This weekend Fulbright took us on a beautiful retreat to Songnisan where there is a Buddhist temple and the world's largest bronze Buddha. We arrived on Friday just in time for a traditional Korean meal, where we all sat cross-legged on the floor and shared over 30 small dishes of Korean food in groups of four. That evening we visited the temple for evening prayer where the monks used four different types of gongs and drums to call to living beings in heaven, hell, earth and water. Friday morning at 2:30 am I woke up with three other friends and we attended the 3 am buddhist prayer ceremony which was amazing. Afterwards, we set off to hike the highest peak in the area, about an hour before dawn, with headlamps of course. We hiked for five hours and returned just in time to have an American breakfast at our hotel, complete with eggs, french toast, french fries, ketchup and anything else that you might consider "American." The Fulbright director, Mrs. Shim is very maternal towards all of us and she likes to treat us as if it is always our birthday. (During a lecture on Buddhism Friday afternoon, she interrupted the visiting scholar to say that we needed to take a break and have a snack, which turned out to be Twizzlers, Keebler Elf chocolate cookies, cheese and crackers, all of which are very hard to find in Korea.) We stayed in a very nice hotel and slept Korean style on yos, I have included a picture of our room above. It was a very relaxing weekend, which was much needed.
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