Another Buddist Temple

My boss, Korean teacher Marie, Nicole, Nicole's friend Tara, and I went to a Buddist temple today. Below is a picture of a building. Notice the swaztika on the roof. These Buddists seem like a pretty racist bunch. Swaztikas were all over the place. Those really aren't swaztikas. They're the equivalent of the cross for Chrisianity. Swaztikas point in the opposite directions from these symbols.

During the car ride my boss said we were going to walk up a hill to see some Buddist buildings that were built separated from the main temple. The walk was a hike and the hill was a mountain. It was a two hour excursion. I haven't sweated so much since the hot, humid days of September. My body was struggling. It was going from extreme heat caused by the physical exertion needed to negotiate the mountain, to biting, unwarranted cold caused by the icey winds that were freezing the sweat to my body. I've never experienced a wind that could rip right through clothes as if they weren't there. I could have been nude and there wouldn't have been a difference, with the cold or people. A clothed foreigner draws all the stares of the Koreans around so I don't think it's possible for them to stare any more at a nude foreigner. And I learned that Buddist monks don't know about switchbacks. The path went straight up. I was about as far from nirvana as a person could be. And the path wasn't the only problem, I had to worry about the possibility of boulders raining from the sky.
About an hour into the hike we decided to stop at some benches, eat some fruit, and rest. A large group of hikers soon arrived and decided to have a rest too. Instead of fruit, they pulled out a half-dozen bottles of Soju (Korean Vodka). My boss bowed to the eldest man of the group to show respect and he took it as an invitation to come talk to the foreigners. He came up to me and talked for a minute or two in a very animated way. He looked at my boss to translate, and she said, "He thinks you are very handsome." The man then moved on to Nicole and Tara, and again he looked at my boss to translate what he said. She didn't do it. It's an unusual culture here. When you first meet people they will comment on how you look, good or bad. There's no malice with the bad, only a matter-of-factness. Nicole has told me that she has had many people she meets tell her that she might be attractive if she would lose some weight.

The man took such a strong liking to me that he yelled over to his group and he ordered the both of us up some Soju. It was 11:30 am. I declined the offer. I looked over to my boss and Marie and they looked scared. My boss whispered, "Raymond, take the Soju." It turns out that declining Soju is about the most desrespectful thing a person can do. So there I was, buring hot and freezing cold, and drinking booze with a complete stranger. The man yelled back to his crew. My boss whispered to me again, "You're getting a snack." The man soon had some meat in his possesion. He instructed me to finish the Soju, I did, and he fed me some kind of meat product. I have never tasted anything like it, so I'm really hoping it wasn't dog, and it was terrible. The man walked back to his party and began talking to all of them at once. My boss heard what he said and told all of us, "We have have to go now." The man apparently was telling his group that he tought it would be funny to get the foreigner drunk.

We made it to the top an hour later. The trek was not worth it at all. There were only three buildings and they had nothing see. So we walked back down to see the main temple. The main temple was great. I didn't see my Soju friend again.
I put this picture in the post because I think it's amazing that these temple are made without nails. The wood is cut with notches and they have been around for hundreds of years without falling apart.