In an effort to wrench ourselves away from the digital glow of our television screens, we decided to take advantage of the early spring weather we had last weekend and head out on an excursion of some sort.  After blindly picking Tongdo Temple out of our plethora of Korean guidebooks and retrieving my camera from the shelf where it had sat for far too long, we ventured forth into the world. 

Tongdosa is one of the oldest and largest temples in Korea, having been hallowed ground since some time in the seventh century A.D.  This temple is often referred to as the center of Korean Buddhism because it houses sacred relics from the Buddha, including a piece of his jaw bone, his begging bowl, and his robe.  The actual artifacts are enshrined in the Diamond Steps, located at the heart of the complex of temple buildings.  Visitors can walk around the stupa where the remains are enshrined, but they aren’t allowed to take photographs. 

Since it was Lunar New Year (설날), the temple was festooned with colorful paper lanterns and everyone was busy writing down their hopes for the coming year.  Not wanting to be left out, we wasted no time scrawling our own  소원 (wishes) onto the large paper lantern that was going to be lighted later in the hopes of carrying everyone’s desires to the heavens where they are granted.  

The temple itself is built in the shadow of Yeongchuk-san, an amazing mountain which provided backdrops so gorgeous they almost looked painted on. Most of the southern slope of the mountain is on temple land, which means there are probably some gorgeous, relatively unspoiled areas to hike when the weather warms up for good.  

The buildings themselves are also beautiful, with floral and traditional Buddhist symbols carved or painted into most of the doors and walls.  They are in various stages of restoration as well, which allowed for a little variation from the highly lacquered red and green buildings of most temple sites.  

In fact, I was happily clicking away, shooting photo after photo of these gorgeous painted flowers when I heard Ric call my name.

“Kelly,” he said, gesturing to an older Korean gentleman in a suit.  ”This guy wants your attention.  His wife’s been watching you take pictures for like the last ten minutes.”

Crap, I thought, somehow despite my best intentions and despite the droves of other visitors (almost all Korean) taking photo after photo, I have somehow managed to unwittingly take a picture of the one thing in this temple that was off-limits but didn’t have a sign posted.  I’m always kind of paranoid about doing this because, while temples in Korea are half tourist attraction, half house of worship, they are still houses of worship.  I started practicing my Korean apologies and thinking of ways to communicate to the offended couple that I would gladly delete the image in question from  my camera.  

Turns out that wasn’t what she wanted at all. After tossing out several paragraphs of rapid fire Korean, I finally understand that the man’s wife wanted me to come with her.  Apparently, there was something she needed to show me.  She led me around a corner and up to one of the temple outbuildings, where I saw this.  ”예쁜,” I said to her, the Korean word for beautiful.  

Row after row after row of these amazingly gorgeous wooden flowers that were hand-carved by somebody a pretty long time ago.  The good stuff.  Day made.  

Communication in a foreign country can be daunting, and on more than one occasion, we’ve had salesclerks and other people pawn us off on someone else rather than try to communicate even basic ideas with us.  But not today, not this lady.  She understood something that artists have been trying to communicate to words-y people like me for centuries.  Beauty transcends language, religion, location, culture.  It just is.  And is should be shared.  

Some Practical Matters:  

Admission is 3,000 KRW.  There is also a Buddhist painting museum on site which contains some cool stuff, but its hours are limited and vary seasonally. If you go during warm weather, be sure to bring socks.  There are a lot of places (like the stupa and the museum) that are shoes-off.  Sandals are provided.  

Getting There:   I’m sure there are a host of ways to get there, since Tongdo-sa is located in Yangsan, just to the north of Busan proper.  We took a 20 minute bus ride from Nopo Intercity Bus Terminal (located at the Nopo subway stop off the orange line).  Buses run pretty much every twenty minutes all day long, and the cost was about 2,500 KRW one way.  Once you get to the bus terminal, head to your left if you are facing the front of the building.  The temple gates are only a couple of blocks away.