Tracy’s Travel Adventure: Korea!! (Seoul, Vipassana at Dhamma Korea and Busan)

Read time: 10 minutes

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Hello Readers,

Firstly, thank you so much for sticking with me. Now that I check, I realize I haven’t posted in over a month, but now I’m taking a few days off from being at meditation centres and am taking a “vacation from my vacation”. Funny concept no? I must say it’s quite nice!

This post is being written from a lovely hostel in Ho Chi Minh city in the South of Vietnam. Highly recommend it if you want to have the comfort of a boutique hotel (hello rain showers!) and a place where the social atmosphere is relaxed, fun and inviting. Name? Aloha Saigon Hostel is in the less touristy area of district #3. Super safe, quiet and prices around here are aimed at locals. Also, I decided to get private room so it would be easier for me to do some work. More will come about this hostel in a …wait for it…Youtube video!

…What?

Yup! Things kind of just happened and we’ll be doing some filming later today. Not sure how it’s going to go, but I’m pretty excited about it. This hostel is just so amazing and the owner cares so much about the guests that I would love others to experience this hospitality. If you make it to Ho Chi Minh before the video is released, you can book the hostel here at Booking.com

Now…to Korea!

KOREA! (August 21-Sept 17th)

The main reason I wanted to come to Korea was actually because I was looking for vipassana meditation centres in countries I was interested in visiting. (For those who don’t know, I’ve become a huge vipassana nerd as this meditation completely changed my life. You can read about it here if you’re interested.) Anyway, I absolutely love Korean food for it’s abundance of delicious side dishes and I’d heard wonderful things about the Korea vipassana centre so I booked a flight there.

I landed in Incheon Airport near Seoul and stayed at another wonderful, cozy non-party hostel. I definitely keep lucking out in hostels because HiThere Guesthouse in Hongdae was a complete gem. Travel adaptors at bedside (thanks because somehow mine went missing), delicious free breakfast and SUPER quiet with great staff. Not many pictures of the guesthouse, but I met some fun people and we explored together. The joys of being in a hostel is that you can meet others so, even if you didn’t do any research before arriving *coughmecough*, you can join up with others and enjoy the adventure.

After a couple quick nights in Seoul, I travelled South to Jeonju where I was to stay for one night before heading to Jinan where Dhamma Korea is located. I went by express bus (~$20 CAD) and wow do Koreans ever know how to travel! These buses are like the best VIP movie theatre seats. It wasn’t too difficult to get to my hostel in Jeonju. Just a quick local bus and BOOM! Another incredibly friendly family-run hostel. Nearest Guesthouse is owned by Mr. Lim who makes every guest feel like his long lost grandchild. I love hostels which make you feel like you’re home.

Dhamma Korea – Children’s Course!

I was really excited to come to Dhamma Korea because not only was I accepted to help in the 10-day course, I was also going to help out in the children’s course! Imagine…8-14 year old children learning to meditate. If I had learned meditation from a young age, I would’ve been able to better handle the stresses of life and decrease my chance of getting anxiety/depression later in life. That said though…I also might not have worked so hard in vipassana had I not gone through those hardships. Toss up. Either way, I was super excited for these kids and also for myself.

Although I didn’t speak Korean, it seemed to all work out. I thought my work as a server in children’s course would be in the kitchen, but turns out they needed help in the meditation hall. It was really fun work. We’d encourage the children to practice and brought them to the bathroom and such. Seeing the kids work so hard was really inspiring. Hard to stay calm when they were so cute!

If anyone is interested in meditation or bringing their children or teenagers, you can find a centre near you on the dhamma.org website. It’s completely free and at the end, you’re welcome to donate, but it’s not mandatory. In the vipassana centres, everything is paid for by donations of past students and all the workers/teachers are volunteers so the funds go directly to food and upkeep of facilities.

Dhamma Korea – Work Period

As donations go directly to maintain the centre and courses, each centre needs a lot of help from former students in order to keep running. The time between the course is when a lot of the work occurs and we spend our time organizing the rooms/beds and setting up the meditation hall. Sometimes there’s also chances to work on the construction projects. I really love the work periods because I get to meet super friendly people and learn the local recipes! If you’re interested in cooking Korean food, check out the end of this post for ingredients needed for a “Korean cupboard”.

Dhamma Korea – 10 Day Course

I LOVE being a volunteer at these courses! Not only do I get to talk with other meditators, but I also get to meditate several times a day and help in the kitchen. There really is such a joy that happens when being in such a supportive environment and knowing you’re supporting others learn meditation. Everyone has a similar mindset and wants to ensure the students are well taken care of. Not just that, but I learn a lot in how to be a better person from the old students. When mistakes happen – something spills or we forget to cook rice (yes, this did happen once), we end up laughing and everyone jumps in to help one another. This really helps me rewire my brain in learning that mistakes happening really aren’t a big deal. Not just that, but if someone is tired or is upset and needs to meditate, we work together to help cover that person so they can get some rest. Ahh…I just love it. There’s not many photos from the course because we’re not allowed our cellphones, but these were taken by one of the locals who pops in regularly to help out – thanks Sehwang!

After the course, Sehwang invited us to his house and then we went out for coffee and lunch

What can I say? We had a SUPER stellar team. The balance at Dhamma Korea between work and rest was so good that I still had energy at the end and decided to stay for the work period and part of the next course.

Remember when I said earlier that when mistakes happen people here are super cool about it? Well, I was taking something out of the fridge and yogurt spilled all over me and on the floor. Immediately, someone helped me hose off and others helped to clean the floor. The best part of it was one of the guys held the half-spilled pot in his hands and said “Look! I saved half the yogurt!” while another said “I think this is enough to make more yogurt!”. I couldn’t stop laughing…they were making a joke referencing one of the discourses. Thank you Dhamma boys!

Leaving the Centre – Train to Busan

Train to Busan…get it? Okay. Joke is bad. I blame my Dad. Bad Dad bad Dad…so sad. Alright I’m done I’m done. Anyway, we could’ve taken a bus straight from Jeonju to Busan, but I wanted to take a train to Busan like the movie. Never mind that it was double the price, but I couldn’t resist how punny that is. Awesome movie by the way. Thought it was just a zombie movie, but Korean storey-telling really does top the charts and hit the heartstrings.

Why Busan? Well I was flying out of Busan to Vietnam and Yuhyun kindly invited me to stay with her and her mother! And of course her cat, Chamchi.

Living with Chamchi I learned the world “pul” pretty quickly. He’s a bit of an old man at 15 years old, but when you say the word “pul” he perks up and saunters over. “Pul” means grass.

Summary:

To be honest, I was a little nervous about going to Korea because I’d heard it was superficial, but let me tell you that I had nothing short of an incredible experience. Thank you to all those in Korea who showed me around and made Korea seem like a second home to me. And thanks for making it so hard to leave…hopefully see you next year?

With love,

Tracy

ps: It was kind of cold on the plane out of Busan to Ho Chi Minh. When my mom visited me in Spain last year, I laughed when she brought an emergency blanket with her.

…Turns out that it was actually kind of useful.

It’s super light and actually not a bad thing to carry. It even doubled as a rain cover when out on a recent tour so yes, it’s staying with me. If you’d like, you can pick one up here.

Ingredients for the Korean Cupboard:

The “how to use it” section is how I saw Koreans use it at Dhamma Korea and with these ingredients, you have the base for tons of Korean recipes. Click on the ingredient for links to buy it.

Ingredient	What is it? How to use it?
Gochujang	Korean chili paste – can be used in stir-fried vegetables, to make salad dressings and added to soups
Gochugaru	Korean chili powder – add to salad dressings, soups, side dishes
Doenjang	Korean soybean paste – good for salad dressings and soups
Soy Sauce	Korean soy sauce – soups, salad dressings, stir fry, etc. (couldn’t find on Amazon so can’t link it, but hit up your local Korean grocery store or use another soy sauce)
Sesame Seed Oil	Salad dressings, soups, side dishes (the one I linked is a common brand I saw at Dhamma Korea, but unfortunately super expensive on amazon. Just go find some toasted sesame oil)