Templestay

My Templestay experience

I chose to stay at Gulgulsa Temple, a temple near Gyeongju which is kind of near Busan. The temple is also the headquarter of Sunmudo, a traditional korean martial art, that was one of the reasons why I chose this temple. First my plan was to stay only for two nights, but I really loved it and I wanted to come back, so I decided to come back after going to Jeju island, because that was already booked.

Arriving at the temple you are welcomed by statues of the grandmaster practising sunmudo.

The first building you saw is where we had tea ceremony every morning.

The entrance gate

When I was there the first time I was lucky to catch the nature in autumn colours, the secong time the leaves were already gone.

The bell which woke you up at 4am in the morning :)

The templestay office and where I had my room

The dining hall

The sunmudo school, whee we trained twice everyday

A 15 minutes walk up the hill you reached the temple where the morning chanting took place

A buddha statue was carved in that stone thousands of years ago and it has a magnificent view!

I took a little stroll up the forest and went through beautiful surroundings and nature

Morning chanting at 4.30am

We made a small exursion to the sea nearby with the monk we had tea ceremony with, it was really peaceful and relaxed, with a beautiful scenery.

Us with "flying horse"

When I returned from Jeju island to go to the temple again I stayed one night in Gyeongju to see the city. I visited the Anapji pond, really stunning, especially at night.

Here you can see again koreans faible for beautiful, shiny and romantic things, they put a light which changes colours under a waterfall and like you saw before, in the water, quite funny I think, but "scho easy kitschig" :D

Back in the temple I continued practising and enjoying my time including meditation, archery, community work, soccer and lots more :)

Oh it's quite possible that I'm doing the movements wrong in this picture, I'm a complete beginner in this martial art!

I met amazing people there and it was always great fun!

Another part which was really fascinating me were the demonstrations you could see everyday, where the masters where showing the spirit of Sunmudo.

There was also a performance of traditional korean dancers on weekends.

It was difficult to take nice pictures, firstly because they were sometimes moving really quickly and also because I was to busy looking at the demostration to take good pictures ;)

On my last day, a sunday we had the chance to make a excursion to another temple near ours called Girimsa, the weather wasn't perfect but, it created a magical athmosphere.

We also visited a kings tomb in the sea, where he was supposed to turn into a dragon an continue protecting his couontry from the evil, what a beautiful vision!

Thank you for reading and I can only recommend you doing a templestay, for me it was an amazing and really impressive experience and I want to go back as soon as possible!

Lots of love, palms together!

Valerie