Hoamsa (호암사) Write-Up
As mentioned in my previous entry, I encountered a few tumuli during my trip to Hoamsa last week. While walking up the paved road to the temple I came across a pair of boys playing in the adjacent stream, one of whom was eager to greet me in English, point out that he had lost one of his sandals, and say that I wasn't that far away from the temple. Having missed it my last time up I thought maybe it was at the end of a forest trail -- it is a retreat from the secular world, after all. Turns out I was wrong, but after meandering through the undergrowth a bit I did stumble upon a pair of meadows and their associated burial sites.
I continued further down the trail until it diverged into four paths. However, the last thing I needed was to get lost in the woods at night; with that thought in mind a return to the paved road seemed the better choice. Going up even further I finally reached 호암사. I'd been about 50m away from the entrance on my last journey, but missed the temple on account of it being at the end of a cutback and concealed by vegetation and a low wall.
I saw the aforementioned rooster and later a solitary monk reciting evening prayers. One of my biggest worries is coming across as a rude tourist, so I refrained from taking any pictures until he was finished and had closed off the upper story of the temple. At that point the light was quickly fading but I did snap a couple of photos before I left. 호암사 is a smaller temple site with a three-tiered pagoda located to the front and an impressive gold (?) Buddha statue situated on a rock overhang to the north. Pagodas in Korea are built with an odd number of tiers and the number three (三) 'embodies completeness, represents the three powers and is considered auspicious.' [1] There were also several small Buddha figures scattered around the courtyard; they came in a variety of styles and at least one of them was a transplant from the island of Jeju-do.
Unfortunately I don't know anything about the history of 호암사 apart from the fact that it's a temple of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism (대한불교 조계종) Browsing through Korean pages turned up this picture of the interior from last year. There appears to be another 호암사 in Goseong-gun (고성군), Gangwon-do (a province on the east coast of Korea) that doesn't exactly help when doing research on the subject. The trip did offer a rather pretty night view of Uijeongbu, although my camera doesn't do it justice. And on top of that there's also the spooky trip through the below-ground tunnel to get your heart pumping -- although in my case a lot of that came from the lights only coming on when I was already in the tunnel. After that experience I will probably no longer sweat it if a street lamp goes out as I'm walking underneath. If you want to check out more pictures from my trip the album is located here.
* Quote from Korean Temple Motifs: Beautiful Symbols of the Buddhist Faith by Heo Gyun (Timothy V. Atkinson, trans.)