Odaesan National Park

Deep within a magical forest in the hills of eastern Korea… Buddhist monks, bathed in candlelight, chant in rhythmic progression. Their multiharmonic voices are accentuated by the hollow wooden tapping of the Moktak, a wooden and bell-shaped percussion instrument.

They pray to the ashes of Buddha; the temple that houses them is one of five on this continent. ‘How did I wind up here?’ My mind wanders. A breeze passes through the treetops, sounds like rushing water. A touch of blue light lingers in the sky, as the post-dusk clouds prevent any stars from being seen.

Seriously. I swear, this weekend was beyond any experience I’ve had in Korea thus far. At times, Korea feels like a ‘wannabe’ America. Theres no better way to knock that opinion out of my silly pessimistic head than staying the weekend in a Buddhist temple in Odaesan National Park.

Amy and I didn’t plan on it. We’ve attempted to reach the park by bike twice before. The road we took was waaay too steep and long for us to make it in a day. Plus, we kept getting sidetracked (see BikeX II and III).

This time we opted to take the bus. It was an inexpensive short ride. We amused ourselves by eating blackberries by the mouthful and taking pictures of our purple teeth. It was indeed hysterical.

We arrived at Odaesan with the idea that we would hike for 3 or 4 hours, and return home for a goodbye party for Lee. After all of 20 minutes at the park we knew we wouldn’t be leaving that night. Although the weather was overcast, it made for some beautiful pictures.

We ate our lunch beside these huge cement shrine/sculptures. I was annoyed at the mosquitos, and opted for the ‘oma look.’


Lunch consisted of cans of tuna, cucumbers, crackers, and bing cherries. We began walking on the very well-manicured park trails. Already zen from merely being in the forest, we walked and talked about being in the here and now. I listened to the birds singing, the sound of my cons sticking to the mud beneath them, sights and smells of the moment engulfed me. We walked in a comfortable quiet, I felt like my brain took a deep breath of the mountain air. It was a little foggy in there.

The trail turned upwards, and we continued on. We approached stone steps that were built into the trail. They were wide and beautiful, and framed the view of the five-tiered temple of Sajaam Jungdae.


The temple was magnificently structured right into the mountainside. The main building consisted of many small rooms intended for Buddhists to stay while studying or in prayer, bathrooms, a dining area, and the monks living area. Atop the hill sat a beautiful temple and a small wooden house with a wood-burning stove. The air was delicious, like a Vermont evening.

Twilight was approaching, and we decided to ask the woman in the little wooden house if she knew of a place we could stay. Amy spoke on the phone to a translator, who suggested a place an hours walk away. After unsuccessfully attempting to get directions to said place, the woman in the house (who happened to be a ‘sister’ or the buddhist equivalent) motioned for us to wait and ran off. We curiously waited on carved and laquered wooden stools. She returned and motioned for us to follow her. She brought us to a small room with a window. A young monk-in-training was gathering his belongings from the floor. We apologized over and over, we didn’t mean for them to kick anybody out, but the sister wouldn’t have it, nor would she accept any money from us for the room. She left us with a very warm quiet room with a small table, an alarm clock, more bedding than 8 people would really need, and a wide straw hat.

We couldn’t hold back our excitement! A sleepover at the monastary! What!? And we thought last weekend was an adventure! We took pictures to prove it.

Our sister returned with a young monk from India who spoke english. He explained to us about the times of the happenings at the temple. After I expressed extreme interest in joining in the prayer, he walked us to the temple and showed us where to kneel.

He showed us to some thick padded cushions on the floor, and told us we would be doing the Korean Buddhist tradition of 99 bows. There was a man’s voice over the PA system speaking in Korean, and different intervals we followed the other women in the room by slowly kneeling, then bowing our heads to the mat, hands facing upward, and back to our knees and standing with hands pressed together. It was tricky to get the flow at first, but it felt very vinyassayogaish after a few dozen tries. We zen’ed out, and breathed in this crazy experience. We admired the hand-carved wooden walls of the temple and the shiny Buddha statue on the front altar. There were carvings of little baby-buddhas with two round buns atop their heads, resting and playing on lily pads and lotus flower leaves. There were so many of the carvings, all in different playful poses. It was beautiful.

We finished our 99 bows, and exited the temple. The sky was barely translucent blue through the clouds. The birds were quieting. A woman took my praying hands into hers and kissed my middle fingers. It was a moment that transcended time. Or so it felt. She was so full of emotion and love. I was overflowing, really.

We noticed some people walking up the stone trail, and we decided to head up and see where they were going. We walked uphill for about 20 minutes as it progressively got darker and darker. Thankfully, I was sure to carry with me the LED ultra-super-flurescent flashlight Bubs gave me as a going away present. It was soooo perfect. Many people descending the hill had no light and wanted us to walk back with them… but we hadn’t reached our destination, yet. We didn’t even know we had a destination until we got there.

The temple with buddha’s ashes. The chanting. The breeze in the trees. The click clack of the wooden drum. Nobody was around. The last drop of light illuminated the clouds. Most of the forest was black, but warm amber light poured from the open temple doors. It felt, like I explained to Amy, like a golden nugget treasure of goodness. Most people spend their lives searching for gold, but never really finding any. Fools gold, mostly. But this was truly golden.

The moment reverberated for the whole walk down the mountain. We headed back to our room at the monk’s bedtime: 9pm. We ran into our Indian monk friend, who wanted to intruduce us to the head chanter monk (I wish I knew the correct term for this.) We sat in this monk’s room, drank honey tea, and chatted some small talk. He had framed picture on the wall of he and the DALAI LAMA in India. His room was mostly barren, minus the gold painting of buddha with millions of reflective eyes in the background, a laptop computer, and a wooden stand holding what must have been a very important book with a golden bookmark laid inside. We said goodnight, and were pleasantly sleeping by 9:30pm. Amy was the princess and the pea, laying on 6 layers of mats on the floor. I dreamed of love and all things of beauty.

We awoke at 3am for the first prayer service. We sat and listened to chanting, and attempted to chant along. I could read some of the Korean words in the prayer book, but the woman kneeling to my right kept turning the pages too fast. I think she thought she was helping me. There was an enormous black bug crawling along the temple floor. A sister took notice of it, gathered it up in a cloth and disposed of it out the sliding wooden door. Our Indian monk friend laughed a laugh I would expect the Dalai Lama to laugh. Genuine and kind.

After prayers I did a little yoga, laid down for a few minutes… and BZZZ… breakfast time: 6am. Breakfast was a little crazy, Koreans were cutting us in line and flitting around the room in a rush to get started hiking. Didn’t they realize it was 6am?? Anyway, we got a bowl and filled it with a few kinds of kimchi, this delicious seaweed salad that I love so much, rice, hot pepper paste, and soy sauce. You mix it all up in the bowl and eat it with a spoon. It was delicious. I ate 3 bowls. Amy, who isn’t totally crazy for Korean food, had a little rice and some soy sauce.

After breakfast we started our hike to the top of Birobong Mountain, the highest in the park. Mind you, it is now 7:15am. We walk slowly, enjoying every bit of the mountain. We were a bit rebellious. Amy smoked a forbidden cigarette while I brushed my teeth and spit in the leaves.




We are tired, sore, and a little cranky from lack of sleep. To raise our spirits we started singing every singalong in the book while walking. We said ‘anneong haseyo’ to all the passing hikers. After an hour and some, we made it to the top. The view was breathtaking.


Lush green mountains surrounded us. The day was clear. The sky was blue. The sun shone down on my shoulders, the breeze cooled them. We rested…


…then descended, in quite good spirits.

To liven up our walk down we climbed a tree…


…and hid from the passing Koreans. As they walked by and under our tree we made silly animal sounds and tried to hide our laughing as many Koreans did not even look to see what was growling or cacawing at them from the treetops. The Korean hikers had pretty bad tunnel-vision. They also had many accessories for the hike. They love accessories here. They carried the latest and greatest hiking sticks (that look like ski poles to me), aerodynamic backbacks, sun visors, and waterbottles. It was like regular hiking, but from some distant alien futuristic planet. I’m joking, of course. Amy and I felt a little out of place, and I knew I needed a walking stick when I groped for this knotted rope to balance one slip, and I ended up bottom-down in thick sticky mud! Yum! It’s a good thing I packed those rice cakes to break my fall!

We found a hollowed-out oak tree that we somehow missed on our way up. It felt very ‘my side of the mountain’ish. I loved that tree.

The rice cakes did come in handy. Not only did they energize poor no-breakfast withering Amy, they also attracted the cutest korean chipmunk-squirrels. One friendly little guy ate from Amy’s hand!

We returned to the temple to get one more free meal…

…and a few pictures with our chanting high-monk friend.

He was really kind, we exchanged email addresses. I have a million questions to ask about korean buddhism that couldn’t be verbalized due to our language barrier. Thank (Buddha?) for the interweb.

A nice lady gave us a ride to the bus stop. We almost missed the bus cause I wanted to win something out of a grabber machine on the side of the road. (I didn’t win.) We slept the whole way home.

It was an unforgettable experience. I’m certain we’ll return to Odaesan as soon as possible. I feel strangely at home at the temple, in that magical forest. Especially due to the graffiti we found on our way out..