From Here to There: A Visit to Sujongsa

When my sister and mother visited Korea for ten days in January, we visited a lot of great places. Sujongsa was perhaps my favorite destination. I found it on CNN Go's list of 33 Beautiful Temples. The temple is quite accessible from Seoul; we took the KTX to Ungilsan station and followed the signs to Sujongsa (수종사).

The road to the temple was quite simple. In fact, you could take a care up. But we hiked of course.

The temple had many of the trappings of Buddhist temples in Korea. Same color scheme, same design, but the atmosphere at Sujongsa is unique. Overlooking Gyeonggi-do and the Bukhan River, it was hard not to feel reverent once we reached our destination.

The view (much better in real life)

Sujongsa's tea ceremony was something unique that I've never experienced in Korea. We entered a warm room where we were explained the steps for properly preparing green tea. This included warming up the brewing pot initially, seeping the tea leaves for about a minute, pouring the brewed tea in our pre-warmed cups, and then repeating the process. We used the same tea leaves for three rounds of tea. Secondary brews only seeped the tea leaves for thirty seconds. The tea's flavor was minimal, but the entire experience quite memorable. Especially since I was sharing it with my family.