An afternoon at the Buddhist temple

A bell by the temple

Having taken a look at Lisa’s lonely planet, I decided to check out the Inwangsa Buddhist temple on top of the Inwangsan mountain.  It seemed to be pretty close to the subway station and easy to get to. Finally it was the quite the hike up but the view was pretty impressive as the mountain is 338 meters. I walked around and there weren’t many people around. The actual temple seemed closed but after following paths randomly, I found other meditation areas, including one at the bottom of these two eroded boulders that reminded me a bit of the remarkable rocks at Kangaroo Island.

The eroded rocks

As I kept on walking, a Korean man that had greeted me earlier told me I was heading for a dead end. He took a look at my map and tried to explain to me where I was supposed to go and was also talking about the time, which I didn’t really get. I simply suggested that he lead and I would follow. I stopped along the way to take pictures of the view, and of this giant Buddha like shape in the rocks.

The Buddha like shape in rocks

I had lost sight of my guide and when I came round the corner, he was coming back towards me, but he was now naked save his sandals and backpack.

He told me not to be scared but that it was naked prayer time for the men. He wasn’t very menacing, and I didn’t know if it was true or not, but the Lonely Planet had mentioned respecting ongoing rituals. As my guide was worried about my going ahead and finding other naked praying men who would be upset, I suggested waiting near by while he went ahead to pray. This didn’t seem to suit him so instead, we found a spot in the woods and he stuck a round staying mostly a few meters away, still naked, and not praying. He would come up to me to look at the time on my iPod, telling me in pretty good English how much time was left in the half hour of praying time.

I tried to focus on the beautiful view of the city.

A view similar to the one I had during that half-hour

When the half hour was up, we got up, and the naked man gave me a hug. He also showed me how he put on his loincloth, to then just take it off and just put on his shorts. We went by some other outdoor praying areas and he showed me a natural source where I filled up my water bottle. I also found out that he was an engineer and in his 30s though I don’t remember his name. We came to a fork and I wanted to catch a glimpse of the old fortress wall, and to get away from this strange encounter, so we parted ways and I took my time to reflect on what had just happened, still debating whether there was really a naked prayer time. In retrospect, I also wish I had taken his picture, but instead, I’ll just have the visual memory that will fade eventually…

The ruins make for a nice frame