We have a lot of driving today but luckily we also have a couple of great sites to visit so it shouldn’t be too bad. After hitting a high of 29 centigrade yesterday, this morning we woke up to rain and a forecast of maximum of 17 centigrade! We set off at 8.30 and went to our first stop which is Gayasan Haein Temple which was about 2 hours drive from the hotel, unfortunately it was raining when we arrived but all the same the temple is very impressive and is home to the 80,000 wooden printing blocks used to create the Buddhist Bible, these date from around 800 – 1800 and had been stored in the same building as it is one of the few temples in Korea that have never burnt down. The whole complex contains a number of buildings including a bell tower, the main hall and the building where the blocks are stored, unfortunately the rooms were not open today but we did manage to look in through the window. We were also able to go into the main hall while the monks were chanting although we didn’t stay long. The wooden blocks are Chinese writing (back to front as they were used for printing), they were produced by soaking the wood in salt water then drying it which took about 2 years, then they wrote the text on the wood then carved it, this was then checked for spelling and any mistakes and if there were any they cut out the incorrect character and carved the correct one on a piece of wood and then glued it back in. We walked all round the temple and then headed back to the car for another couple of hours drive to the other location we were seeing today which was the Confucion school at Dosanseowon. This was where Toegye Yi Hwang was a master, he is on the 1,000 won notes, he died in 1570 at the age of 34 but was pretty much the founder of Confucianism in Korea, China and Japan. The Dosanseowon academy was established in 1561 and was where the high class sent their children to study as relationships formed in childhood serve well into adulthood. It would seem that they very much have a class system similar to the British public school system although possibly more, if your father was prime minister then you would become prime minister, although I think the role is a little different in Korea, possibly more like the mayor than the actual prime minister. By the time we had finished walking round it was almost 4pm and time to head off to the hotel. It would seem that we are the only people staying in the hotel as we have an ‘american breakfast’ booked and we were asked what time we would like it! All the same the room is okay if a little dated, we went out to have a quick look round the local area which did seem shut but it could just be that it comes to life later, then went back to the room and updated the website.
