A few years ago I decided to embark on two crazy errands. The first was to write a novel set in South Korea without any non-Korean characters whatsoever (Funereal, a book which turned out to be the first of its kind). The second was to leave my home in the UK to live in and travel around South Korea as research for my fiction. Otherwise, as a young author, I really would have been more arrogant and stupid to take up the project than I already was in the first place.

My home of choice was Seoul, as that’s where my novel is set, but soon enough I wished I’d lived elsewhere in the country, free of the hubbub that defined both the capital city and my writing. In order to escape this daily turmoil, I often found myself seeking out places of tranquillity amidst the chaos, and it didn’t take too long to become fascinated by the many temples you can find in Korea, immersed in their own little pockets of calm. Case in point, the amazing Wawoojeongsa.