Templing about

It is truly amazing the rich culture Korea has to offer. This weekend we decided to jump on a bus with our friends Heather and Glen, and head to Haenam to check out a Buddhist temple called Duryunsan. With 2 weeks to go, this was probably our last outing before we head home. I originally was hoping to use this weekend to visit the historic gem; The Gyeongju area. Problem was, it was a 5 hour bus ride away, and with 2 weeks left, we aren't up for that long a barf ride.

We reached the Duryunsan area after 2 bus rides and 1.5 hours. The streets to Duryunsan were lined with cherry blossoms in full bloom, and the weather was great. We arrived at the Temple after walking 30 minutes past some totems and a grave site of "Stupas". The site was amazingly uncrowded!

We toured the site, that seemed to be abuzz with construction (with timber, granite, cranes and a little monk firetruck!).

Pushing on, we made our way up the mountain's rocky, bouldery trail, haphazardly choosing the opposite direction the girls wanted to go at each fork. Lucky for the men, the monks were smart enough to build this particular temple at the point where ALL the trails eventually converged. Our only real issue was the pack of nursing dogs living at the Temple, but the resident Monk soon yelled them into silence. Each Monk we saw had this amazing calm to them... the kind that puts you at ease as soon as you see them.

Like it happens in Korea, we made our way up to a pagota sitting right at the tip of a cliff. As we walked by the pagota, a clearing opened up and there we were beside a small one person temple looking out on the entire valley. Breathtaking.

On our way back, we stumbled across another temple, still under construction, that was built to protect an 4.2 meter tall Budda figure that had been carved into the rock face. The carving was so amazing, none of us dared go into the room (which is good because we probably weren't supposed to be in there)... but all you could think about was, how did we not know about this, and why were we the only people there?
We made our way down the mountain and found our way into a steak barbecue restaurant for some well earned Calbi for $2.50 per person (plus beer of course!).

Just another example of the unexpected amazing that is Korea.