Korea, Gyeongju : 불국사

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On the way to Gyeongju I stopped at 불국사 (Bulguksa) temple. It is very convenient because the temple has it's own train station when you take the train from 해운대 (Haeundae) station. Then you just have to take the bus in front of the station to go straight to the temple. 불국사 temple is classified as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The temple was first erected in 550 A.D. but was destroyed during wars and burned to the ground. Hopefully it was restored in 1972 and 24 buildings are now available to the public. This temple offers architectural features from the Silla period as Gyeongju, the closest city was the main city of the Silla empire.

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Korea, Busan : 해동 용궁사

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The next morning I got up early to go to 해동 용궁사 (Haedong Yonggungsa) temple before leaving Busan. 용궁사 temple is situated near the seashore which makes it a lot different than the typical mountain based Korean temples. The first thing when arriving at the temple is a row of twelve Chinese zodiac statues, then a nine tiered pagoda and then the bridge to the temple. There are a lot of Buddha statues of different size near the temple. There is also a cave where people were praying and drinking holy water and a statue of the goddess of mercy.
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Korea, Busan : night view and 관간 bridge

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I then continued to walk to 관간 (Gwangan) bridge also called Diamond bridge and took some picture of the night view in 해운대 (Haeundae) along the water. The night was pretty fresh and I stopped in a restaurant to have a very huge kimchi soup which was delicious.
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Korea, Busan : 독백섬

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On the west side of the beach, there is a park called 독백섬 (Dongbaek) island. 독백 used to be an island but the sand and earth and dusk coming from chuncheon stream filled the gap between the island and the land.

This island presents at the summit a statue of Scholar Choi Chi-won and a monument to his memory. There is also a statue of a mermaid near the seashore. The legend says that princess 황옥 (Hwanggok) from 나란다 (Naranda) was married to king 은혜 (Eunhye) of 무궁 (Mugung) and she missed her country so much that she came to the shore to cry over it on the full moon nights as the full moon light reflected her country in the topaz ball is was carrying with her.

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