Ding, ding, ding, BANG BANG BANG, BOOOOOSSSSHHHHH
That's what woke me up at 2.30Am, a guy going round with a bell, chanting and scraping against a wooden thingy. My three hours sleep was bizarre mainly due to the fact we were in a temple, on the floor. Everyone was getting up when I awoke and I put my stuff away into the locker. I put on my soaking trainers and we went to pee in the hole in the ground, it was an experience. I followed Helena and Lucy and we went to the main temple and started our prayers. My knees got weaker as we done Mantras and full prayer about 20+ times before being ushered out into the courtyard. We were arranged into pairs and one by one went up to slam this huge piece of wood into a massive bell with a Priest. It was really quite loud and meant to call the monks and nuns to prayer. I tried to bang it as loud as I could but the piece of wood took me with it and my attempt was quite feeble. I walked with the others up to main temple and we done mantras and prayers again. I felt really faint as this was about 5am and we hadn't eaten or drunk and had to keep getting up and down. This was for an hour or so, we were lucky as we had a nun in front of us that we just copied the entire time.
After morning prayers we got back to the hall and was greeted by the most awesome monk ever who had this tinkle in his eye. He taught us this really fun meditation and spoke in such a way that we didn't need a translator. We were shown some Buddhist self defence using the international guy as 'a bad man'. We also done some crazy exercises that made everyone laugh, like swinging our arms, doing some sort of JudoBallet combination, it was just too funny. I wish we'd filmed it. Afterwards he let us 'meditate' by lying on the floor and closing our eyes. We done this for an hour and had free time afterwards.
The big dong rung for Breakfast and we all hurried to find.. Babimbap. I had some rice and was told it was bad to waste any which was really annoying as it had these horrible beans in it. I also had some water and tea. Caroline has the same and afterwards we washed our plates out the back and said thank you for the meals.
As the night had been rainy, we couldn't do mountain walking as it was slippery so we got to make our own prayer beads. We had to count 108 out and a big bead. We threaded everything on and then laughed as everyone struggled doing the knots. I'm just Glad scoobies were in fashion when I went to school otherwise I would've never understand the ending pattern and how to finish off the excess wire and thread. I laughed at took pictures of the International guy as revenge and we talked about anime and manga, it was nice and relaxing.
After beads we had more free time before having traditional temple tea and an 'about me' section. The tea was lovely and I tried to drink the 20 cups but only managed about 10 altogether. They brought round the sticky gooey pasta and I warned everyone about it. People tried it only for them to tell me I was right in my description.
A short monk then came over about 10Am ish and we went on a tour of the temple grounds and the museum. Somethings were really interesting but I think generally everyone was really tired and didn't pay much attention. I was shocked to learn that the temple is open to the public to prayer, just like a church. It was weird because I just assumed that only Monks and Nuns could go there. Many Koreans stopped to talk to us and ask us questions. I told a story about the Chinese zodiac to the International guys and they told me one about a turtle in return. They also helped me in the gift shop as I wanted something for year of the Horse, having a friend being able to read Korean comes in handy when you need to buy things.
Next I toured the museum in the temples and was amazed at how old everything was, all made in roughly 1760 or something, crazy. We got to do screen printing of Buddhist texts and pictures too which is a lovely memento to have. The lady doing mine was evil though and made sure it came our perfect. I'm glad in a way by my hands are still covered in ink!
We then heard the dong for lunch which was the same thing as breakfast but with added noodles. I tried a rice thing wrapped in tofu, it was quite yummy but strange along with pineapple which made my mouth sore due to a reaction to the fruit.
Luckily after dinner we had more free time and were able to change into our wet, but normal clothes which was a relief! I was dead happy to be our of our prison ware. Helena told me that her roommate in Sweden was sent to a temple as punishment for bad grades once, I think I can see why it's a fitting punishment!
We gave our gifts and collected our things before saying goodbye. The others visited the tombs but I wasn't interested and just slept on the bus until we got to Dongguk. I'm at the flat now, and am very tired typing this. It's nice to be home and I had such a great experience at the temple, we have so many things for the DVD, mainly bloopers though!
I've been thinking alot about my course in life and I'm debating restarting the year but am still unsure. It feels like I should be doing something more creative at University.
I'd like to say thank you for my birthday messages, it was very nice of everyone!
Anyway, Logging off for now,
Angharad

Ding, ding, ding, BANG BANG BANG, BOOOOOSSSSHHHHH
That's what woke me up at 2.30Am, a guy going round with a bell, chanting and scraping against a wooden thingy. My three hours sleep was bizarre mainly due to the fact we were in a temple, on the floor. Everyone was getting up when I awoke and I put my stuff away into the locker. I put on my soaking trainers and we went to pee in the hole in the ground, it was an experience. I followed Helena and Lucy and we went to the main temple and started our prayers. My knees got weaker as we done Mantras and full prayer about 20+ times before being ushered out into the courtyard. We were arranged into pairs and one by one went up to slam this huge piece of wood into a massive bell with a Priest. It was really quite loud and meant to call the monks and nuns to prayer. I tried to bang it as loud as I could but the piece of wood took me with it and my attempt was quite feeble. I walked with the others up to main temple and we done mantras and prayers again. I felt really faint as this was about 5am and we hadn't eaten or drunk and had to keep getting up and down. This was for an hour or so, we were lucky as we had a nun in front of us that we just copied the entire time.
After morning prayers we got back to the hall and was greeted by the most awesome monk ever who had this tinkle in his eye. He taught us this really fun meditation and spoke in such a way that we didn't need a translator. We were shown some Buddhist self defence using the international guy as 'a bad man'. We also done some crazy exercises that made everyone laugh, like swinging our arms, doing some sort of JudoBallet combination, it was just too funny. I wish we'd filmed it. Afterwards he let us 'meditate' by lying on the floor and closing our eyes. We done this for an hour and had free time afterwards.
The big dong rung for Breakfast and we all hurried to find.. Babimbap. I had some rice and was told it was bad to waste any which was really annoying as it had these horrible beans in it. I also had some water and tea. Caroline has the same and afterwards we washed our plates out the back and said thank you for the meals.
As the night had been rainy, we couldn't do mountain walking as it was slippery so we got to make our own prayer beads. We had to count 108 out and a big bead. We threaded everything on and then laughed as everyone struggled doing the knots. I'm just Glad scoobies were in fashion when I went to school otherwise I would've never understand the ending pattern and how to finish off the excess wire and thread. I laughed at took pictures of the International guy as revenge and we talked about anime and manga, it was nice and relaxing.
After beads we had more free time before having traditional temple tea and an 'about me' section. The tea was lovely and I tried to drink the 20 cups but only managed about 10 altogether. They brought round the sticky gooey pasta and I warned everyone about it. People tried it only for them to tell me I was right in my description.
A short monk then came over about 10Am ish and we went on a tour of the temple grounds and the museum. Somethings were really interesting but I think generally everyone was really tired and didn't pay much attention. I was shocked to learn that the temple is open to the public to prayer, just like a church. It was weird because I just assumed that only Monks and Nuns could go there. Many Koreans stopped to talk to us and ask us questions. I told a story about the Chinese zodiac to the International guys and they told me one about a turtle in return. They also helped me in the gift shop as I wanted something for year of the Horse, having a friend being able to read Korean comes in handy when you need to buy things.
Next I toured the museum in the temples and was amazed at how old everything was, all made in roughly 1760 or something, crazy. We got to do screen printing of Buddhist texts and pictures too which is a lovely memento to have. The lady doing mine was evil though and made sure it came our perfect. I'm glad in a way by my hands are still covered in ink!
We then heard the dong for lunch which was the same thing as breakfast but with added noodles. I tried a rice thing wrapped in tofu, it was quite yummy but strange along with pineapple which made my mouth sore due to a reaction to the fruit.
Luckily after dinner we had more free time and were able to change into our wet, but normal clothes which was a relief! I was dead happy to be our of our prison ware. Helena told me that her roommate in Sweden was sent to a temple as punishment for bad grades once, I think I can see why it's a fitting punishment!
We gave our gifts and collected our things before saying goodbye. The others visited the tombs but I wasn't interested and just slept on the bus until we got to Dongguk. I'm at the flat now, and am very tired typing this. It's nice to be home and I had such a great experience at the temple, we have so many things for the DVD, mainly bloopers though!
I've been thinking alot about my course in life and I'm debating restarting the year but am still unsure. It feels like I should be doing something more creative at University.
I'd like to say thank you for my birthday messages, it was very nice of everyone!
Anyway, Logging off for now,
Angharad