Buddha's Birthday Eve

Tomorrow is Buddha's Birthday.  So I guess that makes today Buddha's Birthday's Eve, right?  Whatever you want to call today, just know one important detail: We do not have school!  Yeah!

What does one do on a day off of school in May?  Hang out with friends, of course!  My lovely friend from Busan came to visit me!  Yeah for friends!  I am a math nerd...so let me show you why I love this friend a lot:

A=young, B=Christian, C=married, D=American,E=girl

This is a symmetrical 5 set Venn diagram (thanks to wikipedia).  My friend from Busan fits in the middle.  She is ABCDE or a young, married, American wife who has the same job as me!


We had quite the adventure!  I took my dear friend on a tour of Daegu...she saw the wonderful subway and bus systems, we had a picnic, and even a quaint walk in the country all on the way to our destination (a.k.a we got really, really, really lost)  Reason #47,236 that I love living in Korea: Koreans are really helpful.  At one point in time, we stopped at a GS25 to ask for directions.  The guy there was really helpful!  He showed us on his phone where to go.  So we set off following his directions...after 10 or 15 minutes of walking, we noticed a guy in a car, stopping near us and talking to us.  It was the GS 25 man!  He gave us a ride all the way to the temple!  I love it when Koreans take pity on foreigners.

So pretty!

Once we finally found it, we had a great time exploring Donghwasa Temple.  If you live in Daegu, you should definitely go visit it!  Do not ask me for directions, because I will get you completely lost. 

I think each lantern represents a prayer to Buddha?

According to some website (that I can not refind at the present moment...) this is the largest Buddha in all of Asia.  They are still constructing part of it, so we did not get to see the complete Buddha, but close enough.

I like big Buddhas and I can not lie

We also saw some preparations for Buddha's Birthday:

I may have edited this a bit on picnic...

 They had these pretty paper rhombicuboctahedron.  I want one for my math class someday.  They were really big, like bigger than my head!


After we enjoyed our self given tour of Donghwasa and big Buddha, we headed back into the city.  I would like to proudly state that we did not get lost on our way back.  Yeah for learning through experience!

Once my friend was headed to back to her happy home in Busan, my amazing husband came up with a great idea for dinner!  Presenting: Use everything you have on hand to make something yummy!  We had in our refrigerator: one avocado (I splurged and spent 3.60 US dollars on an avocado), a bunch of lettuce, cheese, chicken, and some sweet and sour sauce.  It was delicious!  I have been craving avocado for a couple of months, so I really tried to savor it!

All in all, it was a great Buddha's Birthday Eve.  The joke from my amazing husband (that you may have seen if you have facebook). Why can't buddhitst vacuum in corners?  They don't have any attachments.