On Friday, Sue and I went with Sue's sister and her husband to a place called Jeondeungsa. Jeondeungsa is an ancient Buddhist temple complex located near the Mt. Jungjok Fortress Wall, on Gangwha Island. Ganwha Island the largest of a group of islands located on the far North West corner of South Korea, about 500 km away from Seoul and connected to Kimpo with the Gangwha Bridge. This is the closest I've been to North Korea, which is only separated from Gangwha Island by a small span of water.
Anyway, we drove there to get a look at this very old and lesser know temple. We had lunch and made the steep, but short walk to the entrance. There were lots of young school age kids there, who were eager to take the opportunity to use their English and say "hello" to an English speaking foreigner. I said Hi a lot, but when I tried to engage any of them in more than just Hi, I usually got blank stares, then a quick retreat to the safety and giggles of the rest of the group.
No one know exactly when the temple was originally built, but it is estimated to be somewhere around 381 to 384 AD.
There is a web site where you can read about Jeondeungsa. It has English, so if you're interested, check it out. It's really quite fascinating.
Go to: http://jeondeungsa.org/eng/info/index.html
There is a really beautiful and interesting tea house just below the temple complex. We didn't go in it, but it looked very inviting.
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