Greete Go-Go: May 2009

I thought it would be nice to add some pictures of our daytrip to the western islands in Incheon. Imma keep it short cause it's kinda late already...

We took the subway to Incheon. It took us what, over an hour, but it was very cheap.

A fruit merchant with his dogs.

We headed to the beach promenad which Gregor sincerely wanted to see. It was nice, Gregor ;)

They sold all kinds of seafood there in this kind of stalls.

The beach promenad was actually interesting to see. It was so yesterday. All the buildings and everything there were worn-out.

We took a ferry to the airport island and another one to a smaller island called Muui. (Muuido means Muui island.)

You could feel the fishery-atmosphere. The smell of the sea, the sound of seagulls...

We ate lunch in a seafood restaurant. I mean, there wouldn't even have been other options. They took a fish from an aqurium and boiled it. So we got a pot of boiling water, vegetables and a whole fish. With eyes and everything. This was one of the foods impractical to eat with chopsticks.

We walked down the road on the east side of the island and the weather was beautiful.

But when we went across the hills to the west side to the beach, it was all grey and foggy! But we weren't discouraged, we come from Finland, of course we'll go swimming. In Finland we say that we "throw away our winter fur" when we go swimming for the first time in the year. We threw away our winter furs in the Yellow sea. :)

It was low tide when we went back, and a bit creepy to see all the boats on the land.

We saw an outside norebang (karaoke room) where a man dressed up as a chef or I don't know sang hit songs probably from the 70's.

Last weekend I spent in a Buddhist temple near the east coast. Some exchange students had gone there earlier and said it was a great place to visit. Actually also I was supposed to go there earlier but couldn't because of the affair I had to represent our home university in.

So, now I went there, alone, because I wanted to get the full experience of staying in a Buddhist temple and not just hang around with friends. I was a bit nervous about going there alone, but I also enjoyed the "adventure" of travelling alone. :)

My bus left me to Jinbu, where I had to wait for an hour for the local bus to Woljeongsa. I walked around and took pictures of the town. The surroundings were great; hills covered with green forests, but for some reason they wanted to ruin the scenery by building these concrete box-buildings. In Seoul land is expensive so the cheapest way to expand is vertically, but I doubt that its the case in the countryside.

The bus station.

These men were a bit drunk and they were hanging on to each other not to fall.

A "river".

Marketplace.

Since everything here is very specialized, exept for the conglomerats, also Jinbu had its field of expertise: medicine. There were pharmacies on every corner. I really wonder how that works. I understand that there are seperate areas for different products here in Seoul, but I mean, who travels to Jinbu to buy medicine? Especially when all the drug stores sell the same products.

I followed a monk to the temple.

I thought I would spend the weekend in silence meditating and stuff, but on the contrary I drew quite a lot of attention. It started when I was walking up the hill to the temple. There was a group of elementary school children walking down the hill and they got really exited when they saw a westerner. They were greeting me and I basically walked up the hill waving my hand and saying: Hello! Hi! Hi! Hello, Hi! This kind of enthusiasm towards westerners went on during the whole templestay in the form of taking pictures with me. I actually don't know how to feel about the fact that im in someone else's family portrait. I mean people I don't even know. Are they gonna present the photo by saying "this is our Finnish friend"?

The enthusiastic children.

The westerner.

The welcoming at the temple was very warm and friendly! There were volunteers who immediately invited me in, served me tea and fruits and peanuts and stuff. Some of them knew more, some less English, but we could communicate totally fine. The chief there spoke perfect English tough, and told me a lot about the place, Buddhism and things generally.

The volunteers took me around the temple area and showed me the buildings and a museum there. They took me to my room and gave me the templestay clothes. The room was traditional Korean with sliding doors and floor heating. And the clothes were this set of baggy pants and shirt which made you feel like you're walking around in pyjamas all the time. Which did feel really nice though.

My room.

The hallway where you left your shoes before entering the room.

After my arrival I went for a walk in the woods to the 'pine tree road'. It felt really nice to get to be in the nature after being in a city of over 10 million people for months straight. You know, because I live in Finland I'm used to be a few steps away from forest even in Helsinki. But there is no such possibility in Seoul, you would have to travel a long time to get out of the city or out of the crowd.

I wasn't glad just because of the forest but also the cutie-wooties living in it. There were these squirlie-wirlies looking for nuts and weren't afraid to come close to people. :)

The templestay program (yep, there was a program, cause it's a "tourist" place. but, it was actually just fine, not too touristy.) umm yeah the program started nicely with dinner a 5 o'clock. The food was eh, healthy. Basically it was rice and different kinds of kimchis and other cold fermented vegetables. I was thinking that if we were in a barbecue restaurant and got those vegetables for side dishes, I probably wouldn't touch them. But when you're willing to change your ways for a weekend, and don't have anything else to eat, the food is okay. They had the same menu on every meal, which might need adjusting to if you're used not to having the same stuff for dinner and brekfast. There was one stressful thing concerning the meals though. You shouldn't leave any leftovers, because the food there was donated by farmers who wave shed sweat for growing it. So I stressed about taking the right amount...

After dinner it was time for a Buddhist ceremony. Monks went up to this building to wish well-being and happiness for all the creatures by drumming different objects. At first they drummed the huge drum on the right for all the animals and creatures on the land. Next they drummed a wooden fish hanging from the sealing on the left for all the creatures in the water. Then they drummed this cloud-shaped metal object hanging on the left for all the creatures in the sky. Lastly they stroke the gigantic bell in the middle for the humans.

After this we went to a temple to have the basic three-times-a-day Buddhist ceremony which includes bowing and singing. I learned there that the bowing, which Buddhists do a lot, is a sign of respect to another person or anything you want to dedicate your bow to.

After the ceremony we met a monk in a tea ceremony. By the way, all the water in the monastery came from a crystal clear spring, so everything we drank there tasted so good... Yeah, I was really positively surprised by the monks. I didn't have any negative prejudices, but I sort of thought that they live in a very small world spending so much time in the middle of nowhere in their own thoughts. But instead they had travelled in many places, knew very much about contemporary issues and spoke wise words when the visitors asked guidance to their problems. They also had good sense of humor and overall were in a very positive mood!

Other visitors.

The master of ceremony. A monk.

In the evening we did yoga and noticed that in the sky there was a very beautiful full moon. We went for a walk into the woods.

The house where our rooms were.

9 pm was our bedtime. There were no beds, we slept on thin mattresses we found from the closet. I was alone in a small room for two of three people, so I of course took all the mattresses and probably slept more confortably than the others.

Next morning we woke up at 4. I was prepared for that so it wasn't that hard. We started our morning by again going to the Buddhist ceremony.

The temple where the ceremonies were held. Before the dawn.

After the ceremony we went for a walk to do walking meditation. I ended up talking with a hard-working businessman working at Samsung. I mean... The situation was so unreal, being in the middle of no where, walking in pyjamas talking to rich businessmen... It just wouldn't happen elsewhere.

I snapped a picture of the stream during our walk.

When we came back it was already a bit lighter outside.

And when we went to have brekfast the sun had risen.

We went to a long walk along the stream. As I heard the path was only known among monks until very recently. The walk was great. I enjoyed the nature and my talks with Jina, who is the leader of this templestay program. It was there when realized how bad the air in Seoul is. Considering the fact that Seoul is one of the largest cities in the world, the quality of the air there is okay. But breathing the pure mountain air made me realize how the air here in Seoul smells bad, and drinking the crystal clear spring water made me realize how the water here in Seoul tastes bad. I'm just saying that the purity of the nature there swiped me off my feet.

Making our way on the path with the guidance of the monk.

Spring comes to Odaesan national park, where Woljeongsa is located, later than to Seoul, because most of the park is 700 meters above sea level. This is what the nature in Seoul had looked like a month earlier.

The monk showing us how to drink the water. This spring is a source of Hangang and according to an old fairytale it is a place where angels swim and get married. The fairytale tells that woodpeckers are the only ones who know about the angels there, and after the angels have returned to heaven, the woodpeckers remind the world about them.

Amazingly beautiful views.

Although I thought I would just be silent and alone, my templestay turned out to be a very social experience. The monks, workers, volunteers and other visitors welcomed me very warmly and took me to their group even though not all of them spoke English at all. I didn't get to be alone to take time and just meditate, but I got what I actually needed. I got to know myself a little bit better: what I am like in a whole new place and in an unusual situation with totally unknown people.

The office.

Having coffee and tea in the office.

Oh yeah, by the way, I was interviewed to a local TV-channel by these two men. Here in Korea the credibility and appeal of a pic or a TV-show or whatever doubles instantly if you get a westerner there. So that is why I was interviewed with some other temple guests. I of course had no idea because I, of course, didn't understand what they were talking about and Koreans don't have the manner of keeping you informed about the situation. They talk past you and tell you what's going on not earlier than when you ask or when the information is crucially needed. That in this case it was when they were giving me the mic. What I didn't know was that the documentary was about the forest. And to be honest, I didn't have that much to say when they asked me to describe the trees. :)

Just a bit earlier than I had to leave to catch my bus back home, an Indian couple arrived to the temple. We were having tea and when it came up that I'm going to Seoul they called their driver who luckily hadn't left. So I got a ride back home! :) People were joking that I had done a lot of good meditating since the karma seemed to like me.

The driver was cute :) At one point he received a text message to his phone and made a call to someone. After the phone call he seemed really happy and explained me that the day earlier they had fought with his wife saying bad words to each other. The wife the next day then sent an sms saying "I'm sorry" and the driver called her and they made up. He said that he defied the law (you're not allowed to speak in the phone without hands free, which the driver didn't have, during driving) just to speak to her. And he was very happy that they made up! There was like happiness everywhere. We stopped for a brake and had Indian tea.

It was really interesting to drive to Seoul in a car. I at least pay much more attention to the surroundings in a car than in a bus. So anyway I was kinda, not emotional, but still someting like that when I saw the city borders because at the same time I was reading an article about urbanization to our "Understanding Korean Society" class.

At first, before the actual city, there were industrial towns. Huge amounts of factories, warehouses and other buildings, and next to them tall apartment buildings. I felt so bad for the people living there. In those towns there is nothing else for those people but to spend their lives working in those factories producing crap for some conglomerats hoping to get better future for their children.

The city started pretty much like a wall with long rows and big clusters of tall apartment buildings. And the amount of those buildings is just crazy. I don't know weather it's a five of six digit number, but there are a lot of those buildings that all look the same. And they feel so cold, unwelcoming and impersonal, because on every apartment building there is painted a company name and a number. It was partially because of this 'efficient' city planning that Korea was able to create such rapid economic development, but it had a lot of costs.

When we drove into the city, for the first time I realised how far-in we live. My everyday territory isn't that big and for some reason I had gotten the feeling that looking to the north from Naksan-hill the city ends where you can't see it anymore. But noo, it goes on for quite a while.

Ahh I'm just blabbing... A-ny-way, I had sharpened my senses in the temple and gotten very touched by the cruel seeming urbanization, and I felt a huge difference between the peaceful templestay and the noisy crowded city. All the fast-driving cars, smell of exhaust, cheesy radio hits, shouting salespeople, drunken businesspeople and the big city around me felt pressing and superficial. I realized how easy it is to get numb for everything around you and need more exciting stuff all the time.

I don't want to forget myself at a world I'm used to. It's always good to take a little distance, question and re-evaluate your issues and values. The templestay was great. Thank you Jina and volunteers!