Kapsa Buddhist Temple & Mud Experience

Last weekend, most TaLK scholars ventured off to Seoul, but about 30 of us stayed in Jochiwon and participated in a couple of optional field trips organized by TaLK.

We traveled by Korea Tour bus for 1.5-2 hours to the Kapsa Buddhist Temple. (To be honest, I don't know if we drove north, south, east, or west.) The bus ride allowed us to see more of South Korea. I get the feeling that most of the land is undeveloped because all we see are green fields (for agriculture) and rolling hills covered in evergreen pine trees. One could say that the sights are very homogeneous and peaceful.

Korea Tour Bus

Rolling hills + Lots of GREEN

On the bus -- the lights up top fascinate me

In the boooonies

At the temple, we watched the locals pray and stood by for part of their ritual ceremony. Then we walked around the grounds and took heaps of pictures of the landscape and of the alters scattered around. We were instructed not to speak, so it was very quiet aside from the ceremony. The air was very fresh -- a little too fresh for a girl from LA.

Buddhist Meditation

Lotus Pond

A small group of us hiked up a rocky trail that led to a waterfall. The hike was tough for me because I wore my red flippy floppies. I was also wearing my swimmers under my summer dress (because they told us to bring swim wear), but a sign said not to swim in the waterfall ... we wouldn't have had time anyways   =|

For lunch, we ate vegetarian bibimbab with a vinegary seaweed soup. Then we made Buddhist prayer bead bracelets and did some print-making indoors. And that was about it for the Temple ....

A few of my new friends! <3
Andres, me, Zyna, Joe   :)

Bibimbab lunch yummmmy

Printmaking

I actually don't know what I am doing

Prayer Bead Power!

---------------------------------------------

On Monday, we took a 2.5-3 hour bus ride towards the western coast to participate in a 'mud experience.' We drove through a lot of no where and through a couple of towns. The entertainment on the bus was mostly Korean pop music videos; all of the songs sound the same to me  x.x The bus driver got lost, which is why it took half an hour longer to maneuver. But when we finally reached our destination, we were quickly loaded onto a huge wagon that was pulled by something that looked like a tractor. We rode to the mud flats, which were vast and expanded out to the horizon. The view made it look like the ocean, but I think that the sea was just beyond the mud flats. They instructed us to remove our shoes before stepping into the mud. In actuality, the 'mud' was more like sand, and once you dug into it with a small shovel, the dark sand underneath was more like clay. A few friends and I separated ourselves from the tour group and walked further out. We came across some locals digging furiously for clams. They were surrounded by many holes and caught loads of clams. We found about 15-20 clams and gave them to the family.

Rainbow lights whoaaaa

Overfull car on the highway

K-Pop all day e'rrrryday

The Shire?

Pumped to experience the mud!

Instructions ... Rule #1: Remove your shoes

Bus mates & new friends   :)

clams

fresh seaweed everywhere

Gorgeous landscape

We're diggin' the mud

dead crabs everywhere

Our first catch

If you can't tell, I had a blast

Zyna caught the grand-daddy of all clams! Woot!

Meanwhile, the rest of our group was rolling around in the mud and having mud fights. We showed up just in time to take the group picture, then headed indoors for lunch. A few women were in the kitchen and made us heaps of dishes that smelled so good. We were all starving and more than ready to dig in.

By 3pm, we were back on the bus and headed back to Jochiwon for another 2.5 hours. Fin!!