Thursday, April 5, 2012

Dragging around Busan

Our first port of call was Busan, South Korea.  We arrived around noon on Sunday, April 1st.  This was the first time we had ever been to South Korea.  We were really excited to see a new country and experience all that it had to offer (in 6 hours that is).  We started with a bus ride to the Temple of the Dragon, a Buddhist temple along the ocean.  Since it was Sunday and a warm spring day, all 3 million Busan residents were out enjoying themselves.  That made for one big traffic jam.  The normal 25 minute drive to the temple took over an hour, and the line to get into the temple was really, really long.

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This is the line going into the temple                                 Views from the walkway down to the main temple

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Above are the temple guards           Golden Lions at the gate to the temple         One of the sitting Buddhas

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The dragon statue in the temple.                                      Worshipers place small statues of Buddha on or near 

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the dragon to offer prayer and show their respect to the dragon. Some were even made to hang like Christmas decorations.

Our next stop was at the building which housed the Asian Pacific Economic Community (APEC) meeting held in Busan in 2005. Didn’t do much for me, but we did get some good photos of the booming city of Busan, the 4th busiest port in Asia.

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Street lights near the temple                  New apartment condos selling for $1 million plus  (SF prices)

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