Laura at the Monastery

A few weeks ago some people from church and I went on a journey. A very long journey which involved me leaving home on Friday morning, and only finally getting to my house on Sunday afternoon. Yikes! That sounds more dramatic than it actually was -- to be honest, the journey really only happened on Saturday. But, I digress... the most important point in all of this drivel is that we went far outside the city, where fresh air still exists in Korea, and visited a beautiful orthodox monastery. It was amazing.

After spending the evening in a neighbouring city, Incheon with my friend Stephanie because it was much closer to the bus station than my house, we (Stephanie and I) woke up early Saturday morning, met her student Jason and then headed for the bus station where we met the other people who were going with us. After a few hours on the bus, and quite some time in a taxi we still had a little bit of a hike ahead of us, but its been so long since I've seen nature here in Seoul, that I was more than up for the change of pace.

Did you know that they have dirt roads in Korea? And forests!?

Beautiful!

Stephanie and Jason

Constantin and other boys.

Once we got there the monastery was absolutely beautiful. All trees and flowers and green-ness and nature... can you tell what I've been missing during my time in the city?



The monastery is home to the Orthodox Bishop of Korea, Ambrosios, as well as a few nuns. There was a little bit of a party going on there that day and so they had a huge tent set up outside that was filled with people and food. I was mostly just happy to breathe the fresh air and see not-city for a while.

And then, as if we hadn't already availed of a wide enough variety of transportation to get to the monastery in the first place -- subway, walking, taxi, bus -- we finally got the train back home. What a day!