Gakwonsa Temple

Today Ric and I visited our first ever Buddhist temple, the Gakwonsa Temple, on the outskirts of Cheonan.

The pond at the bottom of the mountain,
the temple is just visible in the mountains

Getting there was really easy, we took the 24 bus from outside Shinsegae in the center of town and got off at the end of the route. It only took 15minutes on the bus but once we off it felt as if we were hours away from the city. The temple is wonderfully enveloped by mountains so that the skyscrapers and traffic of Cheonan are completely hidden from sight. Instead all you can see are forests and  mountains. A short walk up a rather steep hill lead us to the temple.


The temple is spread over several beautifully decorated buildings, some are ornate shrines and prayer rooms, others were accommodation and study rooms for the monks.


Once we'd entered the main hall, removing our shoes as usual, and sat to take in the beautiful artwork, a monk came in dressed in robes. He began to chant and ring bells and the people around us started praying; they bowed, knelt, placed their heads on the floor and offer up the palms of their hands and then they stood and repeated the ritual over and over. It was very interesting, I've never seen anything like that before. The closest I've ever come to a Buddhist temple is the arch in China Town in Manchester. It was really exciting seeing something so completely new to me.

Me and Ric with our roof tile

The temple is still undergoing reconstruction and people had written messages of peace of the roof tiles that will be used. Me and Ric wrote our own little message and its cool to think that it will be put up in a temple in Korea and will stay there for possibly hundreds of years.

Amita-bul

Just above the temple buildings there is a 15m tall bronze statue of Amita-bul, the Budda of universal light. And then there are 203 steps to go down to get back to the road (I'm glad we chose to go down them and not up!)

At the bottom of the 203 steps

The main hall with the monk chanting

One of the shrines