Haeinsa

I got a knock on my door 8:30 in the morning last Saturday. I was skyping with the parentals and had no clue who on earth would come visit me eight in the morning on a weekend. I opened my door and it was my sweet land lady. I could not have asked for a better land lady. She's like my mom away from home. My land lady who I call Ajumma handed me a piece of paper that had the history of Haeinsa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haeinsa) on it.

At first when she whipped out her phone I thought she wanted my number. But then she started dialing numbers and I quickly figured out she's trying to get someone that speaks English on the phone so that she will be able to communicate with me. By this time I had also figured out that she wanted me to go to Haeinsa with her and her family. She got her little nephew on the phone and he told me they we're planning to go sometime over the weekend. But I had already planned a trip to Busan with my friends. We did a lot of back and forthing with the phone and her nephew told me she wanted to take me so since I can't go this weekend she'll take me next weekend! So this past Saturday I spent an entire day with Ajumma and her family.

It took two hours to get to Haeinsa , which is famous for housing the Tripitaka Koreana, the Buddhist Scriptures. The scriptures are carved into wooden printing blocks. Haeinsa has these wooden storage units called, Janggyeong Panjeon. More than 80,000 of the wooden blocks are stored in the units.

The Temple is on top Gaya Mountain. There was a lot of walking up hill and walking up a lot of steep steps. This is Ajumma looking up at another set of steps we had to take as we got closer to the main temple.

This is what we found after climbing the set of stairs in the previous picture. A courtyard full of storage units and little temples .

If you look closely enough, or enlarge this next picture you can see the golden Buddha through the doorway. I got to go inside the main temple, where you're not allowed to take pictures. Stepping inside was really calming. I don't know whether it was because everyone there just seemed so relaxed, bowing to the statue of Buddha repeatedly as they were offering up their prayers, or whether it was just the fact I was inside this really pretty temple with a statue of a large golden Buddha right in front of me -- but there was definitely a different feeling in the air. I remember when I went to go visit the the Hindu temple back in Lilburn I had similar feelings towards it. I like to think visual and auditory stimulants from my envirnoment affect me a greater deal than most other people -- but that's just me. Regardless I think it's something everyone should get a chance to see and experience.

This picture is part of the roof of the temple. Everything surrounding the temple was real ornate and colorful

After finishing our temple tour we ate lunch at a local restaurant that sits on top of a hill and overlooks the city. I kept thinking after our lunch was over that the trip would also be over. But since, I don't speak Korean, and Ajumma doesn't speak any English the trip started to become a guessing game of what we were doing next. After lunch we went to the near by river and found ourselves a few huge boulders by the water to sit on. We played in the water trying to catch little fish in the little cups we had and then we just ate our fruit and admired the river. It started raining so our time with the river was cut short.

But, our day would still continue with other activities. We visited this pottery shop where we all got to make our own cups and vases using clay. Rolling out the clay was tough but working with it was a lot of fun. I ended up making this -

I'm not sure what it is exactly, but I was proud of it. I love making stuff and I'm even happier when they turn out semi decent. This is one of Ajumma's nieces making a bowl with her block of clay.

This was another one of those all day exhausting trips I seem to be taking every other weekend here. I'm sure more trips are on there way.