Cultural Goldmine

After sleeping off a stomach full of live octopus, HongDae, his mother, and I got up Wednesday morning with a mission. We met with Nami, another friend from Yonsei who happens to live in Ulsan, and drove out to GyeongJu. A quick history, Korea used to be three divided empires, each with competing ties with other major powers in the region. The Shilla kingdom teamed up with China and conquered the other two kingdoms, uniting for the first time the entire peninsula. The southeast region of Korea where I was happened to be the original territory of Shilla, and GyeongJu was it's glorious capital. Understandably, this city was a freaking wealth of culture.


The first place we visited was BulGook Sa. Named the 23rd national treasure of Korea, BulGook Sa is an ancient Buddhist temple. It was burned down once during Japanese invasion in 1592, and again during Japanese colonization in the first half of the 20th century. The temple has been reconstructed and restored to what scholar's believe was it's original glory. The building itself is one of the most sacred places of Buddhism in the whole region, considered to be a sort of proverbial bridge between this world and heaven (like a slightly less important Jeruselam or Mecca).

The architecture of the building was incredible. All of the stone was original from the initial construction in the 7th century, and it fit together perfectly. All the staircases, railings, pagodas, and pillars were perfectly shaped and perfectly matching pieces of stone. The woodwork on the ceilings and roofs was elaborately carved and painted, often with likenesses of dragons or murals of various religious scenes. Photography was prohibited in most of the most exciting places, both because the Temple was still a operational place of worship and to protect the interior artifacts from the flashes.

There were several statues, murals, and tapestries that depicted religious scenes or buddhas (in Buddhism, there is one original Buddha and several smaller buddhas, like saints). I learned a lot about the religion and the history at this temple. There were a couple walls of prayer candles in one room that people could buy and have a name enscribed. The candle remains in the temple for one year. There was a garden of stacked rocks out behind one of the buildings. Literally thousands of rocks had been stacked into little tower balancing acts that had some spiritual significance I couldn't grasp.

The emphasis on Buddhism was so much more prevelant outside of Seoul. I had believed that it was a quiter religion that Christianity, as it's difficult to find Buddhists or temples in Seoul as opposed to the Christians who throw themselves at you out of their massive churche skyscrapers. It turns out that the 26% of the country that's Buddhist is actually outside of Seoul, mostly in the country side but regionally just more focused in the southern cities.


Our second stop was at the top of the mountian behind the BulGook Sa. We drove up a steep and windy road reminiscent of North Carolina to reach an outpost that looked over the whole of GyeongJu, the surrounding rice fields, and the mountains that were ringed around them. The pavillion at the housed another of the giant bells, this time with coins tossed all over the floor around it. We walked further up the mountain to SeokGul Am, the Bhuddist Grotto. All that could be seen (and so unfortunately photographed) from the outside was a tall grassy hill with a building sticking out of it protruding from the forest. This, the 24th national treasure of Korea, was a underground shrine. The building facade and the hill behind it had strategic holes that allowed the face of the giant Buddha to be constantly lit. The walls were covered with convex carvings of other buddhas, gaurdians, etc. Once again, all constructed sometime during the 600's.