Our first stop was lunch. It was at a restaurant about 30 minutes outside of Gwangju on our way to the Korean Bamboo Museum. The restaurant was very authentic. When we got there, our food was waiting for us on tables. It consisted of kimchi, kimchi and more kimchi... along with fish and a pork dish that looked and tasted like meatloaf! I wasn't feeling very well on Saturday, so all I ate really was the pork and bamboo rice. I did try the kimchi (for the 10000th time) and I can still report that I'm not the biggest fan.
After the restaurant we headed to the Bamboo Museum. We toured around looking at everything made out of bamboo and also made Bamboo fans. It was neat to see everything however, rain put a damper on our entire weekend. Of course, because I'm very good at forgetting things... I didn't bring my umbrella. Luckily, a friend and another Korean buddy "Lee" let my share his ginormous umbrella the majority of the day. We got back on the bus and headed toward the mountains, where there was a local cooking studio. We learned how to make Hwangwa, which is a traditional Korean snack. It's popped rice mixed with melted sugar. It's essentially a rice krispy treat, minus the marshmallow. (Aka- the good stuff.) It still made for a good midnight snack that night. After the cooking class we headed toward the Chonnam "Training Center" which was located in the mountains, where they typically hold freshman orientations. We didn't do much here but sleep, however... sleeping was a bit different. We walked into large rooms with lockers, blankets, and pillows with what we think were filled with bamboo. The floor was our bed for the night and after talking with two of the girls until 1 or 2am about American food and snacking on our Hwangwa, I finally fell asleep.
The next day was what I was most excited to do for my entire time in Korea. We visited one of the many Buddhist temples in South Korea. It was absolutely beautiful and peaceful. We arrived and walked to one of the buildings where we met the lead monk where he taught us the traditional bow and prayer that they do. Although it was raining, the window shutters were open and there was a nice breeze. We were up in the mountains and it really was an amazing experience. From there we went up to the actual temple where they allowed us to go inside and preform the prayer along with them. Afterwards we did a tea ceremony where the monk prepared tea with a Lotus flower. It was really good! I wished that we could have done the overnight stay that was originally planned at the temple, but I'm just glad we got to go at all.
After the temple we had lunch at a local restaurant where we tried the most liked dish of international people... bibimbap. It's rice with a ton of vegetables, kimchi, and hot chili sauce. We headed back to the dorms after a long and busy weekend.
Because my friends Zahra, Lillian, and I stayed up the night before talking about all things American... we decided that we NEEDED to take a night off kimchi and rice and venture out past the back gate to an American restaurant. Surprisingly (not really) many others felt the same way. So 10 of us made our way out Sunday night to Cafe LemonTable, where they served all things Non-Korean- Pizza, Pasta, and Burgers. Coincidentally, almost no one spoke English. We had to have the owner come out to our table to decipher the menu which took 20 minutes in itself, but we finally got our food and were satisfied. It was a great ending to a long and fun first weekend in Gwangju.
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