Ladee's Travels

We finally all gathered to wait outside the park gate for the bus.

Updated note added at the bottom: A tumulus (plural is tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves.  If you haven't heard of these, go to wikipedia.org and look up the word.  The amazing part is that these were built globally, even in Moundsville, West Virginia.  I will forever look suspiciously at a mound. Today we are among the burial mounds of the Silla kings in Korea.

This area is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  From whc.unesco.org The Gyeongju Historic Areas contain a remarkable concentration of outstanding examples of Korean Buddhist art, in the form of sculptures, reliefs, pagodas, and the remains of temples and palaces from the flowering, in particular between the 7th and 10th centuries, of this form of unique artistic expression. This is the Tumuli Park, in the Tululi Park Belt.  It consists of three groups of Royal Tombs.  Most of the mounds are domed, but some are half-moon or gourd.  These contain double wooden coffins, covered with gravel.  Excavations have found rich graves of goods of gold, glass, and fine ceramics.

I saw this and wanted fans...

Mesmerizing.  Couldn't stop taking photos!  Here is a view of the first half of the show.  Beautiful dancers.

We stopped for lunch at the Commodore Hotel at 410-2 Shinpyeong-Dong, Gyeongju, Korea.

We had one more stop to fit in. This is a large gift shop. Nice things!

We left the temple area and had some free time to go to the gift shop and walk back to the bus.  This is the gift shop.

The Sarira pagoda looks like a stone lantern.  This was taken by Japan in 1906 but was returned in 1933.  It is from the Goryeo Dynasty, but shows the influene of the Silla Dynasty art.

We climbed a level and then there were more steps to the Birojeon (Hall of Vairocana)

The eaves are incredible and fascinated me, as you can tell from all of the photos.  I began to feel motivated to make my eaves a little fancier at home!

The entrance to the temple, Sokgyemun , has a double-sectioned staircase and bridge that leads to the inside of the temple compound.

Updated from earlier post! The walkway was lined with brightly colored lotus lanterns. The lanterns cover the entire temple throughout the month and often spill down the street (as we saw in earlier posts). Each lantern had a Buddha child with a finger pointing up and one pointing down.

A large engraved boulder shows that this site was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1995.  The site is the head temple of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism and encompasses seven National Treasures of South Korea.  The temple is classified as Historic and Scenic Site No. 1 by the South Korean Government.

Dalseo District (Dalseo-gu) is a district in western Daegu, South Korea. It borders Dalseong-gun on the north, south, and west, and Seo-gu and Nam-gu on the east. It has a population of about 610,000, and an area of 62.27 square kilometers. The population rose dramatically in the 1990s, and has been approximately level since 2000. We are traveling in a subdivision of the Dalseo District called Jincheon-dong. This statue is a rider on horseback.  I have another photo of it from the other side that we will see as we exit.

Here is more of the scenery along the freeway as we made our way from Busan to the first temple.

Tall apartment complexes are part of the planned growth.

Yeongdo District is a gu in Busan, South Korea.  A gu? That is a "district".

Our shiny tour coaches (NEVER call them buses) were waiting for us as we walked off the ship and followed our guide.

The shipped pulled in to the Busan harbor in the morning. My tour wasn't leaving for an hour so I had time to stand out on the deck and take a few photos.