I went to the Dragon Spa, off at Yongson Metro stop. I spend the evening there, at the jimjabong. Jmjabongs are their styles of saunas/spas. There are different temperature saunas that you soak into. Many Korean families go there to hang out, relax, and um, get their scrub on. The men and women saunas are separated, but there is a floor in which both sexes can socialize together. The best part--you're naked the whole time!!! (aside from when you're on the unisex floor, because that could end up bad and you wouldn't want to take your little children there). I slept at Dragon Spa for Friday night. Thought about a lot of things.
On Saturday, I went to the Myogaksa Temple, in the middle of Seoul. I had to trek up the steep roads for about 10 minutes to reach the monastery. It was really beautiful--and strange, to see this temple, in the mess of the busy city life. I went in, changed into their orange robes, and joined the other 20 participants. About half of them were foreigners, and the other half were Koreans.
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The nun who ran the program, Yunyun, was super friendly. She had such a warm, positive aura about her--I want to be more like her. She had us introduce ourselves individually, and then she gave us an introduction into what Buddhism is. We then practiced doing prostrations, and were asked to do 108 sets of them. For each prostration, we were to put a bead into a string, so as to help us keep track of the counting, and also, for us to keep the necklace as a souvenir.
We then had a vegetarian style dinner, learned to meditate and be in the correct position, and went to bed by 10 p.m. I crashed.
Woke up the next morning, with a lot of things in my mind. Meditation is about relaxing, clearing your mind, and trying to reach nirvana. Obviously....I failed at that. The morning was a struggle. I had breakfast and left.
I was able to go to the jimjabong (again) with some wonderful girl friends, and make dinner. Rule #32, enjoy the small things. Rule #35, Do what your heart tells you.