We were told: “The bus is coming soon, you’d better hurry!”, so we ‘get on our bike’ as they say and sprint back to the entrance of the temple to just about catch the bus. On the bus back we all decide to stay in Deagu for supper and then catch the late train back.

Once in Deagu I was very very keen on some Indian food, so Chris and James take us to this little Indian place in Downtown.

It was really really nice. I had a chicken curry with naan and considering I am in South Korea it was a good effort for an Indian style curry. Sandy had a seafood briyani which was a little too disappointing – it was very dry and was pretty much just rice. I would go back there though as it was good enough for a curry. Supper finished we finally made our way back to Yeongchoen to a great night’s sleep. Sunday was just spent sleeping in and resting round town, so all in all this was a good weekend.

Coming soon on Geoff’s Asian Adventure: An Early Christmas meal with... yes... REAL TURKEY!!!! Oh and my 1^st experience of Pumpkin Pie.