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Published: September 14th 2009
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Saturday we ventured on the city buses for the first time to make the trek to the outer limits of the city to visit the Tongdosa Temple. We went there with our new friends, Lauren and Austin from Houston, Texas and Mara and Drew from Canada (Ontario and B.C.). This temple is the largest in South Korea and one of the 3 Jewel Temples in Korea, meaning that it is one of the most important Buddhist temples. It is also famous because it has no statues of Buddha in the main temple, because real shrines of Buddha are preserved there. The temple is over 1300 years old, although it is very tourist-centered now, so most of the history of it has been replaced or is in parts of the grounds that tourists aren’t allowed to visit. Nonetheless, there still stood some old hermitages and temple buildings and it was a very serene and beautiful place to see. We were most amazed by the architecture and painting on the buildings that would have taken an incredible amount of time to make so perfect and beautiful.
We checked out the museum first then wandered around the grounds, admiring the artwork painted on the
Road, walking in to the temple
It's so peaceful and beautiful here...trees, running water pagodas and temple roofs. At the main temple there was a monk leading a chant and prayer which was very cool to see. There were many practicing Buddhists there who were praying or chanting in the different buildings.
Later we went for a traditional Buddhist meal and had flat noodle soup and ramen noodle soup.
After a long afternoon of touring the temple, we headed back into Yangsan and went for a late dinner to eat our favourite type of food - samgyeopsal - that is, pork that you grill at your table, then wrap with onions, garlic, chili paste, bean sprouts and sometimes rice all in a piece of lettuce - like the same idea as a tortilla wrap. It is so delicious and about as close as Mike can get to a BBQ!! Sometimes a meal of this sort can cost as little as 4,000W (aka 4$) per person!
Sunday we spent the day wandering around the Pusan National University area in Busan where there are tons of little shops and restaurants! It was a neat little area with lots to see and the most Western restaurants we have come across yet! - McDonalds, BK, KFC,
Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Baskin Robins, and I’m sure there were more, I’m just forgetting them now! We also went to Shinsegae, the world’s biggest mall! And that it is! It is enormous! It is 9 stories high, with each floor dedicated to one thing - sports, women’s clothes, food court, cinema, skating rink etc. I was amazed at its size, while Mike was not so much so - until we realized that we had only seen half of it! There was a whole other tower on the other side with another 9 floors of shops and restaurants! It would take all day to see everything here, that’s for sure!
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Meaghan
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Those pictures were amazing! which means that in reality it was probably even better. Keep posting the food pics you guys - I remain fascinated by their cusine!