Today is Buddha's Birthday! Happy birthday Buddha. It is his 2457th birthday if I remember correctly. What do you get the 2457 year-old deity who has reached enlightenment? Beats the hell out of me (if anyone has a good punchline for that, please let me know. The humour tank is a little low right now). To beat the blues that our employment-limbo have created Barb and I headed out to Jikjisa (jick-jee-sah) temple near Gimcheon (gim-chun) today. Gimcheon is just a fifteen minute train ride from Gumi. As you may or may not be aware, Jikjisa was one of our first trips in Korea in December. We met two monks named Mu-sim (moo-sheem) and Jang-myung there as well as a young Buddhist about our age named Won-hyo. We had tea with them and built a snow Buddha. So where better to celebrate Buddha's birthday?

Jikjisa was a quiet, solitary place in December, despite it being one of the biggest temple complexes in Korea. Today, however, was completely different. The place was swarming with Koreans, and a few other waygooks as well. There were colourful Buddhist lanterns everywhere. We wandered around for a while looking at all the buildings and prayer halls, and we both prayed inside the main hall. Eventually we ran into both Jang-myung and Mu-sim, who were both very busy with preparations for the day. We took a stroll up the mountain to Myung Jeok Am (myung-juk-ahm). Myung Jeok Am is a new conglomerations of temple buildings on a mountain adjacent to Jikjisa. Our friends took us there for tea on our first visit, and we wanted to see what it was like. There was a new (very beautiful) boddhisatva statue, and some of the buildings were newly painted. Myung Jeok Am must be a lucky place for us, because when I went in the prayer hall a nun (who knew no English at all) helped me pray and invited us in for tea. So we had a brief tea with the nun and some other Koreans (hongcha - black tea - strangely enough) and were on our way. After we came back down to Jikjisa we ran into our friend Won-hyo who was packing some serious video equipment. We speculate he was filming the Birthday celebrations for a TV station or the temple.

We were feeling a little hungry so we went back to town to grab some dinner (avoiding the generous meals the monks always offer us - we knew they were way too busy). We had some mediocre bibimbap (bee-beem-bahp - rice mixed with various veggies, egg, and pepper paste) which was overpriced for the tourist event; 5000 Won. We then went back to the temple.

As sunset approached the daily drumming ritual started in the temple grounds, with many there to watch. Following this the many plastic Buddhist lanterns around Jikjisa were illuminated. Then a (strangely Christian-ish) choir began to sing and there were many speeches that we could not understand. We then all lit our candle lanterns (crepe paper and candles, a winning combination if ever there was one) as well. What followed was quite enjoyable, more so for me than Barb. A huge candle-lantern parade began. Everyone walked two-by-two holding their candles, snaking around the entire temple complex. This went on for almost an hour. It was very beautiful as it got dark, although it was a strangely cold May night. I without my jacket (it is still at LG) was quite cold, but it was fun nonetheless. Following the parade Barb and I packed up and took the train back to Gumi.