After 2 years of wonderful life in Korea, I am back to U.S. During 2 years, my husband and I've traveled all over Korea and visited many temples. When I was a teenager and lived in Korea, I wasn't interested in any of temples nor beautiful villages :P Well! typical Korean girl I was. After years of living in many countries and of course, getting old and mature make me appreciate them more. Before I forgot about them, I'd like post this Korean temples blog and share it with you.
We didn't visit this temple, Bulguksa, in last 2 years but 17 years ago after our wedding ceremony in Korea, we visited this temple. It's one of the biggest and very well-known temple in Gyeongju area. The village is worth a visit: Sila dynasty museums, historical place and etc.
I believe this is from my mother-in-law's camera and we've been waiting for a long longtime for this guy to move from the spot! :P
These two Pagodas are very famous; You can see on Korean money: Won.
Want to see Gangnam style temple? This is it! Bongeunsa. It's located across from the Coex and Intercontinental Hotel Gangnam. You can see Gangnam rich people donate lots of money to this temple: Very well maintained with huge land in wooooooo~~ Gangnam :P
Do you want to see ginormous golden buddha? Go to Beopjusa in Mt. Sognisan. We lived in Daejeon and it's about an hour drive from Daejeon: good day-trip place. This temple also offers the Temple-stay. If you don't mind sleeping on stone floor with thin mat, you should try a night or two. I heard it's really great. According to the website, Temple-Stay, apparently you can find your true-self. How awesome is that! :P
I also posted about Beojusa on my blog, Fantastic day around Daejeon.
It was a rare clean day :) We got very lucky with the air and the weather on that day. One of the reasons we left Korea was the aweful air quality.
Saseongam Herimitage During 2 years in Korea, my uncle and aunt took us to many beautiful places that we didn't know about. This place was one of them. This temple is located in a Mt. Bus to the temple entrance and had to hike for a while AND hiked again for the actual site :)
Yup! Bus to the top of the mountain and hike for a while, you can see this view!
Another temple with my uncle and aunt, Namhae Boriam. Taking about hiking to a temple? This is it.
Thank you uncle and aunt!!! Because of you, we had a fabulous time in Korea!~
As I mentioned before, we lived in Daejeon for 2 years and this year Buddha's birthday, finally we visited the nearest national park with lots of temples: Gyeryongsan
We went to early in the morning and it was a good decision. By the time we came down from the mountain, the parking lot was packed and tons of people were hiking up. We had a wonderful lunch at a restaurant near the entrance. I will show you all the food we ate during 2 years of Korean life after this blog :)
If you've ever visited Seoul, you'd notice all the mountains that are surrounding Seoul. One of the nicest mountains is Dobongsan. It's easy to reach by subway, Dobongsan Station. My parents live near so oneday we decided to walk to the mountain. We didn't hike but walk the lower trail. It's very well maintained and has several very nice temples. Amazingly there was nobody inside temples but few monks and volunteers.
Very fancy temple! with nobody but us!
I called this temple, Dragon temple!
Walk to behind the Dragon temple, you can see this amazing view.
My sister, brother, sister-in-law, my husband and I went to Korea East Coast trip together. My brother planed the trip and it was amazing. We visited two temples and both were great. This is Hyuhyuam. If you visit Gangneung to Sokcho, this temple is near Yangyang where you must try the Matsutake mushroom bugogi :P
This temple has this cave place. Very unique :)
Again, we were super lucky with weather and air :)
Naksansa! My second favorite temple in Korea. This temple is huge. In order to see all the places in the temple, at least 2 hours. Very easy to walk around; nice path, bathrooms, great view.. Huge. Don't forget to buy dry seafood near the entrance of the temple. It's higher quality, cheaper than inland and delicious! I miss you dried squid and fish!
They will live forever I believe :P
On the way to our favorite temple in Korea, Haeinsa. We drove from Jinju to Daejeon (South to North) and the road was the best in Korea according to my husband; no traffic, beautiful scenery, less speed trap AND this bridge, Hapcheondaegyo!
Visit here in fall! Beautiful!
Looks so Korea :)
iPhone vivid mode is really vivid lol
Yup! this temple is in the middle of a mountain so lots of stairs!
The view from this temple was absolutely fantastic.
When I was young, in the end of TV show time, we had listen the Korean anthem and this photo looks like one of the photos that one can see during the anthem :)
Plan to visit Busan? You should visit this temple, Haedong Yonggunsa. The location is special, next to the ocean. We spent time few days in Busan and I reserved a day tour in Busan and this temple through TripAdvisor since we don't have a car (You don't really want to drive in Busan, heavy traffic and Busan drivers are notoriously horrible :P).
Jejuisland! I want to visit again. Delicious food and beautiful scenery! We loved Jejuisland. We visited 2 temples. One is Bomunsa in Sanbangsan. Sanbangsan is a must-visit place in Jeju island. Bomunsa, if you don't have time, you can skip it :P We climbed up to the cave and the view was great.
This is the top of the stairs and down below photo is the view from the cave. It was so hot and humid but we did it!
Yakcheonsa. The buildings were all new so I thought it's just new temple and the site but according to the Wikipedia, this temple site is old. Well I learn new things everyday. On the way to this temple was so very NOT significant that we didn't expect anything but little shabby temple/hermitage but when we walk from parking lot to the temple entrance, Voilà! wow, it was huge!
I love this colorful Dancheong. Each region has their own Dancheong.
Very cool door frames all over this place.
According to Wikipedia, there is 18,000 small Buddhas in this room!
Amazingly enough, we visited more temples that what I just posted on this blog. I loved many of them and appreciated the sites and statues. Usually near big temples, there are famous local restaurants and other attractions like beautiful mountains, hiking trails, national parks and etc. I will post all the food we ate in Korean soon. Hope you enjoy all the temple photos!
No comments:
Post a Comment