Dan & Sherry Come to Asia!!! - GyeongJu

On the morning before Buddha's birthday, we headed to the nearby city of GyeongJu to do a little sight seeing. We visited a famous Buddha shrine and a large temple.

The map of Ulsan Province outside the train station

In the taxi we hired for the day

For 1,000₩ you could ring the bell

The lanterns were out for the coming celebration

These kids were so cuteThese were taken while they waited to enter the Seokguram,
what we went to see.

석굴암

Seokguram Grotto is said to be one of the best examples of Buddhist sculpture and carving in the world. It is a giant (3.5 meters high) Buddha statue on a 1.3 meter lotus pedestal carved from the granite of the mountain. Sculpting began in the year 742 and was not completed until after the original sculptor's death in 774. Granite, the most common stone on the Korean peninsula, is a very hard stone that is a difficult sculpting medium, which is part of what makes this site so unique. Photography is prohibited within the grotto, so we pulled these photos from the internet:

So many lanterns

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From here, it was back into the taxi and down the mountain to Bulguksa Temple.

Bulguksa Temple

불국사

Bulguksa, meaning 'temple of the Buddha land,' is one of the major Buddhist temples in the southern part of South Korea. It was completed in 774 and, although destroyed and restored a number of times, stands today as one of the best examples of Silla dynasty architecture.

The most amazingly dressed couple in the world!Mary Kate Olsen...

...and Player!

Wishing stones



Taking a little breather

Breaking into the feast we bought for the train ride home