taking a day off

 one part of the contract i have with my school says that i have three sick days to take during the year...it also says that if i want to, i can take those sick days as personal days on fridays if i clear it ahead of time...since the end of my contract is right around the corner, i wanted to use my last friday as a personal day...fridays at my school are special days, meaning we don't have normal class...it's always a birthday party (1x a month,) a field trip (2x a month,) or theme day (usually the last friday of the month)...this friday was a field trip, so i wasn't missing anything at all...(since i don't have a specific class of kids - i teach all the kids in the school - there isn't a group that has to be covered if i'm gone)...
i woke up to a beautiful sunny day...blue skies (above the smog that is)...chilly, but pretty much my idea of perfect...after spending way too much time online, i ventured out...first to pay bills (i love the way i can pay bills through a machine in my bank) and then to get cash...then on to the subway...i'd figured out one temple and two tombs i wanted to see...
45 minutes later, i was off the subway, and found what i thought was the right bus stop...according to the map in the subway, i needed this specific exit to catch the bus that would take me closest to the temple...the papers i had printed from the web said i needed a different bus stop, but those papers had been wrong at other times, so i wasn't very trusting...anywho, i hopped on the right bus, only to get the feeling that it wasn't going in the right direction...because i tend to get freaked out about those things, i got off, and backtracked a ways...luckily, the paper for this particular temple had a small map showing me where i needed to go...straight down a street that is called hwagyesa-ro...which means hwagye temple street...how convenient!! i did see the bus as i walked, but i wasn't able to tell where it was coming from...i also saw it on the other side of the street...i never did figure out if i should've stayed on the bus or not...either way, it wouldn't have taken me all the way to the temple, though i would've been able to get off at the right stop, as i knew the name in english and korean...since the weather was fantastic, i didn't mind the walk...and i like walking, so that made it even better...i walked past lots of little restaurants where i could get food if i got hungry, and made note of those...(i like to eat; me figuring out places to get food should come as no secret)...

 eventually i came to a gate...once you've seen one of these temple gates in korea, you've seen them all...koreans would probably say differently, but to me, they all look the same...and i've seen plenty...i like going to see temples, even if they do look the same...hee hee...right around the temple gate a lot of construction is going on...a new set of apartments, fixing up other stuff, etc...it wasn't a quiet area...pretty soon i came to the turtle looking thing at the top of this entry...i think they mark a particular person? again, i've seen tons of them, and they all look the same, though presumably if i could read the chinese characters, i wouldn't think so...

 just after the turtle marker, there was a trail, with a small map indicating what i could see along the trail...it showed another temple...woo hoo...i decided to go see the temple i'd come for, and consider the other temple on the way back...in korea, maps are always faced in the direction in which you are looking...for me, this is fantastic, but for most people who assume north is at the top of the map, it's confusing...anywho, i continued along the road, and got to the rest of the temple area...a huge building, in which the templestay program looked like it takes place, and a bunch of other smaller buildings...none of them looked particularly open, and everything was in korean...not an english word to be found...which i kinda liked...(again with the "this is korea, there should be lots of korean here" thinking)...i could hear chanting coming from one building, but i didn't see any open doors, and didn't want to interrupt anything...i figured monks/nuns were in there meditating and/or chanting...it was nice to listen to, especially because i was the only person i could see outside...after seeing a couple signs, i could tell that the chanting was coming from the main temple hall...

hwagyesa temple belongs to the jogye order of korean buddhism...(i don't know what, if there are any, other orders of korean buddhism are called)...the description on the web site i use to find things/places to see in seoul says the temple is in the city of seoul, but that it doesn't feel like it's in a city because the surrounding area is so quiet and peaceful...the temple is at the base of a mountain, and all around there is a lot of nature...it actually feels like a functioning temple, unlike some of the really touristy temples...the temple was built in 1522, in the 17th year of the reign of king jungjong in the joseon dynasty...then it was destroyed by fire in 1618...almost 300 years later, funds were raised and the temple rebuilt in 1866...according to the site there is a small spring somewhere in the temple grounds, but i never did find it...

in front of the building on the far left you can see two of the korean version of a "wishing well"...you can find them in pretty much every korean temple complex, but i liked these because the papers are tied in a bow, which is different from anything i've seen previously...usually i see cards with stuff written on them...i was tempted to unroll one of these bows, but that's obviously wrong...lol...i also wanted to write a wish of my own, but didn't see any paper or pencils anywhere in order to do so...i wonder how long the papers remain on the wishing well, and if there is a monk/nun who is specifically tasked to take care of the wishing wells...i suppose pretty much every area of the temple is taken care of by someone who lives there...

one aspect of this temple that i really liked was the feeling that it's a real temple, that monks/nuns live here, and that it's not just to be seen by tourists...i could see a building in which i presume they live...i wonder what their individual living quarters are like...off to the side of the living quarters was this area for kimchi pots...were they actually full of kimchi? i don't know...traditionally kimchi is put together, put in these pots, and buried underground for a length of time...howeva, most of the time these days people make the kimchi so that it's ready to eat as soon as it's done...

obviously these pots aren't underground, but it's nice to think that the monks and nuns are still living the more traditional way of life...i could see a couple areas where things were planted as well...i loved the simplicity of it all...i wonder who takes care of all the food for the monks/nuns...do they eat together? what time do they eat each day? how do they know when it's time to do various things in temple life? is a bell rung? do they wear watches? what time do they get up each morning? what time do they go to bed? i remember my schedule from my meditation retreat, but that was in thailand, geared specifically for foreigners...is a typical temple day at all similar here?

notice the small bell...is it ever rung? these three items were next to what i assume are the living quarters of those residing at the temple...is it only monks and nuns who live at a temple? or are there secular folks as well? does anyone ever pay attention to this little buddha? he's only a foot tall, give or take...(that's 30cm for anyone who is not american)...i didn't walk around this entire building, so i don't know if there were similar things on the other side of it...this building definitely looked like a home...

the size of the templestay building was at least twice the size of any of the other buildings in the complex...i could see what i thought was an office, or welcome room for anyone who does a templestay, but i don't know what else was in there...just outside the temple complex was this set of gravestones...i don't think real people are buried underneath this spot (it's cement) but i could be totally wrong...i didn't see any signs that could tell me who is here, or why they get special markers...and why are some of the markers smaller than others? i know i ask a lot of questions, but these sorts of things are never explained, not even at the more touristy temples...just outside the main temple complex area was a huge international zen center...it looked like a building in which a big group of people could stay for a while...like a college dormitory, something along those lines...these smaller markers were along the street, just behind the zen center...

as i kept walking back toward the original temple gate, i saw these big markers...again, there were no signs to tell me what i was looking at, and it wasn't easy to get close to them...obviously, they're bigger, and with the way asian (and let's face it, western) society often works, that means someone, or some idea that's more important...these look more like memorials to me, rather than grave markers, but i don't know if that's true...somehow, i don't think anyone is ever going to write up a sign in korean or english (or any other language, for that matter) that says what all these markers are for, specifically...my guess is that koreans already know...maybe they learn in school, or maybe there is temple literature somewhere that says who is buried where, and why they get big markers, or any markers at all...i don't even know who i would ask to find out, even if i did speak korean...after looking around and just enjoying the peacefullness of the whole area, i walked back to the subway station...walking back was a whole lot faster, or at least it seemed that way!! i suppose i could've tried a bus, but i was really enjoying the weather, though most people think i'm crazy for liking to walk as much as i do...

from that subway station i went to another subway, and caught another bus...back in november i interviewed with a private elementary school in this part of seoul, so the bus i caught, and the stop at which i was supposed to get off were familiar...yay!! because i knew where i wanted to get off, i was only listening to the announcements, not trying to read the names on each stop we passed...as it turned out, the bus driver was playing each announcement slightly late...i stood up immediately after he played the announcement for the stop i wanted, but that was after we'd passed the stop on the road already...anywho...

the bus driver asked me which stop i wanted, and i told him...he realized i'd stood up at the proper time, but we'd already passed the stop, so he pulled the bus over straightaway and let me out in between stops...i walked back to the proper stop, and found the entrance to the tombs i wanted to see...again with the joseon dynasty tombs:)...and just like temples, they all look the same, but i love them anywho...this one was called taereung...again with the questions: how did they come up with the names of the tombs? and when the tomb names change later, why? the signs always say what the tomb is called, but it doesn't say (in english anywho) if the name translates to anything in english...korean names often mean something, which wouldn't be obvious to a non-korean speaker...like other tombs i've seen in seoul, there was a big stone information board that designated this tomb as a UNESCO world heritage sight...

taereung is the tomb of queen munjeong...a very politically ambitious queen...she was the second lawful wife of king jungjong...as far as korean royalty goes, she lived for quite a while, being over 60 when she died...(1501-1565)...
just her luck, the king had had an heir with his first wife...howeva, the queen didn't let that sort of thing get in her way...with the king, she had 5 kids, 1 son and 4 daughters...she killed the first heir (had him killed, i guess) so that her son would be the next king...so king myeongjong ascended the throne at age 12...since he was obviously too young to rule, she acted as regent and did it for him...as the web site says, she ruled from behind the veil...it isn't the first time in history that such a thing has happened, but i think in western cultures there was an official title for the person who ruled behind the child monarch...she made her younger brother part of the administration, basically in name only...while she was in charge, she got rid of a lot of political adversaries, many of whom were scholars...a different web site says something about her wanting to rehabilitate buddhism, i don't know what that means...while she was in charge she wanted to move the tomb of her king, and she wanted to be buried next to him when she died...but this didn't happen...according to the 2nd web page, her son posthumously granted her the name munjeong, so i have no idea what she was called while she was alive...why would he change her name after she died? it's not as if he was granting her a new title, if that makes any sense...

i liked this tomb because i could actually see the tomb itself from the bottom of the hill...(remember an earlier post when i said all these tombs are on top of man made hills?)...i still wanted to get closer, for a better photo, so i walked up the side of the hill, and tried to walk across the hill, just in front of the tomb...but i set off the motion detector siren!! whoops...apparently the CCTV cameras that you see on tall poles at the back of every tomb complex aren't all just for show:)...hee hee...obviously, i didn't get the photo i wanted...i knew i was the only one at the tomb right then, but i didn't know if an alarm bell was going off in an office somewhere...there was a blinking red light as well...after i got back over to the side of the hill, the siren stopped wailing...i dont know if it was really that loud, but it sure seemed that way to me!! i was ridiculously nervous as i walked out of the front gate of the tomb complex, i was terrified i'd get in official trouble...but i didn't...

on the map at the entrance, i could see that there were two tombs...the other one was called gangneung,   and is the tomb of king myeongjong and queen insun...it's a double tomb...to get to gangneung from taereung, i had to go back out on the street, and walk quite a ways...when i got to the entrance gate of gangneung, it was closed...argh argh argh...oh well...i walked to the nearest bus stop, (near the entrance gate of sahmyook university) and started making my way back home...

seoul sisters

i can't believe i haven't posted this yet:

myogaksa (묘각사)

on the last day of my lunar new year holiday, i decided i should get out and see something else in seoul...with my time here winding down really fast, i know there are a lot of things i haven't seen that i should've seen during my time here...myogaksa is one of the temples in seoul that has a templestay programme, and though i wasn't interested in that at the time, it's definitely a possibility in the future...

myogaksa is on the side of a hill in north central seoul, so when you get there you can look out over a fair amount of the city...go figure, the day i went, the weather was hazy/overcast...due to the holiday and small size of the temple complex there weren't many people there, so i really enjoyed the solitude...there are staircases all over the complex that lead to it's different parts, including this large buddha, a bell, and more...

soon after i came in the entrance door of the temple a nun approached and asked why i was there...i think she wanted do know if i was there for a temple stay, and if so, she would've directed me to the right place...but since i was just curious and wanted to look around...as she saw me a few minutes later having climbed up a couple sets of stairs, she told me the temple is 500 years old...at least, i think that's what she meant...or maybe she meant the huge buddha that was carved into the stone side of the mountain...anywho, i really appreciated the friendliness, yet aloofness...

in between this set of candles and another set of candles was a deep tray full of burned incense...it smelled lovely, and the aesthetic appeal was lovely...aesthetic appeal is one reason i continue to try to find temples to go visit, even though most people would say that most temples in korea are all the same...to some degree i find this to be true, but i love the peacefullness of each temple, particularly the least touristy temples...

i ended up spending a good 30 minutes meditating with the monks on the second floor of this temple, as they chanted and banged on the noisemaker...in korea a different sect of buddhism is most predominant (as opposed to the rest of the world which mostly sticks to two majour divisions (mahayana and theravada) so i don't know if the chanting was in pali, the language of the buddha or not...but i think so...

in front of each of these small buddha statues was a card on which was written a name...i'm assuming these were contributors, or wishmakers, or something along those lines...

haengjusanseong (행주산성) and seooreung (서오릉)

lunar new year, known as seolnal in korea, is a holiday celebrated all over asia...in china it's easily the most important holiday of the year, and lasts a couple weeks...in korea, it's only 3 days...the dates of the holiday are based on the lunar calendar, which means the dates themselves vary quite a bit from year to year...this year the days of the holiday fell on a wednesday/thursday/friday, which is awesome...add the weekend, and it becomes a five day holiday...(obviously, the worst is when the three days fall on a weekend)...this is one of korea's two most important holidays, and the whole country takes time off work...i didn't make any travel plans at all, not even in korea...it did seem a good idea to see something though...

general kwon yul

  i started out by traveling across the city to ilsan, which is technically another city to meet up with a buddy for the day...we hopped on a bus to haengjusanseong, a former fortress, northwest of the city...the fortress was the site of a pretty big battle during the japanese invasion of korea in 1595 (the japanese have invaded korea several times throughout history, this particular time the invasion started in 1592)...when the battle took place, the japanese had already captured seoul...

there isn't much left of this fortress...you can see the earthen "walls" but right now most everything is mud...this set of stairs leads down (where i was standing when i took the photo) to a resting place, (the photo above)...the fortress was built at the top of the hill, one side is along the river which made for a nice natural defensive position...according to the history, the fortress is presumed to have first been built during the baekje kingdom, but "renovations" were made later, of course...

when general kwon led his small army (2300 soldiers) to this fort, his intent was to recapture seoul from the japanese...they (the japanese) hadn't captured this hill yet, 9 attempts were made, from three different directions...over 30,000 japanese were involved in this battle, which makes the korean "victory" pretty impressive...(of course, i can't help but wonder if those numbers are accurate)...more than a third of the japanese soldiers were killed, including their general and two of his lieutenants...

after the battle, the general was promoted to commander in chief...of what, i'm not exactly sure, since the japanese were pretty much in charge of the country at that point...at the time, a memorial was built for the battle at the top of the hill, and a temple to enshrine the tablet of the general...according to the history i've seen, both the temple and the memorial were destroyed during (what americans call) the korean war...the monument was rebuilt during the 1960s...

according to the history i've read, this battle was one of the three most important of the entire invasion...(1592-1598)...i don't know what the other two important battles were, i suppose i should find out...the fortress is supposed to have gotten its current name during the joseon dynasty...apparently the women of the time cut their long skirts in half and wore them like aprons...they used the shortened skirts to collect stones that the soldiers then used to fight during the battle...

this temple/shrine was also rebuilt after the korean war...cory says it's one of his favourite places, partly because not very many people come here...since it was a holiday on the day we went, i have no idea how popular the place normally is among koreans...the grass all around this temple had clearly been shoveled to remove the snow, who knows why...yes, shoveled...who shovels snow off grass?

just outside the entrance area to the fortress is this monument...it's from the korean war, and represents one of the crossings of the river by the american and south korean marines...i'm presuming there was more than one crossing during the course of the war...the monument is two triangles stuck together, according to the sign that's supposed to represent the marines of each country working together...

from haengjusanseong, we took the bus back into ilsan, grabbed lunch, then got on another bus to seooreung...it's a UNESCO world heritage sight (note to self, look up that list and see how many places/sights i've seen, how many are on the list)...it's a complex of tombs from the joseon dynasty...since i love seeing history, cory made the whole day history for me...seooreung means five western tombs...

sugyeongwon

there are a number of different tombs in the complex...the tombs themselves are the round mounds of earth you can see in the middle of the picture above...that tomb is of lady yi, the concubine to yeongjo, the 21st monarch of the joseon dynasty...she gave birth to crown prince sado in 1735, and died in 1764, at the age of 68...since he was the son of a concubine, and crown prince, i'm assuming that the queen of the time didn't have any sons? this tomb was originally in another part of the city, but later moved here...so i don't think the title of this tomb is included in the 5 mentioned in the tomb complex name itself...

for the most part, these tombs are on top of man made hills, which meant that most of the time i didn't have an easy view of the tomb...apparently people go over the fences from time to time to get close to the tombs, something i didn't have the courage to do straightaway...(there is something in me that stops me from going past clearly defined boundaries)...the first tomb wasn't on much of a hill so it was easy to get that photo...

ingneung

all the tombs have these entrance "gates" followed by the temple-ish looking building...this building was empty, so i'm not sure what it's supposed to be...perhaps a place where folks back then could pay respects? usually on the right of that building, at the bottom right of the hill is a little shelter over the tablet of whoeva is buried there...since the korean alphabet (hangeul) hadn't been invented yet, of course the characters on these tablets are chinese characters...(the tablets are bigger than i am)...

ingneung is the tomb of queen ingyeong, the first queen of king sukjong, the 19th monarch of the joseon dynasty...she became crown princess in 1671 (when she was only 10 years old!!) and queen in 1674, when sukjong ascended the throne...she died 6 years later, at the ripe old age of 19, in one of the palaces in the city...the information boards at each tomb didn't say why/how any of these folks died...the history online does though, at least occasionally...the online history i found says she died at the age of 20, of smallpox...she had 3 children, all of whom were daughters, none of whom lived long...

daebinmyo

daebinmyo is the burial place of lady jang...full name = jang, huibin...she became part of palace life at a young age, and found favour with the king...her birthdate is unknown, so they don't know her age, but given that everyone else was young, she probably was too...she became his concubine (apparently there is a title for a royal concubine! sugwon) in 1686, sukjong's 12th year of reign, and the next year gave birth to a baby boy, prince yun...(he was called prince yun only after his father officially recognized him as an heir)...

also in 1687, the current queen was dethroned, (i don't know how that works, but that's beside the point...if she was dethroned, why wasn't the king as well?)...when prince yun became crown prince yun, lady jang was made queen...(queen myeongbong was her official title, i think)...howeva, that didn't last foreva...in 1694, a movement put queen inhyeon back on the throne, so lady jang was demoted back to huibin...not surprisingly, the king had to do something to make himself look in control of everything, so he sentenced her to death, and gave her some poison to carry out the sentence...which she did, in 1701...after her death, the king made a law that made it impossible to elevate a concubine to queen...her tomb was also originally located somewhere else, and moved to it's current place in 1969...this was the first tomb at which i stepped over the fence in order to take a photo...i wasn't the first to do so, there were quite a few footprints in the snow...

changneung

changneung is the tomb of king yejong, the 8th king of the joseon dynasty...it's also the tomb of his second lawful wife (as opposed to the royal concubines, i'm guessing) queen ansun...each got their own hill and tomb, with one gate/building...the little shelter holds the tablets for both of them, with separate doors for each...this tomb is the farthest from the entrance of the entire tomb complex...king yejong was actually the second son of king sejo and queen jeonghui, his older brother died young...

these tombs were the second place i went past a fence...hee hee...i wanted a proper photo, and it's clear that the CCTV cameras are there simply to protect the sights...i don't know if i should so easily admit to going past the boundaries, buuuut...anywho, both tombs in this little area had these sculptures in front of them...i don't know what they all represent, but i'm sure i could find the information online if i cared to look...what was interesting was that one hill/tomb was still covered in snow, while the other side was totally clear...king yejong only served as king for 14 months...apparently he didn't deal well with stress/political upheaval, and there was a lot of it during this era of the joseon dynasty...after he died, his queen was made crown princess...she died over 20 years later...

once cory had convinced me that going past the barriers was something koreans do all the time, the next natural step was sledding down the snowy tomb of changneung...yup, sledding...buuut, since we didn't have sleds, what could we use? our bums of course...this was my first attempt, you can see it didn't work so well...in another attempt, i pulled up my legs, and slid down on the path cory had already created...sooooooo much fun, too bad we didn't go the weekend previously:)

i don't know who his other queen was, nor how long she was queen...since he (king yejong) died so young, there must have been a reason he was only buried near his second queen...i don't know where the first queen was buried...or her name, for that matter...

tomb of king sukjong and queen inhyeon, his second wife

myeongneung is another set of tombs, with a separate entrance across the parking lot...3 people total are buried in this area...king sukjong, his 2nd wife and his 3rd wife...one of them is buried right next to him, and the other on another hill not far away...i don't know why the first wife isn't buried there as well, why she has her own tomb elsewhere in the "park"...his second queen (the one who was taken down for the concubine, then put back on the throne) died in 1701, his third queen was put on the throne in 1702...these guys didn't waste any time!! queen inwon (the third queen) died in 1757, she had a nice long life...

i was fascinated by the way the snow stayed on one side of the tomb...it did the same on the double tomb...and one of the other tombs, changneung...cory thought about sliding down this tomb as well, but decided the snow wasn't good enough...lol...

tomb of king sukjong's third lawful wife

his second queen (the one who was taken down for the concubine, then put back on the throne) died in 1701, his third queen was put on the throne in 1702...these guys didn't waste any time!! queen inwon (the third queen) died in 1757, she had a nice long life...myeongneung is the only tomb that doesn't have a fence around it, i don't know why...

myongneung