Back from the Brink

A mixture of a couple of very busy weeks and the need for a break have created quite the blipgap in my journal.
We are back in Gwangju now, a city in southwestern Korea. We finally have a roof over our heads as well as those all important but pesky jobs, so hopefully something resembling a routine is about to emerge.

I'm working a split shift teaching English to adults, a few hours early in the morning then a few more early in the evening. It's a totally alien concept to me (especially having to crawl out of bed early) but I'm hoping that having my days free will give more time to explore the city and the mountains - and hopefully get some decent blipping done in the process.
So far however I have been using my free time in the day to simply pass out on the sofa. Fingers crossed my body clock will adjust over time and I can get out and about more often.

Today we visited Lucy's Aunt, Sook-Ja, in Hwasun - a small mountain-filled town thirty minutes outside of Gwangju. It was the first time I'd met her and it was a great experience. She was happy and friendly, as well as being a devout Buddhist, so I was able to ask plenty of questions on the subject, one which interests me greatly.

Above are a set of one thousand prayer beads Ithat were sat in a basket in her house. When I asked about them she told us they are a way of atoning for the sinns of speech. Buddhists believe that over the course of each and every day we commit many thousands of sins simply through the act of speech. A lot of these sins are deliberate and obvious, but many others happen subconsciously.
To repent, a specific chant is repeated over and over as each bead is run between the thumb and forefinger.
The small bag in the picture contains a smaller set of 108 beads, whereby the thousand beads are the more serious ones. I guess perhaps you self regulate yourself, choosing the bigger beads if you feel you've commited bigger sins of speech.

Sook-Ja is a member of a beautiful Buddhist temple way up in the mountains, it even has a small school and a few child monks. Hopefully we can get there one weekend for some spirituality, hiking - and that all important blip!