Last day in Ulsan

The Seokga Sari-tap and Rach, Adrienne and Sean attempting to get their wishes granted
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Sean and Adrienne arrived in Ulsan on Saturday, following the backpacker route of going where there is free accommodation!

On Sunday, being a holely day, we went on a site seeing trip to a temple called Tongdosa, 20 mins out of Ulsan.  Rachaels friend Annie kindly took us on board and was our tour guide for the day.  Tongdosa is a very important Buddhist site as it holds part of the ashes of Buddha.

..as this picture is so rare and difficult to see we now have a free ticket to heaven!

Rach and I and the first cherry blossom of spring (it was very very cold, so a minor miracle)
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First of all we went to the museum which shows artifacts of the site itself and ancient temple art.  The art is so precious and fragile that it is only open for viewing for half the day.  However, the museum volunteer spied an excellent opportunity to educate some foreigners on Buddha, and they opened it for us.  He then told us the stories behind many of the paintings, with Annie doing an excellent job of translating for us.

The first set of paintings were to educate people when they didn't know how to read on the consequences in the next life of ill deeds done in this one.  For example, if you hunt or fish you will be boiled in a pot.  Or if you tell lies, try to tempt someone into evil or say hurtful things, a cow will plough your tongue.  If you waste food then you will be forced to only eat the rotting remains of your left overs, and you will never be satisfied as your stomach will be as big as a mountain, and your throat the size of a needle.  Very sound advice for us all!

The emilie bell outside Gyeongju museum
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The next paintings were 8 scenes of buddhas life, which was very interesting, especially as many had echos of the christainity story, and I am very ignorant on other religions so I enjoyed learning about it.

In the main foyer of the museum is a large painting of Buddha which the guy said is the only painting of its type in the world in a museum.  Only Korea and Tibet made paintings of this type, which are two stories high and so are too large to fit in the old style buildings, and were used for outdoor ceremonies.  He said that as this picture is so rare and difficult to see we now have a free ticket to heaven! (he may have been joking but this got lost in translation).

The temple itself was a large complex of smaller houses, painted in the style of Bulgulska which I saw on Friday.  The ashes are kept in a structure called the Seokga Sari-tap which is a stone maze like structure, with the buddha ashes in the middle.  People walk around it 3 times and your wish maybe granted.

We then went to Gyeongju again and looked around the museum, which I didn't have time to do on Friday.  This was a good way to spend some time indoors as it was very very cold!