Shinae and Lantern City

Yesterday Lindie and I went to Shinae to try and find some warm, winter clothes.  Shinae is a huge shopping center, like strip mall paradise, and we thought for sure we would find something there because they have EVERYTHING there!  Here are a few pictures of how it looks.

Ready to shop??

This is how a lot of it looks.  It's all outside but most of it is covered like this.

This was the first shop we went into.  They had a magical hoodie (in blue AND red!) Isn't it amazing?!  We didn't get them though.  But look who came to hang out with us!  Sun :-)  We met him there and told him that we needed burgers.  Stat.  And then he showed us the good places to go shopping and got Lindie some good deals on her clothes. :-)

Awesome hat, right?  Sadly, it didn't come home with me.

It was an awesome hat theme day.  This was also was left behind.  (it was a Converse hat though, so pretty cool)

This one was on a cart on the street, and it was lucky enough to find a home with Lindie Grace. 

After we finished shopping Sun took us to a "play room" which is like a singing room but you can also play Wii, computer games, and watch TV or movies. 

First we stared by singing, because that was just the right thing to do.  We sang some English songs and Sun sang some Korean songs.  He tried to pick songs that had English in them as well so that we could "sing along."  Like this!

 This is a really popular song with my students.  Good times.  :-)

Peace in the playroom.

20's gangster peace in the play room.

I think we're going to go on the road.  Our talent is debilitating.  Really.

After singing (this one had a lot of new songs from back home on it as well, so we sang all the lovely and obnoxious hits from back home, Telephone, Airplanes, I'm On A Boat, things like that) we decided it was time to play Wii.  We played a boxing game for a while, and then Wii Sports where we played. . .boxing.

Me vs Sun

And we took it really seriously.  :-)

I don't remember exactly how long we were in there, but it was light outside when we went in and getting dark out when we went out.  We stayed there a little longer and then decided to head home and Sun was sweet enough to take us in his car!  (really, quite a rare treat.  A car ride! :-)

On the way home he showed us some key sights that we needed to check out sometime and Lindie pointed out a building that she drove by everyday that was covered in lanterns and asked Sun about it, who said that it was a Buddhist Temple. It was absolutely gorgeous!  The grounds were covered in covered lanterns and Sun pulled the car over and we went exploring.

This was the sidewalk leading up to the temple.

The view from the street.  Beautiful, right??

On the way.

Sun and Lindie.  Sun said that all of these lanterns had wishes or prayers written on them.  And by the look of them, they all had SEVERAL written on them and there were A LOT of them here!

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Technically, this is the arrival pic, but we didn't plan this.  And it was ironic because we had just finished telling Sun that we always end up having more fun when we don't plan things and just go, and then we pulled over and found something new.  Awesome.

Lots of wishes.

Lots and lots and lots. 

I hate that you can't see the buildings so well, but you'll  just have to use your imagination.  The building on the left is the main temple and the smaller one on the right was open and had a huge drum and a huge gong in it.

Wishes everywhere!

The building itself was beautiful and very elaborate.  The ceilings were all painted with stories and dragons and different scenes from nature.  As you can see here, even though it's not an amazing picture, the color and detail in the building was extraordinary.

One of the ceilings on the first level porch. 

The walls inside of the temple were also beautiful and we asked if we could go in just to see what was inside and someone by the door suggested that we go "say hello" to Buddha which was, of course, to bow and pray.  We decided to forgo the bowing and just go and see and take pictures on the higher levels.  I think it's worth posting though, on the third floor was the actual worship center, which was silent except for a few people praying and meditating.  The room was set off by glass doors but was, itself, as big as maybe two high school gyms, with wooden floors and red pads scattered around for people to sit on, or bow on, as the case may be.  Buddha was in front on a pedestal and very well lit.  The whole scene seemed completely surreal for some reason, like something right out of a movie, and was for some reason a very strange thing to witness.  The people standing out in in the "lobby" smiled at us, but fortunately didn't pressure us to go in or really pay much attention to us at all.  So, we walked by and onto the porch on the higher level to take more pictures.

Really a very cool experience.  I'm glad that Sun was with us to explain everything.  He said that he had never been there either, so it was a cool thing to explore together.

And that was our Saturday :-)  Good times!  Then it was time for an early bed time :-)  Lovely day