We started out this morning hoping to buy some bread rolls that we had seen last night from the Hilton, but unfortunately there was nothing there this morning, so we settled for some fruit and yoghurt from the GS25 convenience store. Brandon has been showing so much interest in our food lately, so we let him taste our apple, he just sucked a little on it, and absolutely loved it. I guess when we get back we will start him on some more solid food.
We ate breakfast at the Watermill square and then found our way to the Bulguksa Temple. This temple has 
been designated as a World Culture Heritage site by UNESCO. It is the best temple that we have seen in Korea, with beautiful gardens and structures in a fantastic setting. The construction of the temple started in 751 and completed in 774 and served
as a 
centre of Shilla Buddhism and 
prayer for the protection of the country from foreign invaders. I am not sure that this helped very much, because I think Korea is one of the countries with the highest incidence of invasions. At the temple, there was a Buddhist ceremony taking place, we were not sure what it was about but think that it was actually a funeral and the monks were performing the ceremony for the family, quite interesting…
We moved on to the Seokguram Grotto, which is also a UNESCO world heritage site. This is a large Budda statue carved out of granite, inside a granite man-made cave. This Grotto is considered as the best example of Buddhist artistry. The statue is beautifully made. This Grotto is about 2km walking distance through the mountains from the Bulguksa temple, 
but this was a bit much with Brandon, so we drove nearly 10km to get there. At least the drive was pleasant, winding roads going up into the mountains, and a small buck even crossed the road in front of the car (I didn’t realise there was any wild life left, I thought everything had been eaten).
These two places had taken much longer than expected and it was really warm, so we drove back into town. On the way there was another small site with three stone pagodas, turns out it was Janghangrisaji site. 
The left pagoda was undergoing some reconstruction work, the middle one was fine and the right pagoda had been completely destroyed over time by the invasions. I quickly went to see this one and Carla stayed in the car to feed Brandon. 
We continued into town and tried a new hotel, the Swiss Rosen Hotel. A nice hotel, which was KRW60 000 for a room, or KRW90 000 for the room plus an “American breakfast”, snacks (cold drinks, chips, coffee, cookies, water) and free use of bicycles for cycling around the area. Considering our problem with getting food, we paid the extra to have a proper breakfast.
After letting Brandon sleep for a bit, we headed out for a walk and for dinner, again not knowing where we were planning to go. We ended up sitting on a Terrace of the Concorde Hotel, which had some live music and was a nice setting. They also had barbeque chicken and ribs. The music was a little loud, so we ate and left and headed back to the hotel for the night.
We ate breakfast at the Watermill square and then found our way to the Bulguksa Temple. This temple has 
been designated as a World Culture Heritage site by UNESCO. It is the best temple that we have seen in Korea, with beautiful gardens and structures in a fantastic setting. The construction of the temple started in 751 and completed in 774 and served
as a 
centre of Shilla Buddhism and prayer for the protection of the country from foreign invaders. I am not sure that this helped very much, because I think Korea is one of the countries with the highest incidence of invasions. At the temple, there was a Buddhist ceremony taking place, we were not sure what it was about but think that it was actually a funeral and the monks were performing the ceremony for the family, quite interesting…
We moved on to the Seokguram Grotto, which is also a UNESCO world heritage site. This is a large Budda statue carved out of granite, inside a granite man-made cave. This Grotto is considered as the best example of Buddhist artistry. The statue is beautifully made. This Grotto is about 2km walking distance through the mountains from the Bulguksa temple, 
but this was a bit much with Brandon, so we drove nearly 10km to get there. At least the drive was pleasant, winding roads going up into the mountains, and a small buck even crossed the road in front of the car (I didn’t realise there was any wild life left, I thought everything had been eaten).
These two places had taken much longer than expected and it was really warm, so we drove back into town. On the way there was another small site with three stone pagodas, turns out it was Janghangrisaji site. 
The left pagoda was undergoing some reconstruction work, the middle one was fine and the right pagoda had been completely destroyed over time by the invasions. I quickly went to see this one and Carla stayed in the car to feed Brandon. 
We continued into town and tried a new hotel, the Swiss Rosen Hotel. A nice hotel, which was KRW60 000 for a room, or KRW90 000 for the room plus an “American breakfast”, snacks (cold drinks, chips, coffee, cookies, water) and free use of bicycles for cycling around the area. Considering our problem with getting food, we paid the extra to have a proper breakfast.After letting Brandon sleep for a bit, we headed out for a walk and for dinner, again not knowing where we were planning to go. We ended up sitting on a Terrace of the Concorde Hotel, which had some live music and was a nice setting. They also had barbeque chicken and ribs. The music was a little loud, so we ate and left and headed back to the hotel for the night.
Our cold drinks, tastes just like you would think pine needles should taste
No comments:
Post a Comment