Busan Haedong Yonggungsa Seaside Temple

So it was Columbus Day weekend, and due to the fact that we are fortunate here to have multiple 4 day holiday weekends, we decided to make the best of it and plan a trip down south to Busan. This has been a trip that, for multiple reasons, we have not had the chance to complete, so no matter what we were going this time. In tradition however, Mother Nature decided to brew another hurricane and send it towards us, but luckily it turned out ok. 

Trips are so much fun with friends, so we enlisted three other families to join us: Budenbenders, Livaudais's, and the Schwartz's, which between the four families we have 14 kids. Traveling in Korea is a little tricky since all hotels have maximum 4 person occupancy in rooms, so we have learned that there is never an option on hotels, so we airbnb it overtime. Due to a party of 21 on this trip we bossed a different approach and actually rented out an entire Hostel, which proved to be awesome! Every bigger kid had their own room, multiple bathrooms, kitchen that we could cook meals and lots of living space. 

We arrived late on Friday night in the midst of the typhoon wind and rain, which persisted until the next day until about 3. So we held our own typhoon party, played games, and then finally when 2 pm hit the winds and rain ceased and we decided to go take the chance and go see the Haedong Yonggungsa  Seaside temple. It is listed as the most beautiful temple in Korea (well at least the second most beautiful next to the Seoul Korea Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). This one is unique in that it is one of only a few temples that is positioned on the ocean.

After an hours drive time from Miryang we reached the temple. The weather proved to add a fun element to the presentation of the temple, contributing large violent waves, mixed cloud cover and sunshine and the fresh smell of clean air. Trekking up and down stairs and cliffs, we saw the most beautiful pagoda's, large stone statues of the buddhist calendar animals, and other holy shrines of Buddha. 

I even ran into images of myself...

The stormed sky backdrop made such a beautiful scene, and this temple site not only had beautiful grounds but wouldn't be complete without a huge golden Buda.

In order to ensure that Kylee wouldn't be bored with all the young kids, we brought along one of her friends (London) to join us for the trip.

Eventually after walking the grounds, and seeing some wicked mustaches on the dragon's around the temple, we walked down to a park area where Little A and M&M freaked out at seeing a stone horse they could actually sit on! Little A wouldn't leave its side, fed it, talked to it, and pretty much felt this was a unicorn in disguise.

Monster, being 30 months, has truly lived up to his name of Monster, and tries our patience daily. Finding this bigger letter box, we decided to ship him home to the grandparents to return when he shapes up (kidding). Look at those abs!

You can't have a Korean temple without some sort of randomness. Of course it's normal to have two oversized golden pigs on your temple grounds right? Monster is getting down the other Korean tradition of hand signals in pictures too.

Another thing we are enjoying is attempting to broaden our taste buds, and try different things. Now we are grossly opposed to becoming squid or kimchi people on any level, but we tried these Korean pancakes which were to die for! Bean paste, nuts, all deep friend in batter: win! We were done, and knowing we had another hour drive back we made this our concluding victory, and allowed the sun to start to set on a wonderful first day! 

-Kevin