Like an old friend that will always be there, Junggwangsa temple and I go way back. If you have been following this blog for awhile then you will know that I always head there during Buddha’s Birthday. This year was a quick visit as I was looking for something to really pop out at me. Nothing really did and I went home with the usual stock images that you will most likely see coming from numerous photographers in the area.
The plan for this long weekend is to hit as many temples as I can. To be honest, I am a little behind as Junggwangsa was supposed to be scheduled for Friday night but a night out with my lovely wife and a box of fried chicken was more important. At any rate, as Saturday came to a close I was in the car with coffee in hand to get some shots.
I stopped off at the K-Water Revolving cafe that I wrote about on Ulsan Online a while ago to catch the sunset before it dropped over the mountains. Then I hit the temple. As I stated in the past, if you want to catch the temples when there are very few people there, hit them before the “Big Day” and they should be empty. That is of course for smaller temples as Samgwangsa Temple in Busan will most likely be packed right up until they take down the lanterns.
The temple this year seemed to be less of a show for some reason. It felt a little less exciting than years past. I am not sure if this has something to do with the general state of mourning that Korea is in right now or if people’s hearts were just not in it this year. At any rate, it still looks nice at night and is worth the visit if you want to stay in the city of Ulsan.
