Long weekend’s in Korea are starting to seem like a weekly thing, I could get used to this. That said, it still seems like a rush to fit in enough when visiting any city, which is why I like to leave Friday afternoon to go anywhere.
Getting There
Friday at 5 oclock. I had two hours to get to the Bus Terminal in Gwanyang-Si, easily an hour city bus ride from my school if nothing goes wrong. I reach downtown, grab a snickers and a Gatorade for “sustenance”, and run into the station. 15 minutes to spare, It quickly dawns on me that my ticket says nothing of which platform I’m leaving on, and the signs being only in Hangul certainly weren’t going to help. It would’ve been easy to just simply match the characters, except my ticket didn’t match the signs. I start looking at each sign for the ‘B’ character ㅂ and finally find Busan (부산, Bu – San) amongst part of one of the signs. Success, I am a linguistic master, I’m like that guy from Stargate:
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/stargate/images/8/89/JacksonHieroglyphs.jpg
Despite my elation with being able to figure out one word in Korean, I decide it’s probably best to make sure with someone. They comfortably nod, and so I join the cue. A bus pulls up, everyone piles on, and the driver singles me out and takes my ticket, looks at me, and says “no no no” and he points back to the station. So much for that comfortable nod from miss “sure ya, that’s your bus.” So much for that confidence…
Strike Number 1 – Oh well, it happens.
The rest of the crowd gets on the bus, and it pulls away as quickly as it pulled in. That’s okay, it’s still 6:50, I have 10 minutes, I must be waiting for another bus. Right, right guys…. guys?!?! Not even 5 minutes later my nerves ease up as a bus pulls up. I make sure Busan (in one form or another) is on the front of the bus somewhere, I hop on, the doors close, and we’re off. I’m quickly starting to realize that when these buses arrive, you move, clamly, but there’s zero lagging about. It’s as if you have 2 minutes to get on, and then they’re gone!
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A little over 2 hours later and we pull into Busan, although into a different bus terminal in a completely different part of town then I was expecting, I begin to realize I’m hopeless in getting anywhere today.
Strike 2 – Google Maps, you’re officially on my shit-list for directions in asia.
After being spontaneously re-positioned so to speak, I figure out which metro line I have to take to get to my hostel. I hop on the metro and ride it almost to the other end of the city. It’s now 10 pm, I’m exhausted and have a seriously over packed Ospere that I’d like to get off my back. I walk up to the metro exit and see that I have to re-scan my pass to exit, except I realise I selected the metro stop one station too soon. I’m at the physically right one for my hostel, but wrong one as per my pass. I scan it, it goes red, I scan again, it goes red again.
Strike Number 3 – I’m done. it’s time for a Beer, Burger and Bed.
It’s late, I’m tired, and I’m late for check in. I begin to weigh the ramifications of hoping over the barrier, but just as the notion begins to seem more than just a facetious consideration, a rather official looking man in a rather official looking vest walks up. After an awkward set of charades and broken Korean/English, he lets me pass through.
Note to First time Busan-ers. Don’t throw out your pass and make sure you select the right exit. Busan’s Metro is a long throw from Berlin’s “Honour System”.
I finally make it to my hostel, and get invited out for a bite to eat with the owner and some others for burgers on Gwangali Beach. Hell Yes. I sit down, relax; We trade traveling stories as the calming sound of waves crash on the beach and American Soldiers on leave set off Roman Candles at each other. I get back to the hostel and collapse on the bed, knowing the next day was going to be tough if I still planned on climbing to Seokbulsa Temple. But all that mattered for the next 8 hours was that I made it.
Haedong Yonggungsa Temple
Fast forward to Sunday (Saturday’s fun at Seokbulsa Temple is over here), I decide to check out Haedong Yonggungsa Temple situated right on the sea. I read that it was best to go early, and it being Buddha’s birthday weekend, I figured it’d get busy quickly. I was out the door by 7 am. Grabbing the 181 bus, I decide 2 stops before the temple that it’d be nice to get out and walk the rest of the way as it’s right on the coast.
After navigating around some construction zones, I followed a path up to where the Temple is. It was a peaceful Sunday morning, with the sun beaming down, and the sound of the sea dimly making it’s way through the trees. I think to my self how great it was that I got there so early. I exited the path onto the road and see all the way into the temple grounds gridlocked traffic. It was packed, at 9 am on a Sunday. Damnit. Oh well, nothing I could do about it. I wandered the grounds taking pictures, and soaking up the views. It’s a beautiful area, with a portion elevated overlooking the whole bay as well as a a rocky portion that was right on the water which let you get infront of the temple. I truly recommend this temple, despite the crowds. It is an absolute must see and a nice change of pace from all the other temples which quickly blend together from one to the other. I could go on and on about describing it, but I’ll leave the pictures to speak for me.
Busan Sea Life
I’m not one for zoo’s. But I kept being told I had to see the Aquarium in Busan. So I lined up in the sun, GoPro in hand, and trekked on in to see what lied under the “sea”.
“Foriengers are our friends, not food” – The Mantra I hope the sharks have.
The Inspiration for Metroid?
“Shark Selfie”
Samgwangsa Temple
Continuing with my Temple theme for this weekend, and actually the original reason as to why I took off to Busan for this specific weekend after seeing it in CNN’s Top 50 Things to do in South Korea.
I took the Sunday night to see Samgwangsa Temple. This too, like the water temple that morning, was packed. A far throw from the tranquility I found a day earlier up on Seokbulsa. I met up with the same British guy that I met a day earlier as we had the same list of what to see pretty much. Walking into the temple grounds, a thousand smells and sounds begin to come at you, yet not in an overwhelming sense. People are sat all underneath the field of lanterns that completely cover the main court yard, while a ceremony takes place above and out of view. We quickly decide we needed a better view.
We find a staircase at the side and enter into an entire conference hall filled with another ceremony taking place. The front wall completely covered in Golden Buddha’s. We climb up to the back of the Auditorium and watch part of the ceremony. After a few moments of watching, we began to notice people climbing out of a side window and onto one of the pagoda roofs over looking the courtyard. We climb out, squeaked our way into a corner and were able to watch the end of the courtyard ceremony just as they lit the lanterns.
One thing I’ll note though, because I needed it explained to me, and I’ve seen it been asked on other blogs, is why all of the Swastika’s. I understood since I was young, noticing a swastika on the side of an ancient vase in a museum once, that the swastika certainly did pre-date long before the Nazi party’s adoption in the 1930’s. That said though, any westerner will tell you it is a symbol that is very rarely if ever seen or used in any way in the western world, and when it is, it brings along certain dark and hatred centered connotations with it. Sticklers will point out that the Nazi swastika is in the opposite direction to the Buddhist one. But the thing which I found so incredible, is that I am living amonst cultures which are so far from my own physically as well as on other levels, that they use a symbol, which in a large portion of the rest of the world would resemble one which symbolize so much evil, but here it symbolizes the complete opposite.
