Korea Late Winter Sonata 2015-Busan - Haedong Yonggungsa Temple （海东龙宫寺）

 Stumbled across someone's blog and realized there is this beautiful temple in Busan and so decided to make a trip here.

Most of the temples in Korea are found in mountains so this temple along the coast line is consider a rare find in Korea.

Someone finally wearing the scarf I knitted

Directions:

1). Alight at Haeundae station
2). Take exit 7
3). Walk straight to the bus stop and take bus 181
4). Alight at Haedong Yonggungsa Temple.

Not to worry about missing the stop as there is announcement in English on the bus when nearing major attractions on Busan bus.

1 big attraction before this stop is Lotte outlets. I reckon it should be quite a new one. Its one stop away from the temple stop. You can consider going there after visiting the temple.

Alight at this bus stop

Vast area of undeveloped land opposite the bus stop

Big sign near the bus stop

 Once you alight from the bus, turn righat and you can see a big sign of the temple. Do not be mistaken, you are no where near the temple yet.

There is a uphill road at the intersection and it's 15min walk uphill. Lucky for us, it's near winter end now and the weather is cool. Still after the walk uphill, we took off our jackets to cool down.

Walk uphill

Nearing temple after the climb

 We came to a street after climbing uphill and walk through it. There are quite a lot of food and souvenirs vendors here.

Nearing the entrance, there are the 12 zodiacs statues outside the temple. We each took turn to take a photo with our zodiac signs and put in coins in the donation box in front of the statue.

Rat

Ox

Tiger

Rabbit

Dragon

Snake

Horse

Goat

Monkey

Chicken

Dog

Pig

Mr Love with his Zodiac sign

Me with my Zodiac sign

History of Temple in Mandarin

Beautiful flowers in bloom

Pagoda outside Temple

At the entrance

Looking back at the entrance

 There s a long flight of stairs near at the entrance and we went down. Half way down the stairs, there is a small route by the left and we took it to see what is inside.

The sight that greeted us was breath taking, exactly like the pictures but better with all the wind blowing in our facing cooling us down.

View of temple from the stairs on our way down

Wefie is compulsory with such great view

Nearer view of temple from where we are standing

I think this is 地藏王菩萨

 We went back to the original route after photo taking and continue to the temple. There was this Buddha of Granting a Son on the way and I touched his tummy quite a lot of times and my own tummy too hoping for good luck. Hehe

Buddha of Granting a Son

Buddha head embedded on the wall

 Along the way to the temple, there are sections where little monk statues are place.
Quite a lot of people stopped to take pictures or to offer prayers.

Buddha for Academic Achievement

 Before the main temple, we need cross a bridge where to the right, there is a lucky coin divination. There is a pot in the middle where you can try to throw coins inside for good lucky.We tried but failed and moved on.

Try throwing coins into the pot

Such clear waters

View of the coast

 We walked into the main temple and went up to the main praying hall - 大雄宝殿 . You will need to take off your shoes to enter the main praying hall.

I wanted to make a donation to pray for good health for us but was not able to communicate with the in charge. End up, she use the most easy way out. By writing the prices down and let me choose the price though I didn't know what the prices will have which kind of prayers. But I donated based on my ability to pay then.

Laughing Buddha

We walked around and came across a long stairway leading up to the Haesu Gwaneum Daebul which means the Goddess Buddha of Mercy of the Sea which is essentially our Guan Yin Goddess.

On the sides, there are 2 plates with writings.

Sincerity can be felt

You get what you asked for

Back home in Singapore, I will always pray to Goddess of Mercy temple. So imagine my joy when I saw her statue here on the hill. We made our way up the stairs to offer our prayers, hoping that they will be answered :)

Goddess of Mercy overlooking the Sea

Little figurines around the area

More on the rocks

We then descend down the stairs and went around the temple.

There was an underground cave where you can drink spring water or something like that. I didn't dare to drink and so we came out after a while.

Underground spring water

There are 2 big prosperity golden pigs on display here and we took turns to take pictures. The street vendors outside are also selling quite a lot of piggy figurines. Guess this is one of the good luck charm here.

2 big prosperity pigs on display

Mr Love with the pigs

One photo before we leave the temple grounds

The crowd is starting to come in at 11am and we decided to make our way back. Took the 108 steps up to street level where I wanna check out what the street vendors have to offered.

Shopping street

Was very hungry when we first came out due to all the walking and climbing. So the first thing we went looking is food. Muhaha

We came across a stall selling some deep fried bun with unknown filling. We couldn't communicate in Korean to ask about the filling and decided to take the plunge. I only know enough Hangul to order "1 please" in Korean. Haha

The ajumma was please with me trying to speak Korean and replied in a string of words that I cannot understand. But she did tell me in broken English that my "1 please" in Korean is good in terms of pronunciation  I think.

Deep fried bun with unknown filling

The weather is still cold today and especially we are near seaside. So we welcomed the piping hot bun. A bite into it gave us the answer of filling inside. It is peanuts!! Yay!! At least is something that I like eating. Took turns to eat this hot bun while walking down the street.

Served in a cup

There are quite a lot of shops selling souvenirs here and I was very tempted to buy home some of the piggies family figurines. But they are all fragile. Transporting them home would be a big challenge. The idea was dropped soon.

So many piggy figurines

Wooden ones too

Then towards the end of the street we saw an Odeng vendor. God send in this cold weather. Mr Love was not a fan of fish cake but I am! Hehe But since It was so cold here, he decided to have 1 too.

Odeng vendor

The ajumma was nice enough to exchange the long stick for a shorter one to our convenience. The fish cakes tastes all the same to us but we choose 2 different kind to eat for the fun of it.

My Odeng

干杯！

We stood beside the stall to gobble down the food and asked for a small cup of soup each. Welcome the hot soup that warms our stomach in this weather.

How many sticks can you eat?

We walked down the hill where we came up from and cross the road to the opposite and wait for bus 181 back to Haeundae station. Not to worry about missing the stop since they have English announcement at Haeundae station stop.

Piggy waiting for bus with us

Be sure to visit here if you are in Busan, admission is free and view is splendid! In my opinion, it's better to come in the morning since it is not that crowded and since you need to walk quite a lot the afternoon sun wouldn't help too much!