Finally I got around to write about the temple experience. Have been ever so busy with experiencing everything Seoul and Korea has to offer, and yes I will bore you with the tales of that at another point.

The Saturday of the temple stay, we met with the guy who had set up the initial contact because he was the only English speaking person on the team. We drove through Seoul with quite a few detours along the way before we finally came to the temple. Off course we just missed lunch but luckily I had brought some rice cakes we could snack on.

Stocked up on rice cakes and a piece of Snickers we were ready for the opening ceremony, which took place in this beautiful worship room - unfortunately it was as cold as it was beautiful and even several prostration (bows) couldn't keep us warm. This was to be the case for the next 24 hours.

After a quick getting-the-heat back into our frozen bones, it was dinner time. Again in the freaking cold room, how is one supposed to enjoy the meal when one can't even hold the chopsticks because of trembling hands! Well, the intention was not to enjoy the meal but to learn about the Buddhist way of eating: you have to eat every single little grain of rice you put on your plate. This is to learn not to be greedy with food and leave many left overs because there is people in the world who can't even afford one meal a day. First we had to cleanse the 4 bowls we were given, leaving the water in the 4th bowl. Then the different food items were passes around for us to help ourselves. Hungry from the lack of lunch, we stacked the rice pretty high on our plates, quite confident that we could eat it all. The meal was off course vegetarian, but they had done a pretty good job with some tofu and other rather delicious side dishes so we wouldn't miss the meat too much. We munched away on the food but after some time we were all fighting with the last rice, we so over-confidently had put into our bowls. But everything had to be eaten, so with rice sticking out our ears, we forced the last spoonfuls into our mouths (realizing that chopsticks would only drag the torture on forever). After the meal warm water was passed around to wash the bowls in. The guy from Arirang TV told us to not take so much water, as we had to drink after washing the bowls with it. What!!! So we only poured very little water into the bowls, scrubbing them with a slice of radish!Then we drank it. Oh my, we thought we had been put through enough by then, but we were to learn differently. The cold water, we used to cleanse the bowls with before the meal, had to be used to cleanse them all again. And again we scrubbed away with the radish. We had, off course, poured plenty of cold water into the bowls as it was used to cleanse them - big mistake. After the second cleansing, we had to drink this water as well, plus eat the f…ing radish. But lesson learnt, that's for sure (or so we thought).

After dinner we had an evening session of meditation in the same room. In my mind not the best combination: freaking cold room + sitting still for 2 hours = 3 ice sticks. But magically we survived, though our feet, legs, backs and every other inflexible part of our bodies were in excruciating pain.

BED TIME YAHOOOO. Because that meant we could stay in the warm room for many, many hours. Traditionally, Korean houses and apartments are heated through the floors and people then sleep on a thick doona right on the floor. We did that at the temple and despite soar hips, it was quite comfortable and not least very warm. But this comfort was not to continue as we had morning worshipping and 108 prostrations to complete before breakfast. You may think, how hard can 108 bows be? But let me enlighten you, we are not talking about just bowing down your head and rising it again. Oh no, why should it be so easy. We are talking bowing down on your knees, forehead flat in the ground and back up again. All this without moving your feet out of their original position. So I counted my way through the 108 bows, just to know how much more suffering I needed to endure. I endured and actually it wasn't that bad (someone has been fairly active in the company gym).

For good reasons, we feared that breakfast was going to be the same ritual as dinner, but luckily this took happened in the way it would in your random company cafeteria. However, the rule of having to eat every single thing on your plate still applied. And yes, we had not learned from the night before. Again we were too greedy and had to fight to the bitter end to finish the last rice. Maybe it was that fact that we couldn't snack as you can when you are at home, that made us so much greedier. Plus the usual eating style in Korea is to get so many different dishes that it is impossible to finish it all, so after nearly 2 months in Seoul, we had gotten used to being able to pick and choose and leave whatever you didn't feel like.

After breakfast, we had to do symbolic community work. The sweeping of the ground (as we did) was to symbolize cleansing your mind and all that jazz. It sure didn't sweep much and I was more concerned with my fingers freezing to ice than of clearing my mind of bad thoughts etc. After this delightful work we had a tea session with MR. Master Monk were we had the opportunity to ask him questions of any kind. I asked him whether or not he had personally chosen to become a monk or if the choice had been taken for him. Quite interestingly, he grew up as a Christian but in his late teens became dissatisfied with Christianity and many other religions quest to convey people into their religion. He then found interest in Buddhism and the fact that they didn't mission to people. He was very happy that we, as Christians (or whatever at least I should call myself) were embarking on this experience with open minds.

After our little tea session, we were meant to watch a documentary about Buddhism, but no. Why waste the lovely weather on the pristine surrounding?!Geared up with spike shoes on just the one food, we ventured up the mountain. And here we found a set of stairs with what a coincidence 108 steps. So the number 108 symbolizes the sins you have to cleanse yourself from before you can become a monk. What happened to the 7 death sins? How am I supposed to remember and make sure I don't commit any sins, when there are 108 of them? To our luck, the path (after the 112 steps, as I counted) further up the mountain was gone as the recent snowfall had covered it.

After this little dangerous hike, which was even more dangerous one the way down because our film crew had stolen our spikes, we had lunch - normal cafeteria style. We did better with the rice his time, but Emily had to give up and Emilie and I had to come to her rescue. Lunch well finished, we had the closing ceremony, which consisted of some more chanting and some more bowing. That done we happily skipped to the car, ready to go back to a somewhat more Western lifestyle.

So how was it to have a camera filming every move you took? It was actually not that bad and we managed to forget the presence of the microphones, which must have resulted in some horrifying sounds when they listened to the tapes. Oh yes, someone forgot they were wearing cameras when they went for a pee J several times indeed. I guess, we are the natural reality TV stars and I'm pretty sure Paradise Hotel will be the next step for me, if I want to prolong my 15 minutes of fame plus expand it to Europe as well. It was actually the other participants of the temple stay that was the most frustrated with the cameras, which was fair. They hadn't been informed let alone agreed to it. They weren't really being filmed, but the film crew wasn't exactly quite and considerate, so they must have been very disturbing to everyone. This, plus other things, made a Kirgizstan lady blow up in our faces, telling us how our lack of age made us not understanding her difficult life as a business owner in the global financial crisis. She was not here for just fun, she was very interested in Buddhism and had been for 10 years. And we had to understand that Islam and Buddhism were very alike and so was the culture of Kirgizstans and Koreans! With what I have been told and experienced of Korean culture so far, it is not appreciated to scream at people and tell them how stupid they are - this is causing both parties to lose face. And this is one of the major things to avoid - loosing face, and it is ever so important to constantly try and safe each other's faces to keep a good relationship with them. Well we had a good laugh at her, and I am sure we well have many nights, drinking some Asti, laughing our asses of over her.

But for now we are anxiously waiting for the TV station to finish the editing and broadcast it. And yes it will be on their webpage as well and yes I will post the link on Facebook Then we will find out whether or not I can ever return to Australia or Denmark J