Tongdosa Temple...and that one time I said hello instead of thank you

My week has been so incredibly busy. We've had two practicums (lesson plans and presentations) and so many classes. But I need to show you guys all these awesome photos from our fieldtrip last Saturday and everything since then. :)

Tongdosa Temple

For the fieldtrip, they bused us to Tongdosa Temple, a beautiful Buddhist temple complex and tourist attraction about an hour from the university. It was so hot/humid. (But I, of course, emanated only my natural body odor of roses and lilacs...)

Class 5. I'm in the middle-ish. I've really grown close to this group. They feel like family. Granted, there are some annoying ones...but I've learned to accept and love all of them. :)

Walking into the complex...

I wonder if they sell these somewhere...they'd make great garden decor back home...

Jen, my roommate, and me in front of the museum.

To access the rest of the temple complex, you go through this entrance with some pretty awesome looking guardians... Some of the people bowed as they went past this spot...I just took pictures.

I live in Korea. What?

 

Tai Chi and bracelet-making with the monks. What better way to spend a Saturday in Korea?

Funny story: As we were walking into the cafeteria for lunch, we passed lines of Koreans who were also getting lunch (the TaLK group had our own line with food made specially for us). An elderly Korean lady was grinning at us and saying hi to everyone as we passed. She grabbed my hand, and I thought she was just going to shake it, but she held on for a long moment and told me something in Korean. I think she maybe offered me a compliment? It was the sweetest thing.

A traditional Buddhist vegetarian meal. The curry was delicious. I liked the seaweed paper. The liquid/cucumber salad was spicy but pretty good. I don't know what some of the other stuff was. I ate around the kimchi, though.

Desserts. The rice cake thing (white package in front) was sticky and yucky, but I liked the other stuff. The monks gave us a cool fan, too. That came in handy with the heat outside.

That sky. The view was incredible. Korea is so beautiful.

I seriously love the mountains here.

 

We had to take our shoes off to walk around this next little temple area...there were signs that said not to take pictures, but, oops, my Korean reading skills aren't so great just yet... ; )

It's hard to see in this picture, but you walk around this square courtyard thing...

A Korean woman worshiping and reading scriptures or some type of religious text, I think.

The architecture is so cool. And some of these buildings are sooo old...

In front of the museum...best. statue. ever.

It seems you have to take off your shoes in a lot of places here in Korea...

There was this awesome river/stream going through the temple complex. So many kids were playing in the water and there were even families picnicking:

Views of Busan from the bus: 

Next stop: UN Memorial Cemetery 

It was interesting. But SO hot and humid.

Just some geese walking around the memorial...

After the fieldtrip, we decided to go to a shopping center...uhh...somewhere, I forgot the name. We took the subway. Some random shots of streets:

Waiting for the subway. Selfies are dumb.

Oh, and I should explain the title of my blog post: in the subway station, I bought a wallet at one of the little shops. As I was getting change from the lady, I went to say "goodbye" or "stay well" in Korean, but it came out "hello" instead... She laughed at me. But I don't blame her...if you repeat the whole scenario in English, it sounds totally ridiculous. Haha.

Going to church in Korea

Merin, a girl from Utah (who also actually goes to Utah State) and I went to church on Sunday! It was a lot of fun. We were a little late because our taxi driver didn't know where the address was (even though it should have been really easy to find). When we got inside, the main entrance had kind of a bamboo-like flooring and an area to take off shoes and put on indoor slippers. We didn't bring slippers with us, so we went barefoot.
The chapel was upstairs. It was so nice to hear the familiar tunes of our hymns...even though everyone was singing in Korean (and they have really nice voices, by the way). After the sacrament, a missionary brought us a headset. His companion was translating the entire meeting into English...except, at one point during a woman's talk, when he paused for a long time and just said, "She's saying a lot of really difficult words right now...a lot." Haha.
One of my favorite talks was actually given in English (with a Korean translator also at the pulpit). The man is a convert from Taiwan. He was so sweet. I talked to him briefly after the meeting, and he was super nice.
Merin and I met sister missionaries in the ward, too. One is from Idaho. She gave us their number in case we need anything...way nice, I just wish I was staying in Busan longer. Hopefully, if some of my current friendships develop more, I can refer some investigators to them. :)

We knew we were at the right church when we saw this big sign on the sidewalk street.

Ahh...bad selfie angle. But this is Merin. She's great. :) She's going to Jeju after orientation, though, so we'll be really far apart...bummer.

I'm assuming this is the name of the church...

The street the church was on:

Funny story: 

We caught a taxi back after church. The taxi driver was so funny. He pulled out a bag of these sticky pretzel snacks from his glovebox and offered some to us. We declined at first, but later on he insisted, laughing and saying "They're delicious" (in Korean). When he dropped us off at the university, he told us to take more and dumped a big handful into Merin's hand. Koreans are awesome, haha.

School stuff: 

In lecture...our group leaders sometimes take random pictures of us in class without our knowing...

My Korean class teachers, Suzie and Joshua. Joshua is demonstrating how to remember vowel sounds...you might have had to be there for this one...

In our story-telling lecture. The lecturer was a super cute Korean lady, it was a fun class.

Preparing for practicum. (Again, random TaLK photographers are everywhere...)

 My drawings for my first practicum. I taught food to 1st and 2nd grade (not really, just in front of my peers for practice).

Food and Snacks:

These lovely dried squid snacks are offered in our 7-eleven. I...haven't tried them.

My 7-eleven meal on Sunday: cup of noodles, honey flavored chips (they weren't terrible, but they also weren't that good), and candy. The Ghana bars are AMAZING.

And apple soda from the vending machine. So far, I really like Korean soda.

Um...broccoli and octopus salad. What a...delicious...side dish...

The one leg I ate didn't taste much like anything, it's just like chewy rubber. But being able to actually see the tentacle/suction cup thingies kind of grossed me out, so I stopped after that one leg.

Chocolate patbingsu! Yummy. Minus the red bean. Who decided that beans can go in a dessert? It's so weird. But the rest of it was good. Especially the gelato on top.

This was a delicious cinnamon toast thing with whipped cream and caramel sauce. Ahh, so good. A very good way to celebrate the completion of our practicums.

It's so weird that I've only been living here for two weeks. It feels like so much longer. It's going to be kind of bittersweet to leave next Tuesday. I'm going to miss this beautiful campus and all the friends I've made. But it will be super exciting to get out on my own and experience the real Korea (we're kind of sheltered here on campus). Yep, exciting and terrifying. 

Oh, one more thing:

For Emily. I will catch one for you before I come home. This one was about the size of a softball. He was just hopping around on campus. We saw another one on our way to the dessert cafe tonight, too. As long as they don't decide they want to be my roommates, I'll be okay, I think. The frogs are a lot better than the creepy bug we saw in the laundry room today with 4-inch antennas and the 7-inch centipede on the sidewalk the other night...