Korean Temple

Being in Korea since six weeks, I had the chance to visit historical sites. In this assignment I will talk about two temples and a Hanok village.

 Temples.

I had the opportunity to travel a little bit and by consequence I saw two temples. The first one is named Donghwasa and is located one hour away from Daegu by bus. It was the first time my friends and I were taking the bus and we encounter a problem trying to understand the fee for the trip since none of us were able to speak Korean creating a misunderstanding with the driver of the bus. In the end we manage to get in the bus and were aware of the fee. Our choice to go to in this place was because we wanted to do some hiking and we heard that Mont Palgongsan was a good place to do some sports! Looking at an information map about this mountain we noticed the presence of a temple and decided to go and have a look at it first. The Donghwasa temple was the first Buddhist place of worship I went to in South Korea. At the beginning of our excursion I paid attention to the presence of four tall statues representing four warriors. I learned that these statues are called “the four heavenly kings” they were in the entrance gate of the temple since their mission is to protect Buddhism and persons who wished to learn the precepts of Buddhism. They have an aggressive gaze to show that they are determined and ready to fight any opponents. Each king looks in a different direction “North, South, East and West”. The temple is situated in the forest of Mont Palgongsan. I thought that it was really nice to have such a place near a big city like Daegu. Lost in the mountain the temple seems to be in margin of our world. There is a huge contrast between the life in the town and the mood of the temple. In the city you can feel the effervescence the vivacity of all these people running in different directions to accomplish their distinct goals but in the temple you could only feel peace, calm and serenity. All seems to be made in order to invite you to pray: not only the landscape but also the architecture of the buildings. The colors coverings the temple were green, red, white, yellow and black. I really appreciated the details concerning the paintings on the walls. Just looking at the structure of the temple you could feel the research of harmony that has been made when constructing this place. One part of the principal building was a museum and we went in to have a look at it. Inside this museum where lots of information concerning Buddhism this is where I found some explanations about the “Four Heavenly Kings”. Moreover I saw a mockup of the temple; it was really interesting to have such a view because you could clearly the importance of the nature surroundings it. In front of this building was a huge statue of Buddha. I heard this statue was 17 meters high. After then when we finally reached the top of the mountain we could see this huge Buddha it was really impressive. To conclude about this visit of the temple I can say that I really enjoyed walking inside of the temple, I was feeling at ease like detached from the rhythm of the life I used to have in the town.

During chuseok, the Korean thanksgiving holidays, I went on a trip with some friends to Busan. Busan is the second most important of South Korea so the idea of going there was really exciting! We decided to go to Busan by KTX, it was also my first time taking the train in Korea. In Busan I went to another temple named Haedong Yonggung. This was the second time we were going to take the bus but that day we met some foreigners heading to the same place so we didn’t have any problems getting in the bus and paying for the fees. Getting out at the right station we had to walk during 10 to 15 minutes to reach the location of the temple. Thinking about Donghwasa temple I was curious about this one: will there be some majors’ differences? Already I could see that we were far from Busan downtown because the area was nearly empty of houses and peoples. Preceding the entrance of the temple were aligned 12 statues of animals. These animals are in fact the 12 Asian zodiac signs. It is interesting to discover that in Korea your sign depends on your year of birth whereas in France

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