Field Trip Part 1: Yongmunsa Temple

We received many reminders to not be late for our field trip today. In the course of last week I got several emails, two text messages (one in English and one in Korean) and at least one facebook message all telling me not to be late. Last evening this friendly reminder was sent to us via email:

Since we didn't want to shed any tears we all diligently dragged ourselves out of bed before 8 in the morning so we could be there on time. Taking two private buses it took us around one hour and thirty minutes to arrive at our first designation of the day: Yongmunsa Temple. After taking a group picture with all the participating exchange students (around 70 people) and the international office staff we were free to wander around by ourselves...well, at least for an hour ;)

Entrance Gate to Yongmunsa Temple

One hour is quite short for exploring the temple because first you need to walk uphill for more than twenty minutes to get from the Entrance Gate to the main temple complex. You walk along a small riverbed which probably looks really idyllic in spring but today it looked a little bit desolate. I still liked it though because it created a solemn atmosphere which went well with the temple atmosphere in general.

The way up

You could still see some snow on the way up even though it was relatively warm today.
The first thing you can see when coming closer to the temple is a gigantic Ginkgo Tree. It is said to be more than 1,100 years old and it is supposed to be the largest tree in the East.

Gigantic Ginkgo Tree

Seeing all the temple buildings and especially the tree gave me a pleasant surprise! I've been here before! Nearly four years ago I participated in a temple stay program at Yongmunsa together with other exchange students from Ajou University. It didn't occur to me before that this was the same temple but the tree gave it away at first sight! We stayed at the temple for a weekend and you really live like a monk there when you are participating in a temple stay (including getting up at 4 in the morning to perform the 108 bows in one of the temple buildings). We went in late fall so we had to pick up the Ginkgo nuts which smelled really really bad!
Well, to come back to the temple, it is really beautiful and surrounded by mountains, I would love to go back there one day and hike around the area.

There is also a well where you can drink fresh mountain spring water. Just take a ladle and have some, it's really refreshing!

Mountain spring water

On the temple grounds you can find a lot of these small figures which take small coins and even candy as offerings.

Another common sight, not only on the temple grounds but also around it, are stones carefully piled upon each other. Sometimes they get quite high but some remain very small as well. As far as I remember correctly you can make a wish when you place a stone on top of these piles but you have to be really careful so the structure doesn't collapse.

Wishing stone piles

Random temple roof

Small shrine

Since our time was nearly up and we still had to walk back to the bus parking lot, Stephanie and me walked down the mountain again but of course we had enough time to take some pictures at a small suspension brigde, which was unbelievably wobbly!

And of course we also had time to take pictures with some kitsch-scenery and lifesize dolls close to the parking lot :)

Poor guy, you can't see that one of his hands fell off...

Pure romantic :)

After everyone arrived back at the bus we were off to the second part of the field trip: Borigoge Village.