Pippi Korean: Temple Stay at Jeondeungsa

Jeondeungsa Temple is located on Ganghwado Island, about 2 hours from Central Seoul and if the tales are true this temple might have the oldest history in all Korea. It hosted the Goryeo Royal family, protecting them from the Mongol invasion and up until 1910 the Jeondeungsa's senior monk held the highest position of all monks in the Joseon Dynasty.

I heard about Temple stay while watching KBS World one day, and I thought it sounded like a very interest experience. Many Temples around Korea offer temple stays, but this was the first time they tried it out in English.

It's a 2 days and 1 night stay, and the program includes morning and evening chanting, meditation, calligraphy, monastic formal meals, tea ceremony and a short hike in the hills surrounding the temple.

They ask you to be at the Temple at 3pm, and even though I started out my journey at 12pm I wasn't able to get there before 5pm!

I started out getting myself to the wrong metro station (it said shincheon in the directions I had received) but there are two stations on the same line; shincheon and shinchon and apparently the way of writing out Korean signs into our alphabet was wrongly used so I ended up on the South East side of Seoul instead of North West (about 1 hour apart).

With great help from some young Seoulers and their very smart Samsung phones (I can't get 3G for my iPhone) they helped me realize I was at the wrong Shincheon.

Finally arrived at the right one, it was time to find the bus stop... it took me 1 hour, although the bus stop was located 200m from the Metro Station (they had managed to hide in a way that I just kept walking passed it). This time I received a tip from a pretty girl who spoke a tiny bit of English, she told me to call 02 120 and have them help me out.

I thought this was only public transportations information centre but later on I've figured out that this is a general information phone service provided in several foreign languages (they speak close to perfect English) and you can ask them for ANY information what so ever!^^ Ever in Seoul, keep that number in mind, you'll definitely find it useful.

Back to the temple stay, once on the bus (it was now about 3pm, this bus only departures once every hour), I couldn't quite figure out when I had the get off, I knew it would take me about 2 hours (thanks to the information center^^) but I just never had the time to read out the names of the bus stops we were passing by so I ended up asking an old little lady next to me where we were, in a very basic Korean (and not very grammatically correct). She was more than helpful, and I ended up talking to her and another older man for the rest of the trip in a great mix of Korean, English and Japanese.^^

I managed to arrive just in time to get changed and run over to dinner. After bell ringing, evening chanting and meditation we all went to bed and the lights were out at 9pm.

We were accommodated in traditional Korean houses, sleeping on the floor, and at 4am the morning bell woke us up, time for morning chanting followed by more meditation and calligraphy before breakfast.

Breakfast was served in the formal monastical way which takes about 1 hour to finish a meal (and way longer if you chant all the ceremonial sutras that should go along with this meal). The main idea with this meal is to avoid wasting both food and water, therefore you are obliged to finish up everything you served yourself. The meal is taken in silence and no words should be exchanged, you should also be careful not to make too much noise.

Water, rice, side dishes and soup are never mixed but put into different bowls, and once you've finished eating, you use your water and a pickled piece of radish to wash your different bowls finishing by drinking the water used to wash with.

Only once are you allowed to throw this water, and that's the last time you wash your bowls, this time you use your right hand, and you can through out all clear water (no particles are allowed to be thrown out, you need to drink these up). This way of eating is very complex and completely takes away the joy of eating!^^

After breakfast, we hiked up the hills surrounding the temple, the air was still full of morning fog which gave a beautiful and mystic feeling to the place. Once back at the temple the first visitors had arrived at the temple. We finished off the stay with a tea ceremony where we were allowed to ask questions to the monks and after lunch we all headed back to Seoul.

Korean custom is to take off the shoes when you enter someones house. In old traditional houses the shoes should be taken off before stepping onto the wooded part in front of the door.