So, off we went on another of our little road trips, camera ready at all times. This time we went to locales along the south coast again. In a way, sights in Korea are a bit repetitious, but they remain beautiful. And once you have an eye for differences and get to know some of the history and culture, they remain interesting. Fall is coming, and the leaves are starting to change.
The harvest will be over soon. The peppers are out drying everywhere.
Boriam and Namhae are near each other on the south coast. They are mostly just beautiful places. Boriam is along a rocky coast and Namhae is notable for the nearby estuary
Sanggwansa is another temple, famous for being one of the three most important temples in Korea. One is Tongdosa, which is near Yangsan and I’ve blogged about a couple of times, which represents the Buddha. The second is Heinsa, where we went before landing in Yangsan, which represents the dharma. The third is Sanggwansa, which represents the community of followers or “sangha”. Originally and in the minds of many here, it’s the community of monks. For us westerners, it’s the whole community.
Then we went to Hyangilam. I’ll spare you more temple pictures of that temple. It’s just real nice around there, as usual.
Unjusa has a large number of rather crude stone Buddhas from about 700 years ago. The postcard shot is of the upside-down ones carved out of a large boulder in the ground. For what it’s worth, it is the largest stone Buddha in Korea.
The last stop on our junket was an archeological site, the Hwasun Dolmen Group. I know it’s a world heritage site, but not all world heritage sites are created equal. I know everything is relative, and moving these great boulders weighing a hundred tons was an acheivement for Koreans 3000 years ago, as they were still neolithic. The bronze and iron age arrived here at the same time in about the 4th century BC, a thousand years after bronze appeared in the Fertile Crescent. But the dolmens of Stonehenge were put up 1300 years before that and the pyramids of Giza were put up 1600 years before, and those were some pretty big stones. Plus, they did something. Anyway, it was good for the people there at that time. Here’s a picture. They were brought down from a ridge above and positioned on smaller stones. That kind of took some balancing and a sense of physics. For all but a couple of them, the smaller supporting boulders have been covered over by soil over the millenia.
That’s about it for the travelogue. We got back on three days ago. Yesterday we sorted and crated Asian pears at Gyung Ja’s sister’s orchard/farm. We were going to do that a week ago, but didn’t do it till yesterday. As payment, we are now up to our eyeballs in pears.
She also provided dinner for us. People actually feed each other here, as a token of their affection.
I have a couple more pictures uploaded. Speaking of food, the first one is of what the side dishes look like at a restaurant. you get this in addition to the main course. The second is, well, just me. It seemed kind of artsy.
Be well, all of you.
