Back to Haeinsa...

The biggest draw at Haeinsa is the collection of more than 80 thousand ancient wood printing blocks. These blocks are regarded as one of the oldest and most complete sets of ancient Buddhist teachings in the world. Their kinda like the Dead Sea Scrolls of Buddhism (see picture above). It took those dedicated monks 16 years to carve these things by hand. Not one block has any grammar, sloppy writing, or spelling errors (coming from such a bad speller, I really can't get over it).

I was in awe at the sight of the library of these 70 X 22 cm wooden blocks.

This wasn't the kicker... the most amazing thing was the unpainted, wood buildings that these bad boys are located in. The buildings were built hundreds and hundreds of years ago, but were solely designed to preserve the condition of the blocky-blocks from humidity and extreme temperatures using completely natural means. The buildings were built over beds of clay, powdered lime, and charcoal and have different sized lattice windows so the wind naturally controls ventilation.

Everyone is so paranoid that these dry wooden buildings will burn to the ground, that there is literally a fire extinguisher like every 10 feet (check the pics for proof)!

The monks claim that the buildings are so sacred that they have never found a spider web or birds nest in the buildings... I think the crazy self-ventilation might have something to do with it!