Teachers’ day hike

Teacher's day Carnation

What is Teachers’ day?

Today was Teachers’ day! School finished early, and students showed their appreciation for their Teachers hard-work and diligence with letters, gifts and carnations. It is celebrated in South Korea every year on the 15 May, just after King Sejong the Great’s birthday. I had never heard about or experienced Teachers’ day before because it is not something that is celebrated in the United Kingdom.

Teacher’s day carnation

Our Teachers’ day hike:

My school arranged for all of the Teachers to go hiking together in the afternoon. It is usual for Korean schools to arrange outings, meals, and events for their Teachers to attend during, and after school.

I hiked up Bulam mountain 불암산 with the Teachers from my school. Bulam Mountain is the in North East Seoul, near Guri (by my school). This mountain has a distinctive pyramid shape. Consequently, it was a pretty steep hike.

Bulam mountain is also called Buddha-rock mountain, this is due to it being named after it’s naturally occurring Buddha-like rock face. What do you think?

Can you see Buddha in the rock?

During our hike, we visited two temples on Bulsam mountain, the Buddha-Rock Temple (Bulam-sa) and the Heavenly Treasure Temple (East Cheonbo-sa).

My COTs (co-teachers) explained that the brightly coloured lanterns hanging at the temple were for Buddha’s birthday celebration. Buddha’s birthday is known as the festival of lanterns. People write wishes on small paper tags and hang them from the bottom of the lanterns. Between midnight and sunrise, monks from the temple go to collect all the lanterns, and then they burn all the wish tags. Why do the monks burn the wish tags? I’m really not sure, perhaps it’s to keep the wishes a secret.

Can you see the wish tags?

Jenny told me that these statues at Buddha rock temple, represented all of the animals in the Chinese horoscope.

Then she showed me my sign from the Chinese Horoscope, the horse. I have far more of an awareness of western astrology, than I do of Chinese astrology. Honestly, I was not sure how I felt about being a horse, because I didn’t really know what that meant. Later, I searched for some more information and came across the following:

THE EARTH HORSE

Earth Horses are able to see situations from all angles and corners. They are relatively easygoing, preferring to determine each pro and con, before making a final decision. Earth Horses work hard to accomplish goals they have set, and would rather take longer to do an outstanding job than work shorter and shave a little quality. They have a great sense of humor, and are extremely adaptable in most instances.

HORSES MAKE EXCELLENT:

Language teachers (interesting)
Translators
Journalists
Publicists
Bartenders, (which is something I’ve done previously).
Pilots
Performers
Librarians
Sales Representatives
Information Technologists
Tour operators

From Buddha rock temple (Bulam-sa) we walked up a very steep, windy pathway/stairway towards the east Cheonbo-sa (Heavenly Treasure) temple. This temple is on the high east-facing cliff-side of Cheonbo-san .

At east Cheonbo-sa’s there were some wall carvings to exemplify and honour key deities.