Black Out Korea

I just realized I never posted this website. So everyone go to it now:

blackout korea


its amazing.

Temple Stay

First off, I'd like to apologize to all of my loyal blog viewers out there for not having many recent posts. I have been very busy the past few weeks on the weekends so I have not had much free time to upload photos and catch up on my blog.

Anyways, this past weekend Nate and I made our way out to the Geumsana Temple in Gimje, Jella-buk do, not that the location of it means anything to all of you on the other side of the world, but just in case you were wondering. The weekend started off pretty hectic. You see, I was suppose to be on a train to Seoul by 7:30 am in order to catch the bus by 9:00am. But unfortunately, my cell phone alarm decided to be stubborn and not go off so I woke up at 8:10 am rather than the planned 6:00 am. I panicked, packed my bag as fast as a could, and then hopped in the first cab I saw to seoul knowing I was about to drop like 40,000 won on the trip. However, the only cab that was available happened to be a VIP cab which means it cost double...so after a 2 hour long trip through traffic I arrived at the bus terminal at 10:05 am with 84,000 won less in my wallet. Quite the expensive cab ride considering the entire weekend at this temple only cost 89,000 won. But hey, I am not one to bail on planned trips last minute just because my cell phone alarm didn't go off.

I was obviously the last person to arrive and the entire trip really was pissed at me for having to wait for so long. But I could care less, I had just spent almost $100 dollars on a cab ride and I had at least made it onto the bus. So off we went to the temple on a bus ride that ended up being about 4 hours long. Upon arriving at the temple we quickly were given our sweet monk robes and our hosts showed us the Buddhist house that we would be sleeping on the floor in.

So we all went to a room and sat in the standard Buddhist position, as pictured above, and learned how to bow, walk, and basically do everything in the proper Buddhist way. We got really lucky with a monk who actually had a sense of humor and liked to joke around a lot. Apparently, that is really rare and most monks take their monk life too seriously and are super strict. So we started off by making some sweet lotus lanterns and then after doing a few different Buddhist exercises we made our way to what was the most quiet dinner i have ever been to. 

Eating in a temple is very interesting because they dont throw away one molecule of food. If you take more than you can eat...well...lets just say you stay in the dining hall until you finish it. Anyways, check out the cafeteria while we were eating...feel free to blast the sound on your computer...if you are lucky you might hear crickets outside. 

So we later had some question time with our Master Monk and then after having some tea and rice cake we made our way to bed around 10:00 pm. 5 hours later, I woke up earlier than I think I ever have in my entire life, 3:00 am. Apparently its the norm to wake up at absolutely ridiculous hours in order to bow 108 times in front of the Buddha statue. And these aren't just any normal bows...these are crazy Buddhist bows that seem more like some type of exercise routine. They aren't exactly what you want to be doing at 3:00am. Let's just say that monk life is not for me. Here is a video clip the 3:00 am bowing session...

After some morning meditation we made our way back to our sleeping quarters to have one of the most interesting breakfast experiences I have ever had. At breakfast we have four different bowls...

Bowl #1 holds rice

Bowl #2 has soup

Bowl #3 has side dishes

Bowl #4 has cleaning water

After eating every single morsel of food, they pour rice water into bowl #1...you then use a small slice of radish to scrape the sides of the rice bowl clean. After that you pour the rice water and radish into bowl #2 to clean it as well, then the same with bowl #3. After all 3 bowls are clean you need to drink the dirty cleaning water and eat the slice of radish that you used as a sponge...basically, you eat everything including the natural cleaning ingredients...As I mentioned before, monk life is very interesting and I don't think that it is the life for me. I don't think I could ever get used to having a breakfast such as that one every day of my life....oh, and by the way, they never eat meat.

Our last activity of the day was making Buddhist bead necklaces that had 108 special wooden beads. But of course, like all Buddhist activities, it wasn't simply just putting beads onto a necklace. You had to do one of the full out Buddhist bows each time you put one bead on the necklace. So after finishing 108 more bows I finally had a completed Buddhist bear necklace.

We had a few more activities we were suppose to do, but due to rainy conditions they cancelled them and we had some time to relax and check out the gift shop. We finally boarded the bus around noon on Sunday and then watched The Blind Side on the way home...great movie by the way!

Anyways...so am I happy that I did the temple stay? Absolutely. It is a once in a life time experience and I learned a lot about a lifestyle that I never really new existed. While some things seemed gross or unusual to me, it is something that I will remember forever. Will I ever do another temple stay? No, probably not. Lets just say it is one of those things you are happy to get off the bucket list and then never do again...anyways, until next time, Ahn Nyeong Gey Se-yo!! 

Oh and check out below...I was the monk water boy. And yeah, its a pretty serious job.

Badger Game in Seoul

So the weekend of the Wisconsin vs #1 Ohio State game I wanted to be no where else in the world but Madison. But unfortunately there was a bit of a lengthy travel needed for that so the closest I could get to Madison was a sports bar in Seoul. Due to the time difference, the Saturday night game really started at 9:00am in Korea, but the sports bar we went to started the delayed game at 1:00pm. I really came close to bailing on the trip down to Seoul because I was so tired and felt like sleeping in all day, but boy, am I glad that I made that trip.

Walking into the sports bar I immediately got chills down my back. Wisconsin football was on every single television in the bar and there must have been at least 20 people with Wisconsin gear on. It felt like I was back in my true one and only home...Madison, WI. It was really hard not to look up the score since the game had already finished by the time we started watching it but somehow I managed. It was also strange thinking that all of my friends at home (Shout out to Joelle, Watts, Cozzini, Hewitt, Gigl, Mirsky, Holway, Fahey,, Jacobus, and the rest of the crew) were already partying like crazy in the greatest college sports town in the nation. (Reference Scott Van Pelt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DchbLXhIt8M)

Anyways, so everyone knows what happened in the game so I don't need to go on about how incredible it was that we beat Ohio State. But being almost 10,000 miles away from Madison on such a momentous occasion in Badger history absolutely killed me. It was so depressing knowing that my college years are behind my and I wasn't able to storm the field with all of my friends back home.  Luckily, I had 20+ more badgers with me at the bar to celebrate the win with me halfway across the world. It is amazing how well badgers travel. The day was perfect. We had eggs benedict, hash browns, and bloody marys for breakfast...beer was only $2 a pint...and Wisconsin beat the #1 seed for the first time in decades. I couldn't have been happier that I made the trip. Check out some of the photos below.

All of us holding #1 up in the air after the game had just ended. So strange to think that as we realized we won the people in Madison had already been partying for four hours!

Keith of course dropped like 5,000 dollars on buying everyone drinks per his usual, and he was the hero of the day for making sure that everyone was as intoxicated as a badger should be. Thanks Keith, you are the man.