Monday, 7 April 2014

Week 6: Volunteer at Naksan Tower

On April 5, 2014 to April 6, 2014, also known as 식목일, I went to Naksan Temple to help prune and discard burnt trees with a student body organization called Korea University Social Service Organization (KUSSO). Although I do not have much information about Naksan Temple, I was informed that the trees around the mountain are prone to forest fire due to the dry and hot weather. As a result many trees had died so we had to help replant and prune the remaining trees to preserve the natural scenery of the temple.





In the beginning, I was a little nervous due to the language barrier but my group gave me a lot of support and we had a lot of fun throughout the weekend. Before departure, the crowd of approximately 100 students were separated into different groups for recreational activities and efficient management purposes. It took us 2-3 hours to arrive at the temple by bus. However, it was because of the long commute, I got the chance to meet many friendly Korean students in KUSSO who are very passionate and motivated. On the first day, because of the unfortunate rainy weather, we couldn’t get any work done. So we stayed inside a nearby accommodation for the day and carried out many recreational activities to get to know each other. My group completed assigned missions, such as taking a group picture with a certain pose and making a dance video. We also had some friendly competition between the groups. 


Although this is not a typical activity a tourist would do, it was an amazing experience and I would recommend anyone to visit Naksan temple just for the beautiful and natural scenery. 

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