The DMZ : Korean Demilitarized Zone

Believe it or not the DMZ is a major tourist attraction! everyone wants to take a peek in to North Korea! 

In theory North and South Korea are still in cold war as no peace treaty was signed! 

One of the main attractions is to go down one of the tunnels dig by North Korea. Of course they say they didn´t do it.... but guess what! now that South Korea is making money with the tourists visiting the tunnel, North Korea wants a share as well!!! :P incredible! 

This was the best shot we could take of North Korea :P you can only take a picture behind a yellow line very well policed! 

Although the relations between North and South Korean are not the best, South Korea has a train station in the DMZ that goes directly to Pyongyang! It is quite a modern station kept crystal clean and ready for the moment when the DMZ will not be needed anylonger,

Due to this tense relation between the two Korea's, men in South Korea have to do two years in the military service. Serving in the DMZ goes from patrolling the DMZ area.... to.... taking pictures with Chinese tourists! :P 

The Cat cafe in Seoul, Attention: Cute overload!

While in Seoul we heard about these Cat cafes in which you just buy a drink and you get to play with all the cats they have there! we had to check it out!!!

Since this Cat cafe is in the last floor of a building, they had to publicize it well, 

Couldn´t resist to take a picture to the sticker that Garfield had in his back :P Not the best translation for what they meant! :P

The Cat cafe rules: 

With drawings :)

And finally the pictures of the super cute cats they have!!!

As a plus you get your drinks with little cat faces :)

The top attraction was the fur-less cat,

Hard life!!!

Our Temple stay at Myogaksa in Seoul

If you go to South Korea one of the things that you MUST do is a Temple Stay :)

The temple stay is a program that allows people to stay in a temple for two days and 1 night to experience the life of a Buddhist monk and the Korean Buddhist habits.

We booked our stay at the Temple Stay information office in Seoul. This temple stay was with out any doubt a highlight in our trip to South Korea! We had the chance to get a better understanding about the Buddhist religion as well as experience all the rituals that compose one day in the life of a monk!

The first step when entering the program is to wear the Buddhist clothes, 

We had a name tag with our names spelled in Korean :)

Everyone getting ready for the first session,

After learning about the Buddhist practices we had the chance to do the ringing of the bell ceremony, 

After we headed to the temple to sing,

The celling is full of lotus flowers,

After the singing we had to finish our 108 bead prayer necklace

The time arrived for dinner!! the food was just amazing!!!

During dinner you are not supposed to talk, you just need to enjoy your meal and eat everything, most of all avoiding to waste food!

From the temple´s high ground we have an amazing view of Seoul,

Next step was to learn how to meditated! since the next morning before breakfast at 6am we would have 1 hour of meditation

After it was time to get some sleep as tomorrow we woke up at 5.30am!

Rise and shine!!! time to prepare for the meditation! one the beginning it was quite difficult to keep completely still for 1 hour! but it is quite nice, to try to empty our mind,

Next we went for a walk and meditation!

Time for the breakfast, which was as amazing as the dinner!!!

yummy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The last event we had was the tea ceremony! Antonio was the tea master :) in our group!

The first step is to clean the tea set with hot water,

After you start preparing the tea,

Our temple stay in Myogaksa was amazing! just a nice experience to get a better understanding about the Buddish religion and practices!