Weekend Trip

This is a picture taken at Manbulsa (Temple of 10,000 Buddhas) on Manbulsan (10,000 Buddha Mountain). From the parking lot, you can view the largest of the 10,000 Buddha statues as it towers above the treeline. And yes, there really are 10,000 Buddha statues, but most of them are very, very small. I went to visit the temple last weekend with Su Jin as part of my "tour" of Yeongcheon. And yeah, this is mostly just a picture post, to make up for my previous lack of pictures.

Before the cut, the Korean for today is the requisite washing machine photo. I figured mine out, cause it's a pretty simple machine. On the right side of the picture are the power button (on top) and the start/pause button (on bottom). On the left side, the button with the finger says:

코스 or kosu or "course."
This is for selecting the cycles, shown above in a sort of oval. You just press 코스 until the light underneath the desired cycle is lit.
표존 =pyojon = regular cycle
울 = ool/wool = delicate cycle
Those are two I use most.
And now, on to the photos!

A temple building.

You can see some of the tiny statues engraved in the wall behind these rotating Buddhist "scriptures."

Now we're looking at some bigger statues.

Now an even bigger one. You can just barely see me there at the end, patting his toes. This dead Buddha presides over a graveyard, and touching the ornately carved bottoms of his feet will bring you luck!

In the graveyard, a grave decorated with a Buddhist statue next to a grave with a statue of the Virgin. Now if only living people of different religions could get on this well together.

Su Jin and I made it to the top to see the largest Buddha statue, despite the terrible humidity!

On Sunday, Mr. Lim, Miss Doh, and I hiked up Palgongsan (Palgong Mountain), to see the famous stone Buddha at the top. There were many people praying there and the statue had lots of food offerings. I found out that, at this time of year, many parents are praying for their children's success on the Korean SAT. The test is a huge deal here. This Buddha is also famous for healing sickness.

Here's a shot taken at the peak of a temple lower down on the mountain.

And a view of the valley.

These little piles of rocks represent wishes and prayers. When you want to add your own wish, you choose a rock from the ground and add it to the top of the pile. If you balance it properly, good. But if your rock throws off the balance and causes the pile to fall over, you've ruined everyone else's wishes and you get bad luck for yourself.

Me taking a break with Miss Doh. We had to stop and eat some food which Miss Doh had kindly prepared. It was hot and the mountain had a lot of steep staircases.