The temple

Last days of workshops are always unpredictable, everyone is tired, it is never certain that whoever is running the workshop will keep things moving and will finish on time, some people always leave early especially in these settings where people are flying back home in all directions. But my last session was in the morning, so that is all I was concentrating on.  Once that was finished I could just listen and tidy up my notes and drink KoreanTea. Luckily there were no marshmallow cookies provided on the last day. Best of all we finished early. There is a very lovely Buddhist temple in the foothills in Changwon that I had visited on my last trip here, only about 20 minutes by car from our hotel. Our Host Mr Suh was going to take me there the next morning but as we had time in the afternoon he suggested fitting it in. We quickly found a few others to join us, Aziza from Oman, mikoki from Japan and Nico from Indonesia along with three young Koreans and off we went.

This was a supurb treat. 

The temple is called Seongjusa Temple and the site itself has been a temple for some 2000 years!!! But I think the oldest building there now is about 150 years old as the older ones were destroyed in one war or another. The buildings have very ornate roofs which you will see in the pictures. They have recently built a small shop near the entrance with a traditional roof design. There are only a small number of tradesman who have the skills required for these rooves and they require a lot of materials also, so Mr Suh told me that the roof alone for the new shop cost $200.000US.

as we parked near the shop there was a bus with a sign that said Japanese Soccer Team and as we were approaching the shop the team was making its way down the hill. Aziza who is crazy for photo opportunities organised a photo with the young team members who were mystified but willing. 

When you enter the temple grounds there is a small pond full of Lotus plants, a natural spring with cups so you can have a drink and then many rocks covered with small rock temples and small statues that people have left there as tributes to their family. These are just scattered around on all of the surfaces. When you walk up the hill there is a main courtyard with a range of buildings all around and the tree covered hillside behind, so very beautiful, filled with nature sounds and very restful. 

Some of the buildings are temples and these have three doors, one in front that is only for the Buddha and the two side ones that are for visitors. Yes you leave your shoes outside but once inside although the atmosphere does what all churches do, you can talk, sit lay down and most importantly take pictures.  Other buildings include classrooms, a restaurant for visitors and some living spaces as I think there are some resident monks or nuns.

The interiors of the temples are really colourful And intricately painted and there are many small shrines around the room with the large Buddha facing the front door. 

You can pay to have a roof tile painted with the names of your family or a prayer and these are then used to replace tiles on the roof of the buildings. This somehow seems a bit nicer than the family name on the brick but I guess it is for a different purpose. There is one picture in this collection which is just the Koreans, Mr Suh, his helper Seong Bo and two young Korean boys who were just helpers during the week. They have rushed around after us all week so I hope they have a nice weekend and a light workload next week.