Last weekend was a three day weekend to celebrate Children's Day. Yup, that's right. Korea has a whole holiday dedicated to its children. On Saturday, I went to Korean class in the morning and then to taekwondo in the afternoon. In between, I took some time to enjoy the herbal medicine festival going on in downtown Daegu. There was a stage set up for performances and many booths with information and crafts celebrating Buddhist culture. I was really interested in one booth in which a monk was writing messages in their fancy Buddhist script. The biggest problem I had was that I didn't know what any of the messages meant in Korean or the Buddhist script. I talked to the lady at the booth for a bit and she picked one out for me. It looks pretty cool. It says "Teaching and learning are helpful to me" and my name in Korean, English, and script going down the side. They gave me a paper with the Korean message, so I could get it translated later on.
Saturday night, I went out to dinner with some friends, then spent some time enjoying the festivities. There was a small parade and some fireworks. Afterwards I went to hang out on a rooftop with a group of friends.
A float in downtown Daegu
On Sunday, Gwen, Samson, Fraser and I went golfing. Daegu has these awesome driving ranges all over the city. They are basically buildings with big nets attached, so you can use them even if it's raining. It was Gwen's first time and mine too. Samson was awesome, but he is good at every sport! After awhile I could hit the ball straight and far, but not consistently. There were many times when I missed the ball completely.
Swing and a miss!
The weather was beautiful on Monday, not too hot and sunny. I went to a city about an hour away called Gimcheon, which had a beautiful temple called Jikjisa. Jikjisa was amazingly gorgeous. The grounds outside the temple were surrounded by low mountains and in the middle was a big fountain and a sculpture park. Up on a slope was a fake waterfall with a playground on top. There were tons of kids there enjoying the weather and their well-deserved break from school. It was really great to see all families enjoying time together.
Sculpture Park
On top of the fake waterfall
Children enjoying Children's Day
After exploring the area outside the temple, I followed the trail of lanterns into the temple. The temple was first built in the 5th century by a Buddhist monk and eventually became one of the biggest temples in East Asia. Like most temples, it was burned down by Japan and rebuilt in 1610. My favourite parts were all the lanterns decorating the temple in honour of Buddha's upcoming birthday (he's 2552 year old this year) and one room of white Buddha statues. All are the same except for one. If the different one catches your eye first, your first child will be a son. Apparently, I'm going to have a daughter first.
Lanterns for Buddha's birthday
White Buddha statues
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