11:40
Sitting outside a pottery museum.. thingie.
Well apparently there's two next to each other.  One is a gallery of works (some of which you can buy), which is the one we're in.  the other you have to buy tickets for, I think that's something more along the lines of a 'see how it's made' type place.
Half the people are still inside as we just wait around for them all.
The wind keeps gusting as black clouds gather overhead.  Mixed with the smell of woodsmoke from all the kilms in the area (it's apparently one of two places in all of Korea that makes/is famous for pottery), it's very nice and relaxing.

4:01
I was about to make an entry back at 2:30-ish, but we arrived before I could.
We made it to the town, and there are massive hills all over, which are Korean burial mounds from waaaay back when. "How many people are buried in there?" "I dunno, let's get a shovel and find out"  That made Kim and Paraka almost pale, making it hilarious.
FIrst up, food.
I can't believe I'm saying it but, it was the usual.  A dozen side dishes, small main course of booru (the sweet beef).  Not AS good as the first one, less lettuce with it too, but it was alright.  Can't complain too much.
Even though they made a few jokes throughout about 'which kind of pepper is this?' 'Give it to Sam, he is expert on that'  Thanks Kim. :p
I was about to type that before on our way to the Gyeongju National Museum, which is probably like the Smithsonian for ancient Korea artifacts.
We rented the little audio guides in English.. and of course it only worked in on building out of the 4 I went in.  Thankfully I had my ipod for the others.
The weather is turning cool, dim and cloudly.. which is making me sooo damn sleepy.  Before I even got halfway through the last building I just said 'eh, forget it' and sat out by the entrance to wait for them.
Almost dozed off a few times.
On our way now to the temple where we'll stay the night.  I'm.. eeeeh about it.  As long as they have a power outlet (I'm positive they will) then I'll actually work on my paper since I know they WON'T have internet to distract me.
Would that' be awesome?  Monks with WIFI and T1.  They play TF2 as medics.

.....
Fffff-!
Curse you Paraka and your fetish for Buddhism.  He's the reason we're doing the night-stay at the temple
Guide just pointed across the river and said that's where we'll be staying tomorrow night, in one of the big hotels.
Anyway, This could be interesting.. if I didn't have stuff to do.  Curse me and mah procrastination!
The ride up to the temple was like a sloalum.  The twists left and right reminding me of the mountains outside of Alpine *sigh* good memory.

5:55
Oh boy. Am I gonna have a lot to talk about here.
For start, you wake up at 4am.  Then go and do a half hour of chanting followed by an hour and a half of sitting/walking meditation before breakfast.
Thankfully we're going to be leaving before the 108 bows @10:10
Unfortunetly we're leaving before the archery thingy later that day.
But one thing that makes this place nice (besides the whole 'it's a temple' thing) is...
DOGS!
They actually have 3 mid-sized dogs here.  a black one named Ban, that likes me; the white one, Yi, who doesn't like strangers; and an as-yet unnamed brown buddist dog.  I say that because the dog's been curled up sleeping infront of the dinning room door since we got here, only shifting to scratch before returning to the curled up pose.
Even if you scratch its head, ruffle its fur or tease it's ears (which I didn't do), it doesn't react.  Nothing.
...Sigh..
Looks like they're ringing the bell for 6:30 chant.  So annoying.
Remind me to talk about the room and Kim's vow of silence.

8:52
Just got back from some yoga-taichi mix thing.  Picked up some really good audio to use of the chanting and danc- er.. blackmai- um.. exercise! yeah... that..
Turns out we don't have to go to the 4:30 meeting if we don't want to. I probably won't stay in here and read my articles.  I find that much more useful than wasting 2 hours pretending to NOT think.
*checks the reminders*
Hmm.. well, Kim told us that 'from this point on, it is tradition not to talk'.  And since Paraka already had a hardon for this temple Buddhism (he's the reason we're here), he too went mute.  So it's fun as hell to tease Kim with open ended questions. mwhahaha!
well, I'm gonna listen to some songs and call it a night. I feel bad how loud this typing is in such a silent room.  Even though Kim, and Paraka still haven't climbed back up the mountain yet and it's an hour til lights out.
Night.

6:02
owowowowow... My shoulders are killing me..
Not from the exercise, but from sleeping on this floor with only a blanket under me and one tiny pillow.  Didn't go to the 4am prayer thing.  But I did wake up at 3, go outside and try to shut Yin up.  She has the strangest bark, almost like laughing.
It worked only as long as it took for me to walk back and sit down on my sheet before she started up again.
And three different sets of snores didn't help much.
the heavy wooden door sounds like a freight train every time it's opened, even slowly.
So yeah, I woke up more times over the night than I could count.
grumblegrumble annoyed
4 hours til the bus comes...

7:05
Breakfast was good. Same as last night, but instead of watermelon, there was potatoes.
And learned more on that budda dog.  He's 20 years old, that statue down the mountain is of him. And this morning, a kid 'not right in the head' (as evident by him walking around the grounds talking to himself all the time) hit him with a stick, so everyone here is very tense because of it.  He's been out limping around very slowly, just sniffing at various things with a red vest on to keep warm.
Anyway, for all his giddyness, turns out Paraka didn't even do the morning stuff.  he went down for the chants, but came back and went to bed cuz he was too cold.  heh
I asked and he said 'yeah the image is alot more fun than the reality'

8:38
Been reading some of my articles for the paper (due Monday night here..), and carely able to stay awake.  Kim's been sleeping here almost the whole time as well.  The other guys just got in too, probably all going to nap.

2:15
Waiting outside my room for room service to finish cleanin' up.
We've only got an hour and a half until we go out yet again for more.. um.. something.  I don't know what we're doing.

So after the last post I just read some more of my articles, then went outside and sat atop a hill by a grave stone listening to the silence.. and alternatively my ipod. heh.
After leaving the temple, we headed over to the grave of a general, which was actually offshore on a small, rocky island.  The beach was covered in smooth stones and gritty black sand.  So I had some fun trying to skip stones, but most times didn't work out too well. heh
Oh well.
Then we headed off to lunch and -gasp- it was enjoyable!
At first I thought it was going to be ohgodtonguesploding hot since it was that always delicious lava red color. But turns out it wasn't.  It was a mild soup of tofu, a single shrimp.. and that's all.  Really good.  Especially when mixed with rice.

Once lunch was gone, we then had to kill an hour or two more, so we headed over to 'tomb garden'.  Where there are 27 burial mounds. One of them was excavated and we could go inside.  They put a wood coffin in a large wooden room, fill it with treasure, seal it, then cover it in 30ft of boulders, a layer of clay, then a few feet of dirt.
Like I said, sledding off of them must be amazing...
So yeah, only have an hour and a half here, but I really don't wanna go back out again.  Just take a nice long nap on a real-life bed.