South Korea: Bulguksa Temple, Gyeongju


I am glad that we squeezed in time for Gyeongju's Bulguksa Temple when we went to Busan. Posting this because I started watching 2 Days, 1 Night again. In one of their episodes, their game was to promote places in Korea and they chose Incheon and Gyeongju. I've uploaded all my posts about Incheon so I figured that I should post this here too. 



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Admission fee: 6,000 KRW/ around 6 USD  per person.

You can spend the whole day at the temple but I don't think you'd need an entire day for this especially when there are a lot of interesting places in the whole of Gyeongju. We would've stayed longer and explored more if we had the time. Really. Hehe. But yea, due to time constraints we went straight to this temple.

Bulguksa is listed in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. 


Dhṛtarāṣṭra in the gate of Bulguksa temple

If you ride the bus from Singyeongju Station, it's a long uphill walk to get to the temple but there are a lot of sights and things to see so we took our time. 


We went here without research aside from the bus number that we're going to ride so we didn't know what to expect.

Bulguksa when translated to English means, "Temple of the Buddha Land" and it has three halls inside.


This was near the exit.
We went the wrong way so we saw these rocks first. 



Kingdom of Silla Architecture - The Golden Age of Buddhist Art in Korea

The temple area is well-preserved despite being centuries old and was once burnt to the ground.


Didn't notice immediately that everyone was going up and we were heading down. lol. HAHA. We did the tour in reverse.


Lotus-shaped paper lanterns


Birojeon Hall houses the statue of Vairocana Buddha.


More lanterns.

When people make donations, monks place their names on a merit certificate which is then hung with these lanterns. 



National Treasue No. 21
Seokgatap

Geungnakjeon Hall houses Amitabha Buddha.


National Treasue No. 20
Dabotap


We actually went the wrong way there.

We entered the temple thru the exit area but we only realized that when we arrived at this part. We went around again to see the other parts of the temple and good thing we did 'cause we have missed a lot. Kaya pala nagtataka kami na bakit parang ang liit lang nung lugar, mali pala kasi kami ng napuntahan. HAHA!

This is what happens when you're not paying attention to the signages when you're in a new place.


Before entering, you're supposed to wash/cleanse yourself first. 


The area outside the temple is huge and beautiful especially during Spring and Autumn because of the trees. It wasn't full on Autumn that day so we didn't have a lot of orange and red color foliage but the bright yellow did the thing. It's still very fall, right? 


 Never thought that there will come a time when I'd say this but I miss being in a crowd. I noticed that unlike the episodes of 2D1N before, there aren't a lot of people when they go around these days. I rarely go to crowded places whenever I'm in South Korea pero nakakamiss din pala. Haha!



Those closer staircase is the National Treasure No. 22 called Yeonhwagyo nad Chilbogyo and the farther one with an arch is National Treasure No 23 called Cheongungyo and Baegungyo. Buddhists believe that people who have achieved "Nirvana" can go up and down those staircases.


National Treasure No 23

This is one of the famous photo spot in Bulguksa. We had no idea that the staircases were of great importance in Bulguksa but we took photos with it anyway since a lot of people were doing so. 


Bulguksa Bell Tower


Very autumn naman pala 'yung chosen colors ko nito. HAHAHA! Hay nako. 


I've forgotten that this is how I always looked like in selfies before the pandemic. Konting jeje lang with red lipstick. Konti lang. HAHAHA!


Anapji Pond is also a famous spot in Gyeongju but we didn't have enough to go there so we just walked around this Banya Yeonji Pond which is also a part of the Bulguksa temple grounds. Banya Yeonji means Pond of Wisdom. Mas madami na po ba kong wisdom, Buddha ngayong nakaikot na ako dyan? 😂


I wanted to lessen the photos but I just can't choose which ones to delete. I guess it's more difficult to find places/photos in Bulguksa that is not beautiful. I would definitely spend a longer time if I ever find myself back in Gyeongju one of these days, months, year...s? 



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