Today was a holiday in Korea, celebrating Buddha’s birthday, although they call him Bu Cheo Nim here.

The city has been decorated for the holiday for the past couple of weeks, but it was rather muted decorations. One of the main rotaries (a circular drive where multiple roads come together) was dressed up in lanterns and a Buddha-bubble-boy while the adjacent bridge over the Taewha river also adorned with lanterns.

Overall, the city’s decorations were light compared with Christmas. Its pretty close to 50/50 Christians and Buddhists, but the Christians do a better job dressing the place up. The above Buddhas and lanterns are about all you could find in Ulsan that signifies the holiday today.

However, we went to a temple in Busan, today, and there the atmosphere is quite a bit different. MyeongHee is Buddhist and wanted to pay her respects for the holiday. We went to Haedong Yong Gung Sa (해동옹궁사) which is a spectacular temple situated on a rocky outcrop overlooking the East Sea on the far southeastern corner of Korea. There I was literally blown away by the finery and beauty of the place, both because of the place it resides in, but also the colors, architecture and pure spectacle of it all.

The original temple was built in 1376, but like many Korean places of interest, it was destroyed in the 1590s by the Japanese. Rebuilt in the 1930s, it has all the grandeur one would expect from one of the country’s more popular temples, especially during Buddha’s Birthday celebration.

I took quite a few pictures, but they won’t all fit in here. I’ll create a slide show and have that up before next week. There are so many wonderful things to show you all!

It’s difficult to find comparable places of interest in America in terms of history or architecture. Much of this country has been around for centuries, despite the frequent periods of destruction wrought by the Japs. I have to admit, the continuity of a culture for hundreds or even thousands of years is something that holds enormous interest for me.