Unmunsa Temple Trip

Wow!!! Braxton and I just had an amazing tour. We went to Unmunsa Temple. When we got there, from the picture that we saw we thought... Leisurely hike! Nope!!!! 40 minutes of straight up stairs and rocks. Wow are we sore. At the top there is a beautiful area where quite a few people are praying and chanting about Buda (The only part in the songs that we can understand). The songs are beautiful and so are the buildings. We then entered an area where it is the lunch room for the hikers that the monks have prepared. Not too bad of food. The monks are vegetarian and respect nature and so the entire meal was prepared from foods grown there. We had a water type kimchi (Still yuck in my book)bean sprouts, bean paste rice cake (not so great), rice, spicy green salad made from celery leaves lettuce and other greens. And a soup not too bad. Braxton just filled up on the rice. We were told that the monks will look down on you if you don't finish everything that you put on your plate. So we all tried to help everyone eat what we could eat without too much problem. Mine was the rice cake, because they almost tasted like nothing. A friend of mine took my kimchi and almost everyone else's kimchi. And after the long hike, surprisingly we weren't still hungry. Then we headed back down the hill and drove over to a women's monk training area. I don't know if there are women monks, or if they call them something else, but the women had their heads shaved just as the men do. We were allowed to take pictures inside the temple and get an up close view. Wow, it is amazing. Still not the same peaceful feeling that I have inside my own church by far, but amazing to think of how long it took to paint the building and how beautifully done they were. Unmunsa Temple was built by Sinseung in the 21st year of King Jinheung (560) of Silla, and was reconstructed by Wogwang, who was a famous writer of Sesokogye, (the Five Commandments for the Common People) in 30th year of King Jinpyeong (608). There was a 500 year old tree that looked great! We saw prayer rocks everywhere where each person wanting to ask a prayer to Buda will stack their rock on top of another person's rock. The day was very cold and my feet never fully dethawed until I got home and in warm socks and had some hot chocolate. But gorgeous! If it looked that great in the winter I can only imagine what it looks like in the spring. Stay tuned next week we have another adventure planned...