Today, May 15th, is Buddha's Birthday. It's a big holiday in Korea, more important and more traditionally ingrained in Korean culture than Christmas. This is a scene from a temple called Doseonsa, on the eastern slope of Bukhansan, practically at the bottom of the mountain. When we finishd our hike, we decided to visit the temple and see all the beautiufl lanterns hung there. We witnessed a strange site: right in front of the temple where people were piously praying, a stage was set up; a loud and lewd MC made people laugh with jokes that seemed to be rather obscene, judging from his body langauge. This scene attested to the true nature of Korea, a country that is at the same time deeply spiritual, disturbingly materialistic, and intrinsically shamanistic. "Such earthy people," Clare seems to sum it up the best.