It was great. The monks basically left me alone, I had a small private room with no television or radio, there were common areas where people would quietly talk, I just sat around enjoying calm and quiet. Eventually one of the monks got brave enough to come over and ask me what was up haha which was also great because I had a very interesting conversation with him about life in general and then he suggested I talk to the Friar that was the director of the guest part of the archabbey which I did and had an interesting few hour conversation about ancient Greek, Latin, early Catholic church popes, art. It was great.
I think people really need to experience stuff like this be it the way I did it, the way the article has it or just going to a 'quiet retreat' or some such.
Our lives are over-saturated with things screaming for our attention.
Edit: Most Koreans would think of monasteries as a Western/Christian thing. Culturally, modern South Korea is much closer to the West than to India or even China.
Anyhow, when I made the comment, I was thinking of the last line of the parent post "even in the West as a modern alternative to a monastery". To me, an alternative to monasteries seems redundant when you can go to a monastery.
A majority (56%) of South Koreans have no religion. Among the remainder, there are more Christians (19% Protestant + 8% Catholic) than Buddhists (15%). Unlike in Japan, Buddhism hasn't been a dominant force in the Korean society for a long time -- not since neo-Confucianism replaced it as the state ideology in the early 15th century.
Some Buddhist ideas and habits remain in the culture, of course, but most people regard them as part of their national tradition, not Buddhist in particular. The younger generations think of Buddhism more as a subject of history books than as something that might be relevant to the 21st century.
So a Buddhist monastery is not exactly the first thing that the average person would think of when they want to get away from the stresses of life in Seoul. Some temples run "temple stay" programs for short-term visitors, and some people seem to like it, but that's about it. It's just another niche. Not every Asian country is deeply Buddhist!
Meanwhile, anything that is vaguely related to America or Europe is grouped as "Western" in Korean parlance ;)
China and Japan had monastic traditions for more than 2000 years. Also Buddhist monasticism predates christian monasticism by centuries.
Where on Earth are you getting that idea? Are you forgetting about India?
