it’s been a long, wintry hiatus. so many excuses. mainly this one: i never leave my house. between teaching, acting as atek‘s national communications officer and associate editor of busan haps, i find myself doing a lot of lesson planning, writing, facebook-checking and laundry and not a lot of snapping.

anyway, this weekend, it was finally warm enough to enjoy doing things outside again, so i returned to beomeosa (boh-MOH-sa) with rita and was led around the temple by a delightful volunteer named cho. it was the anniversary of a buddha’s death, and there were lots of people at the temples, chanting and handing out fruit and burning incense and other temply things. some nuns with their heads shaved gave rita some flowers to make tea with. they were cracking themselves up as one of them shoved a palm full of flowers under rita’s nose. zen antics? it’s hard to say.

beomeosa’s water fountain is a mountain creek that they pipe into this concrete box and drink with gourds.

all the monks were decked out in their fancy gear for the buddha’s memorial.

and there were spring colors!

afterward, rita and i went to shinsegae, where we found a bathtub full of pink bubbles and a big whisk.

then we hung out while jeff got a new tattoo before eating delicious jimdak with kyung jin.