Tag: temple

Yangyang

The next destination after Hwacheon is Yangyang country washed by the East Sea.

Yangyang is not a big country too, having a population of over 27,000 people.

The area was called Yangyang 襄陽 since 1416. The area has a long history since it was known to be a part of Ye-guk 濊國 (3rd-century BC to around early 5th-century). Later it has become a part of Goguryeo and the area of Yangyang was called Ikhyeonhyeon 翼峴縣 or Imunhyeon 伊文縣. It is surprising for me, but both variants are quite nice (if compare to what I have seen before, Hwacheon, Boseong), the literal meaning is Wing Hill or That Culture (it is too complicated to find a proper translation for this pair of characters as the second character have too many meanings). Later, the name of the area was changed several times. In 1222, after a successful defend from Mongolians, it was renamed to Yangju 襄州, where the first character yang means a defender. Later the name was changed again until it has got its present name, consisting of the same yang 襄 and yang 陽, one of the meanings is the sun.

The way to the sea lies through many spots with beautiful scenes. Views from Hangyeryeong.

Even it is just a small observatory with a few buildings, there are many special souvenirs and amazing views to have some meal.

Step by step I am coming closer to ….

Naksan! Naksan is used to designate a few spots in the area, the first one I am going to visit is Naksan Beach.

I was swimming there a lot, that is why I did not take many photos. It is quite an awkward feeling to swim in a sea in Korea, because the swimming area is limited, and I could say it is much narrower than that one could be found in Odesa, Ukraine, moreover, there are so many active lifesavers, what makes the swimming quite tense, all the time I have to check if anybody of them is not running to catch me. I still remember the sea bottom there, it was shallow on the right and unexpectedly deep (for South Korea) on the left, about 2 m deep.

The other place called Naksan is a temple. Naksansa 洛山寺 was built in 671 by a scholar-monk Uisang 義湘 (625–702) who was a close friend of the man I met before in Soyosan and Namhae, it is Wonhyo. The temple is named after Potalaka mount as an abbreviation of the Chinese transcription of from Sanskrit, 補怛洛迦山. By the way, Bomunsa Temple I visited before in Ganghwa before stands on Nakgasan Mountain 洛迦山 which also is named after Potalaka mountain. The legend of the temple foundation explains the reason this name was chosen for the temple.

One of the legends says, when Uisang returned from the Tang empire, he heard that Guanyin Bodhisattva lived in the cave at the east coast of Naksan. He went there to pray and after 7 days praying he has received crystal beads from magic general Sinjang 神將, after 7 more days a dragon from the sea appeared and gave Uisang cintamani (wish-fulfilling jewel), after 7 more days Guanyin Bodhisattva appeared and said, “at the place you sit, a pair of bamboo will spring up, build a temple there”. As it is believed Guanyin or Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva lived in Potalaka mount, this place was called after the mount.

The temple has lived over many events during almost 1400 years. The last notable event happened in 2005 when the temple was burnt due to fire that started in the surrounding forest. The charred remains of the temple recall that day.

In 1925 Uisangdae Pavilion was built on the spot where Uisang once meditated.

Buddhist statue of Haesugwaneumsang. It was built in 1977. The height of the statue is 15 meters, the pedestal is 2.8 meters high.

And a beautiful sunset. Like a painting.

An interesting path to walk for leaving the temple.

My trip around Yangyang is coming to the end, but there is one more very important thing to do…

To eat unlimited sushi!

The huge crabs in the weak lights I saw on the way home reminded me of a horror movie.

That is all about my travelling around South Korea, tomorrow I have a flight back to Ukraine!

Suncheon

A long journey, the next day after visiting Sacheon and Namhae, starts with Suncheon city!

Suncheon is an average city in South Korea, with a population of 266,809 it takes 43rd place on the list of the biggest cities.

The known history of the city starts from in Samhan era, when it belonged to Mahan confederacy (1st BC – 5th AD). Previously I came across with the confederacy when I studied the history of distant from Suncheon places, Jeonju city and Muju country. It is explained by the fact, the confederacy was covering quite a big area (green). During its history, the city has changed many names, it was Sata 娑陀 (Gaya confederacy), Seopyeong-gun 歃平郡 (Baekje kingdom), Seungpyeong-gun 昇平郡 (Silla kingdom), and it is not the full list. In 1413, Taejong establishes the Suncheon Dohobu 顺天 都护府, which gave the origin to the modern name of the city. Suncheon 顺天 means by the will of heaven, obey heaven, be submissive to the will of heaven, Dohobu 都护府 is a military governorship. After many administrative changes lasting for hundreds of years, in 1995 it has become Suncheon City.

As for me, the name of the city Sata 娑陀 is quite interesting. The character ta 陀 means hillside, slope, shore or to fall down. The character sa 娑 means dancing or fluttering. Then, Sata 娑陀 might mean a fluttering hill (or, maybe, to dance until you fall down? – joke). However, maybe it was just a kind of transliteration of a Korean word. The other mentioned above names are related to peace 平, Seopyeong 歃平 bind the peace with an aouth and Seungpyeong 昇平 peaceful.

The first place I am going to visit is the Songgwangsa temple 松廣寺 (Spreading Pine Temple). It is one of the three principal Buddhist temples in South Korea representing, each representing one of the Three Jewels of Buddhism:

  • The Buddha, the fully enlightened one
  • The Dhamma, the teachings expounded by the Buddha
  • The Sangha, the monastic order of Buddhism that practice Dharmas.

This conception is resembling of the trinity conception in Christianity. Songgwangsa represents sangha. The temple was built in 867, later, it fell into disuse, but it was re-established in 1190 by Seon master Jinul (1158-1210).

Seon Buddhism origins from Chan Buddhism 禪 which was dominant in Tang and Song dynasties. Chan Buddhism also spread to Vietnam as Thiền and Japan as Zen. The word Chan 禪 origins from Sanskrit dhyāna, which means meditation leading to the “calm of mind”. Chan Buddhism started spreading around Korea during the Unified Silla. During Goryeo, master Jinul strongly influenced Korean Buddhism. That time Buddhism was seen as infected by secular tendencies and involvements, such as fortune-telling. He established a reform movement in Korea to make the correction, revival, and improvement of the quality of Buddhism. His Seon tradition is preserved well to this day.

The paintings depicting 10 bulls of Seon tradition to describe the stages of a practitioner’s progress toward enlightenment, and his return to society to enact wisdom and compassion.

  1. In Search of the Bull
  2. Discovery of the Footprints
  3. Perceiving the Bull
  4. Catching the Bull
  5. Taming the Bull
  6. Riding the Bull Home
  7. The Bull Transcended
  8. Both Bull and Self Transcended (Back circle)
  9. Reaching the Source
  10. Return to Society

Everything was fine until the bull #7 and #8. What happened to the bull? What happened to me?

The destination after the temple is Naganeupseong Folk Village 樂安邑城 .

In 1397 a fortress was constructed to protect the area from Japanese Wokou pirates. The village contains about 100 houses and government offices of Joseon dynasty.

Museum of the village.

And, cool photos of mine.

The next destination in Suncheon country is Suncheon Bay National Garden.

The area of the garden is about 1.1 km² plus 28 km² of Suncheon Bay. The area of the garden is really huge and one needs to spend hours to view all the exhibitions in the garden. I have spent over 2.5 hours, even though I skipped some parts and was almost running after my friend, giving to each exhibition just a few minutes of my attention.

There are many paths, sculptures, and nice spots for taking photos all around the garden.

One of the garden sections is World Garden Zone, representing typical features of a number of counties.

Thailand Garden. Sala Thai – an open pavilion, used as a meeting place and to give people shade. That day I really needed a shade, I was so excited so even did not pay any attention to the burning sun.

Among other, I remember Turkey, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Mexico, China.

A colourful bridge crosses a river and leads to a train going to the Suncheon Bay. On the other side of the river, there is also a greenhouse. The huge money tree (Crassula ovata) I found there really impressed me, how rich would I be if I have the same big plant!

The way to walk to the main spot of the bay is long, but it worth the time, power, and me.

The paths are distanced from the bay bottom, I saw crabs running there.

As long as in Ukraine nature is very strong and people are very weak, there is no need to preserve such great biomes.

This is the end of the trip around Suncheon, but not the end of trips for this day. After 2.5 hours walking around the garden, I was full of positive emotions and very surprised with my new skin tone.

Around Gangwon

Previously I have visited Gangneung, a city in Gangwon province. Today I am going to visit few more places in this province.

The first destination is a country famous around the world as a host country of the Winter Olympics in 2018, Pyeongchang.

I have spent a night here after visiting Gangneung, and by the afternoon I left this place, so nothing much was explored.

On the way, I discovered one quite attractive spot. It is Baekseok waterfall 白石瀑布. It is located it Najeon-ri, Bukpyeong-myeon, Jeongseon country.

A funny thing about the waterfall is that from this observation point water seems to fall from the highest point of the mountain like it is erupting from a volcano. To my best knowledge, the tallest waterfall of South Korea is Ojang waterfall 五臧瀑布 (127 m), also located in Jeongseon country. So, Baekseok is one of the tallest waterfalls in South Korea.

Jeongseon country 旌善郡 appears in history as Ingpaehyeon 仍貝縣 during Goguryeo Dynasty ( 37 BCE–668 CE ) and gets the present days name in 1012. The character jeong 旌 means a flag or to honour; the character seon 善 have many positive meanings and can be translated into English as good, beautiful, good, kind, excellent, best; kindhearted, hospitable, friendly; auspicious, happy. Then, Jeongseon may mean to honour goodness. By the way, the name of the tallest waterfall, Ojang 五臧瀑布, contains character jang 臧 which also can be a synonym for seon 善, however, oajng 五臧, as 五藏, usually is referred to five classic books of Buddhism or five organs of a man (heart, liver, spleen, lung, kidney).

The next destination in Jeongseon is Jeongamsa Jeogmyeolbogung temple 淨岩寺 寂滅寶宮.

The exact date when the temple was built is unknown, but, it is believed that it was built by Silla queen Seondeok (died in 647), who is the first reigning queen in the history of Korea. Jeogmyeolbogung 寂滅寶宮, nirvana precious palace, is a type of temples built during Silla to enshrine Shakyamuni Buddha, the founder of Buddhism. A specific feature of this kind of temples is that there are no Buddha statues because there are remains of the Buddha’s body (사리, 舍利, śarīra). Here, the sarira is stored in the Sumano Pagoda 水瑪瑙塔.

The pagoda is made up of gray-green limestone bricks, due to this, it has got name Sumano 水瑪瑙 – watery agate.

Another specific feature of the temple is wind bells, punggyeong 風磬, with fishes hanging on bell-clappers.

And the river rapidly flowing down makes beautiful scenery.

It is time to move on!

From Jeongseon country we entered to Taebaek city. Here the plan was to visit Hambaeksan mountain, but, for some reason, the way was locked. So, I just had a chance to look around on the roadside.

Being not far from the border between Jeongseon and Taebaek, after a short time we entered Jeongseon again, and found an unplanned attraction here!

Manhangjae forest park. It is a perfect place to enjoy the variety of mountain plants and insects accompanying them. Many people are resting there, having picknics; there’re many nice paths to walk around, photo exhibition, and information stands about the local plants. There diversity of the plant species must be really great because I didn’t see many of the plants shown on the stands, maybe it is not the time for those species.

It is not yet all about Gangwon province, but it is time to move on!

Maisan Mountain. A Hidden Horse.

The next destination after Jeonju is Jinan (鎭安) country. Characters 鎭安 might be translated as square off; to establish order and calm; to strengthen. This name was formed during Silla times, in 757, by abbreviation, or a kind of transformation of the former name, Nanjina (難珍阿). The middle character jin 珍 (a pearl, jewel) have the same pronunciation as jin 鎭 (here, comfortable and good for living), to emphasize that this region is good for living, as the former name supposes some difficulties nan 難, accoring to records, people in the region are simple and economically very poor***. There was another name of the country, Wollang (月浪, 越浪), moonlight or over a wave.

Jinan is a small country with a population of about 24,000 people.

It is such a pleasure to read the article about Jinan Country on Wiki, one can feel this place is unique and the best (at some moment I thought the author of the article is a graduate of North Korean university). For example, the only double-peaked mountain in the world is situated in Jinan the Maisan mountain. I was very surprised and found a list of the mountains with two peaks (double summit). It is not the only one in the world, nevertheless, I am going to visit it!

To get to the Maisan, one has to overcome a few challenges to prove the physical strength and willpower. Of course, one of the trials is climbing up a hill under the burning sun. Another one is to stand against invitations to the plenty of delicious restaurants on the alley. Huge cherry trees are growing up along the alley. There were just a few people walking, however, this place might serve many visitors.

The next spot after the alley is Geumdangsa temple (金塘寺). The character geum 金 means gold, dang 塘 means square pond, and sa 寺 – Buddhist temple, so the whole name means Golden Pond Temple. It was built in 814, during Silla.

The hanging painting of the Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, embodying the compassion of all Buddhas. It was painted in 1686. And turtles.

Here is the square pond (dang 塘). A small piece of the Maisan appears from behind the hill. Maisan (馬耳山) means Horse’s Ear Mountain. Guess why?

The closer I come, the more the ear shows up. From this point I could see only the one ear, actually, there are two ears. Until we reached a temple and I saw a sign with the temple’s name 馬耳山塔寺, my friend was saying it is a cow’s ear, and actually, it pretty looks like a cow’s ear. During Silla, the mountain was called Seodasan (西多山 – eastern numerous mountains), during Goryo Yongchulsan (龍出山 – dragon come out mountain), and Sokgeumsan (束金山 – to tie a golden mountain, hard to translate, I think it is like to tie a horse in a bridle) during early Joseon, until it has got the present name, Maisan (馬耳山 – horse’s ear mountain) during the reign of the king Taejong.

On Maisan there is Korean Buddhist Temple Complex, Tapasa (Pagoda temple) and stone pagodas. It is founded by Yi Gap Yong, a lone Buddhist hermit layman, in 1885. He has built as many as 120 conical natural stone pagodas, all without mortar.

It is time to go to the next destination!

Buyeo

After spending just a few hours in Gongju, I am heading to Buyeo, another capital (from 538 till 660) of Baekje Kingdom.

It is just one of the few cities the name I have remembered, but I have just found out that there is no English Wiki about the city, and there are just a few words in Korean (Cebuano and Svenska available). It means that no one ever would find any information about the place I have made a stop in the Buyeo country, Hapjeong village. But what is the village?

I bet this village is quite unusual because there is a big fancy shopping mall, LOTTE OUTLETS, constructed in a Korean palace style. The prices here are not for the village.

Not far from the shopping mall, there is a Baekje Historical Cultural Centre.

Here are collected things referred to the Baekje Kingdom, from jars and pots to Baekje people footprints.

A part of the exhibition represents the possible scenes of the daily life of simple people and officials and even chickens of Baekje.

A pagoda and Buddha.

Next to the Baekje Historical Cultural Centre, there is a Baekje Culture Complex. It is a Korean historical theme park, the largest one the South Korea, built to preserve the history and culture of the Baekje Kingdom. It means, everything you are going to see below is a copy.

Tombs.

Beside palaces and temples, there’s a part of the complex representing the village of the Baekje times.

There are real, huge fishes in the water.

It is time for torture and punishment.

Wouldn’t you want to live in such a huge palace with peaceful views?

Even though there is a lack of information on the Internet and the country is not a major tourist destination ***, I would really recommend visiting this place.

It is time to move on!