Lotus Fields Forever

Wow, the Hilton is quite different from the Ramada! The sheer number of people at the breakfast buffet was hard to get used to! We left the hotel and headed for the first temple up a steep winding road. Sokguram Grotto was well worth the drive. At the top of the hill is a manmade grotto with a beautiful gilt Buddha. There was a service going on while we were there so it was all the more lovely. The area is said to have been built by a Prime Minister in the Sill Dynasty around 751 C.E. The legend says that he built one temple to honer his mother from his previous life and one to honor his parents from the life he was living. The temple has been rennovated many times, but is still an amazing feat of architecture. Our next stop was another temple, Bulguksa which was originally built in 528 C. E. It is truly one of the most beautiful places we have been with its cloud bridges, temples, Buddhas, and Bodhisattvas. It was a large complex of buildings with very steep stairs that are well worth the climb to see the carvings in the buildings and the statues inside. Many people were coming today to bow to the Buddhas, even very small children were being trained by their parents to bow and say the right words. We had a lunch of steak and what was allegedly a baked potato, but it was topped with whipped cream, it actually tasted pretty good, Gil would have loved the macaroni salad. We then walked to see the Silla tombs at Daenungwon. These are burial mounds that are quite high and have been found to be in excellent condition containing thousands of artifacts. We then went to the Gyeongju National Museum which houses the oldest bell in all of Korea along with the relics found in the tombs. The gold is amazingly shiny and beautiful and the jewelry shines as though it is ready to be worn again. It is amazing that such delicate work could have been done so long ago and that it is still around for us to see. After the museum we had some time in our rooms to freshen up, it was 98 degrees today with a lot of humidity. We met for dinner at a buffet restaurant and then walked around the lotus blossom fields. They are beautiful to see. Now we are back at the hotel and headed for bed, we leave early tomorrow.