Jangan-Sa (Jangan Temple) Saturday 23rd

On Saturday we went to the very touristy Jangan-Sa. In contrast to Moonsoo-Sa the previous weekend, there was no mountain to climb up (though you could climb the one behind the temple if you felt adventurous), there was a huge parking lot, and lots of souvenirs available for purchase! There were people actually worshiping here too, and real monks chanting (which was piped out amongst the grounds). Our friend Doug came with us, too. (God, I really hope he reads this someday, haha!)

I tried to take a picture of the entire temple and failed, it was just too large, so here's some bits and pieces.

First, some temple history (Thank you multi-lingual tourist sign!):

This is the main building of Jangansa temple. The temple is said to have been founded by the great priest Wonhyo in 673, originally called Ssanggyesa, but renamed Jangansa after King Chungjang of Goryeo kingdom visited this temple. It was burnt down in 1592 by the Japanese and rebuilt in 1638, by the great priest Tae-ui. Daeungjeon was rebuilt in 1654 by three priests. Each side of the building has three bays with a tiled roof, a double eaves and a multi-cluster bracket structure. The building was recolored in 1975. It is a high and solid structure manifesting a majestic appearance as the main shrine of this temple.

Here's some folks taking a drink of the cool stream water. It looked really good, and I don't think you had to be "baptized" to take part. However, unlike the Blood of Christ, there is no alcohol in this water to sanitize the germs, so we didn't take part. (Happy Buddha!! I love him, he's so cute!)

This is a sneaky photo of the monks(!) chanting. I didn't know if it was respectful or appropriate, but I had too, they're just so cool!! No one glared. So either no one saw or no one cared. I didn't want to find out. :D

Blinging. (I can only hope that this is all real gold, cause that would be so super sweet)

We went on a walk behind the temple. Beyond this are hard core hiking trails, we stuck to the formal paths through the bamboo forest this time.

And when we were leaving, Shannon told me to take this picture. Good thing he did, it turned out great!

We were going to buy some souvenirs, but the ones we fell in love with were more money then we had on us, and they didn't take credit cards. We'll have to go back I guess. Oh darn!