BongEunsa and CoEx

First things First, A BIG Congrats to RyanRunsEurope, who I've been following since my return from NZ. Amazing job, Well done, mate.

Oh Goodness I'm totally behind, but I am going to get internet soon so hopefully I'll be firing off these badboys to keep all of my friends stateside up to date on the happenings of KoreaWorld.

So on Sunday I jumped on the subway armed only with my good camera and my Lonely Planet Seoul and out of nowhere BAM! It was my friend Jess, traveling with a girl who teaches in China. It scared the crap out of me, but they were going to spend the day in CoEx and Bongeunsa, a mall and a temple, respectivly. We ate in Coex, and Kerry (Girl teaching in China) was craving western food, since she can't get it in her neck of Asia, but I got some Manduguk, since Korean food is in fact growing on me. Manduguk, with mandu being a dumpling and guk being the word for soup (I'm getting there).
We met with her friend Clare. ANd scurried to the "magical hidden temple", which we finally got to. It is one of the largest Buddhist and most traditional temples. It was really large, and allowed for a lot of wandering and exploring. I'm not sure, but I feel like temples and palaces all kind of look alike. But this one had a Buddah. NOt like, a statue of buddah, but a HUGE Massive we're talking 23 meters high, largest statue of Buddah in Korea size Buddah. The biggest I've ever seen. It was rediculously cool.
It was a beautiful place, and it was a Holiday Sunday so there were heaps of people there praying and worshipping and doing normal sunday at service activites, and there was us taking pictures and lurking. I'm not sure how I'd feel about that, but I guess they're used to it. You could only imagine. There was one room with thousands of Buddahs. Lining the wall, everywhere. It was rediculous. The place was very Zen, as it should be, and very neat to explore. I am definitly going to go back to get there more than an hour before closing time to check out the grounds and find my Buddhist ways.
After we lurked, we went into Coex to look around. I wasn't overly impressed. A lot of expensive shit. The mall wasn't as cool as everybody was making it out to be, but maybe we missed something. There was, however a bookstore that had a foreign collection. Good to keep in mind. And heaps of lonely planets for all of my adventures 8)
Update soon about life in general!
Patience and Faith,
ErinJ