The next morning, Anna and I woke up nice and early to tackle a full day's itinerary: Beomeosa (Temple of the Nirvana Fish (I youtubed 'nirvana fish' with high hopes and got nothing. Smells like potential viral video spirit to me)), hiking up Geumjeongsan, Haeundae Beach and I'd also promised to make a proper ramen dinner with some traditional Korean rice wine (Makgeolli). Unfortunately, I had run out of clean clothes by that point so I was left wearing my one dress that I bought in Japan. A bit impractical for the 7 kilometer hike awaiting us at Geumjeongsan.
We took a very windy bus up Geumjeongsan to get to the entrance of Beomeosa and it was absolutely gorgeous. The difference between Korean and Japanese Buddhist Temples are pretty striking. While Japanese Temples are very serene and stoic, the Korean Temples are very colorful and vibrant. Koreans also have this funny mountain fetish, but here, I'll let photos do most of the talking in this entry.
traditional Korean garb
fun fact: according to Korean folklore, all the world rests on the back of a turtle
since Anna is super awesome and an aspiring environmental defense worker, she knew a
ton about agriculture and explained to me that these red berries were actually wild strawberries!
ton about agriculture and explained to me that these red berries were actually wild strawberries!
The Temple complex is pretty massive, so after doing a full circle, I started to get hungry. As soon as I opened my mouth to mention it, a woman came up to us and ushered us into a large building making the universal utensil-scooping-food-into-mouth gesture. And this is how we learned that all big temples have a cafeteria that serve anyone free food! Boy, do I love Korea.
They handed us a big metal tray and from then on it was buffet style rice, kimchi beansprouts and beansprout soup. All vegetarian, in Buddhist tradition. It's very rude to leave food on your plate so we polished ours off. In the midst of this feast, we were approached by a middle aged Korean man who was as curious as he was eager to teach us all about Korean culture. He had studied English in Canada and was absolutely delightful. I mean, a real, genuine joy. Walking us to the start of our hike, he looked at my dress and said, "You know, it's a pretty difficult hike."
But we made it to the very top!
North Gate
After taking the long way back down and taking a bus to the subway station, we started heading to Haeundae Beach.
Heading back to the hostel, we picked up some groceries. We grabbed packages of ramen, bean sprouts, makgeolli and quail eggs. Quail eggs? They were cheaper than normal ones! The problem was that we ended up getting two dozen of them, meaning that we'd be having quail eggs for breakfast the next morning as well. We finished our meal, drank our rice wine and hung out in the common room watching the world cup game with a few French guys who gave us the dirty low down on world cup politics. "French football is played by a bunch of fourteen year old girls."