The temple is so ornate and gorgeous, I have passed it many times hiking, but this was the first time I got to go inside. It is really cool too.
My favorite thing is all the mini Buddhas they have throughout the front of the room. As you can see in the big picture there are tons of them. Each is quite ornate up close though. 
The first game we played was YuNoiri. I finally got to understand the game that I have seen all the old Korean men play in the park every weekend (but we weren't gambling like they do). Check out my technique.
You throw the four sticks and how they land determines how you move on a board that looks like Sorry!. The sticks have writing on one side, each one that lands writing side up gets you one point. But if they all land writing side down, you get 5 points. If you get 4 or 5 points, you get to throw again. The idea is to get all four of your guys back to the start first. It is hard to explain here, but I will be bringing a set home and teach everyone how to play.
I had to take this picture to explain something to all my Western compatriots. See the symbol on the building behind me. Looks like a swastika, doesn't it?
If you look closer though you will see the arms are pointing in a counter-clockwise direction, the Nazi swastika's arms point in the clockwise directions. This is a Buddhist symbol meaning peace. The Nazis stole it and flipped it. Though I will tell you when I first got here I jumped everytime I saw it and you see it a lot here. Kinda awful irony, isn't it?On a lighter note, after we played YuNoiri we went outside and all threw beanbags at this big pinata thing until it burst open, showering us with treats.
As you can see in the picture, they are mad aggressive with the beanbags. You really have to be careful not to get hit in the middle of the fun. Next up was the jumprope contest. Everyone participated, even the weygooks (foreigners). I was a twirler for our team. We got second place!
I love these pictures cause everyone is in the air. Front to back, it is Kayla, Young, someone (Frances maybe?) and Sean. The Koreans got a kick out of us for sure. We are not as cute as the little kids for sure. We made some mini-friends during this part of the day.
But the best bit by far was watching the Ajimas (middle-aged women) jump. I have never seen grown ups do jumprope and it was way great.
These are two of my little friends that I made during jumprope. They were teaching me to count in Korean. They knew some English so they would talk to us and then they would get nervous and talk to Young in Korean to make sure they got the English right. Adorable!
There were three of them that kept following us around after that. So I had the last little girl pose with Young so she wouldn't be left out of the picture fun!
It's all about making friends and building better worlds. Sunny kicked butt at the Yu-Noiri game and she won a bike! They were also giving away tons of little presents through the raffle and other things, so she got fabric softener and ties too.
It was a great day. I had so much fun and got to participate in a Korean celebration. Everyone was so welcoming and excited that we wanted to participate. They were so nice to us, even with our limited Korean. We got to talk with one of the monks for a while. Young translated. He was really cool, he has been a monk since he was 20. He gave us each a chun ($1) and told us if we brought it to a temple next Lunar New Year and put it in the donation box it would bring us luck and prosperity. Very cool day.So I am not sure if it was the same day, might have just been the same weekend, but anyway. Simon, Rosario, Norbert and I had a double date at this really cool wine bar and took some pictures so I thought I would add them at the end. Aren't they cute?
Rosario and Simon, from New Zealand. Really cool friends of ours and it is fun to do couple things sometimes. And here is Norbert and I.
Awwww.....
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