Whirlwinds...

Talk about a whirlwind of bizarre occurrences today! The most bizarre thing happened to us today--but I won't bore you with it until you first read about our temple visit.

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Struck out on an adventure to the 'high-rent' district of Seoul today. We returned to the COEX area which is known as the 'Wall Street' of Seoul. The World Trade Center is located in this district as are many of the headquarters for major Korean conglomerates such as Samsung, Hyundai and other well known brand names. As we walked around this part of the city we were in awe of the number of Mercedes and Lexus vehicles we saw driving around.

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We weren't visiting this area for shopping or investment purposes, but rather just to explore one of its 1,200 year old temples that's literally in the shadow of the World Trade Center:

Bongeunsa.

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Bongeunsa is located on the slope of Sudo mountain in Samsung-dong, South of Seoul. It's one of Korea's most traditional Buddhist temples.

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We're not of the Buddhist faith but it's still interesting to explore these temples. They're vibrant yet peaceful spots that often seem to be located smack dab in the middle of these major hustling and bustling sections of the city. It's so bizarre to one minute be caught up in the rush and hubbub of the city streets and the next minute to be quietly meditating in a small park surrounded by meticulous and lush gardens, gorgeous artwork and quiet!

As you enter the temple grounds, you are first greeted by Four Devas known as the Sacheonwang. They are considered the four heavenly kings who look over Buddhist lands and are situated on the four points of the compass rose. What's unique about these fellows in particular is that they have very gentle and friendly expressions on their faces; quite a contrast to the expressions that these fellows typically don at other temples around the region.

When we first entered the grounds we could sense the excitement of some looming celebration. There were colorful lanterns strewn about, ribbons, giant flower arrangements as far as your eye could see, neon light signs with Buddhist images just waiting for the sun to set so they can put on their amazing light displays. We weren't quite sure what was happening but it was definitely a change from what we'd seen on previous visits to temples in Korea.

Here's the belfry and drum tower on the grounds. It looked like it had been completely restored recently--fresh paint, new wood and gorgeous decorations all around. These structures are complete wood peg construction--no nails anywhere so it's always amazing to study their architecture. If anything these temples are simply works of arts unto themselves--the graphic art that decorate them is superb!

Here's a pagoda in one of the plazas. Notice the banner behind it? Apparently it's Buddha's 2550th birthday this year and the two month long celebration starts tonight! Talk about impeccable timing for us! Who knew? ;) We certainly had no clue!

One of the temples on the grounds here at Bongeunsa. There must have been at least a dozen of these structures scattered all around the 20+ acre grounds. What's interesting is the 'reverse' swastika symbol that is found on the temples. Nope, it doesn't represent more sinister things--it's rotating in the opposite direction of that one and is a common graphic element found on Buddhist temples around here.

Every so often we noticed these tiny stones that had been painted with these delicate lotus blossoms tucked amid the crevices of the boulders and landscaping about the hillside. Cute! We also noticed quite a few little Buddha statuettes and every so often these abalone shells that were about 5" across--in them were often Won coins I believe are offerings--that were tucked in these nooks and crannies, too.

rnrB's showing off the large courtyard that's currently covered with thousands of strawberry lanterns that I presume will be lit later on in the evening. Not sure what the strawberry represents (perhaps Spring?) in Buddhism. Each one seemed to have a prayer note attached to it. This picture really doesn't do the arrangement justice--this courtyard was gigantic and there were strawberry lanterns as far your eye could see!

One of the temples higher up on the slope. We really were on the grounds to attempt to rescue a GC that was on the verge of being archived. We got within 128' (yes, we broke down and secured a GPS again) of it but were prevented from actually securing it because they had erected bob-war :) around the walking paths in efforts to prevent the homeless from building fires in the woods at night and thus jeopardizing the ancient wooden temples on the grounds.

Here's a brilliant dragon we found cooped up in the belfry.

Loved the chrysanthemums! In fact, I used a graphic similar to this to create the stamp for our Chrysanthemum Letterbox here in Seoul.

rnrB demonstrating the harmonics of the drum in the drum tower. We tapped it a bit and it had this incredible sound to it--low yet powerful.

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So that was our tour of Bongeunsa Temple today. The most bizarre thing actually happened on our way home.

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We took the long way back to the metro--shunning the stop that originally took us to Bongeunsa in favor of a longer walk to the next metro stop we'd find just by heading north. The neat thing about Seoul and its metro system is that usually if you just start walking in any direction you'll eventually find another subway stop. So we set out to just go where the paths would take us. Eventually we found the next line over and wound our way via the subterranean habit-trail back toward the apartment. Instead of taking our usual station to head home we opted to return to Namdaemun Market. I was on a mission to find some really nice Korean postcards as I'm embarrassingly overdue in sending out postcards for our trip. I also am on a mission to find uniquely Korean chocolates for a certain turtle friend (not the green variety) and took the opportunity to sample the myriad bizarre flavors of chocolate that are found in Korea. We sampled our way through the Korean world of chocolate--sweet potato chocolate, Columbin chestnut chocolate, Chejudo tangerine chocolate, hot red pepper chocolate, ginseng chocolate with both milk and white chocolate, some even with ginseng rice crispies and finally kimchi chocolate. I'm embarrassed to admit this but after having known about kimchi chocolate for over a year now--I finally tasted it! OOOOOHHHHHH WEEEEEEE it's hot! It's interesting and something I'm sure I could get used to but oh so different than anything I'd ever tasted before. I did find that I really like the sweet potato and chestnut chocolate and the hot red pepper chocolate was good, too. The kimchi chocolate, however, was so overbearing that once we sampled it we'd 'burned' our tastebuds for the day and couldn't taste anything else besides the spicy blazin' hot kimchi flavor. Well, this gastronomical trip through the world of Korean chocolate wasn't the bizarre thing that happened to us. That happened as we departed the chocolate section of the market.

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We were wandering along the streets, bartering with the concessionaires (as usual) and studying all the new and unique things we seem to see at the markets. Today it was the way they displayed the octopus for sale at the fish stands. They folded the octopus in this tiny package of a gelatinous blob with tentacles exposed (looked sort of like a baseball with suction cups). I'd never seen that before. Then, we happened upon this (candy?) stand where this man was wrapping what I think was spun rice flour (it looked a bit like white cotton candy or even moreso like silk from silk cocoons) around little spoonfuls of what I think was a mix of brown and black sesame seeds with perhaps some sugar. We were mesmerized by the process of how he constructed these cocoon candies and were reminded of some similar candy we'd tasted like this in China last year. As we were watching this display, some elderly gentleman comes up and grabs my hand--and won't let go. He says something in Korean about cake house and insists that we follow him through the markets toward some cake house.

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So, the kids and I follow this man as we wander along. Occasionally, he stops at kiosks to ask about the prices of various items--and storms away insisting the vendors are asking way too much for their items. I'm sure he's convinced this area is a tourist trap--because it is! He stops at a kiosk where a lady is making these fried pancakes and purchases a couple of them for us. They turn out to be fried cakes with cinnamon, sugar and walnuts in the middle but the batter has some vegetables interspersed (peas, carrots, turnips)--it's an odd combination but it tasted really good. Then, the gentleman asks us if we like Korean food. When I answer him with a resounding yes he inquires about whether rnrB & trkr will eat Korean food too. Another resounding yes--which is probably something he's not terribly used to hearing from tourists (especially American children). So, he asks the kids what kinds of Korean foods they like and when he hears Mandoo (potstickers) he insists on taking us to a Chinese restaurant. Yes, a Chinese restaurant in Korea!

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So, we find ourselves in a tiny Chinese restaurant chowing down on Gogimandoo (Pork potstickers) and saeseongmandoo (fish potstickers) with jasmin tea. It's a great meal and the gentleman insists on footing the bill. How nice!

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Then we continue along the way and he's still searching for a cake house. We make our way past the Chinese Embassy and find ourselves in Myeongdong (a fashionable yet high rent shopping district in Seoul). He asks around and soon finds a 'cake house' which turns out to be a Paris Baguette french bakery along the strip across the street from Starbucks. He gives the kids individual trays with tongs and insist that they fill their trays with whatever they like. True children in a candy store!!! They each select a handful of orange donut holes, apple turnover, a chocolate croissant, these long sugar-dipped crunchy pastry twists. We get to the register and again he insists on paying! He yields a credit card (which I rarely, if ever, see Koreans use in this country--as cash seems to be the norm) and the lady says it must be over a certain amount in order to use the credit card. So, he insists I order something else--so green tea smoothie for me. Well, we spend the next hour or so just sitting at the bakery. The kids are making googly eyes with all the young Korean university students in the cafe and they are being showered with treats in return--candies, chewing gum, lollipops, you name it. The gentleman asks a few questions about us but nothing too probing. We ask questions of him and he just says he lives in Seoul but is soon headed on a 3-month trip to Europe and the US, that he has a brother in New York and children attending university in Oklahoma. It was an interesting outing--something I've never before experienced and yet sort of weird.

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I've heard of stories where Americans in Korea are 'hired' to help teach English to Korean citizens. Sometimes these arrangements aren't just to teach English in the typical student-teacher-desk arrangment but rather to play golf with folks for a few hours each week and to just talk. So, I was wondering if that was what this gentleman had in mind? It's not like he found a drop dead gorgeous woman and two extremely well-behaved children just walking along the streets (our little chaotic cabal is quite the opposite of that description!)--so his motives couldn't have been anything beyond just wanting to spend time with people. It was just an odd experience. As the evening wound to a close he insisted on meeting up with our family again--that was really weird, too--because it didn't seem like he was enjoying it all that much as he never changed his facial expression throughout the evening until the point when we took this photo.

But all in all it was a very nice gesture and something we know we truly didn't deserve. I think he might have spent about $50 on us this evening! A very nice memory from a whirlwind evening in Seoul.