A Visit to a Korean Shrine

Today, the same elder who took us out to see the dam, took us to another great place...
This is called Suwoongyo Cheondan or (Shrine). It's not very old, but it is traditional, authentic Korean design and construction. It was constructed in 1923, and it a symbolic building established by Choe Je-u, the founder of Donghak (religion), for the worship of heaven. This was a little information board with English and Korean writing, so we knew what we were going to see. :)

It was raining really hard and the skies were pretty dark, so the pictures are pretty dark. We were walking around with umbrellas, and there was thunder and lighting all around. I thought it was pretty exciting, and didn't mind getting wet. But some others weren't so happy about the rain or the lightning. One bolt flashed not too far behind us as we were leaving. We saw the lightning and immediately heard the thunder. It was right there!

Anyway...here are the pictures! :)
(If you click on the photos, you can get a bigger view and see more of the details.)


These little figures sit on the tops of the buildings. They are supposed to give protection from fire. So if you don't want your house to catch on fire, go buy some little monkey figurines and perch them on your roof! :) This building is the entrance gate to the area. This view is from the inside of the gate.
This is also the inside of the gate. That is Peyton and me standing there.
This is the underneath of the entrance, looking up. There is alot of writing and amazing amounts of artwork and carving. It was really beautiful. Oh, I just noticed, that green is the same color as all of our furniture. hmmm.
This is the view of the gate from the outside. Those paintings in the center are actually two traditional 'solder'-type men.
Once you get in the gate, this is the view. This building is still used for people who come to worship. Apparently there are all different kinds of idols inside and people go in and worship them. We didn't go in, so I don't know what it looked like. This building also had amazing artwork-carvings, paintings and other stuff. It also had the little figurines sitting on the rooflines to protect from fire. Not that there was any chance of that in the downpour today.

Looking out and away from the buildings. Some of the scenery around the area. It was absolutely beautiful-even in the rain! Especially after being in the city all the time!
Here we are with the temple building behind us.
An up-close shot of some of the artwork around the building. Ok, so they are dragons and that's a little creepy, but I was so excited about seeing something in real-life that I had only ever seen in photos and documentaries.