Buddha's Birthday

This past weekend we celebrated Buddha's Birthday. It is one of the most important national holidays in Korea. This year it fell on a Friday so school was closed. On Thursday after work, Steve, Josh and I took a night bus at 9:30 from Seoul to Pohang. We arrived in Pohang a little before 3am. The bus normally takes less than 5 hours but there was a lot of traffic leaving Seoul. Korean people usually work 6 days a week and there are only a few national holidays which results in a lot of people leaving Seoul when they get the chance.

Right away on Friday morning we took a bus to a neighboring city, Gyeongju. It is very significant in Korean history and has one of the most famous temples in Korea. We decided to try and beat the rush, which worked but the area was still packed with people. The temple was covered in lanterns. There were people everywhere, both for religious purposes and for tourist reasons. After walking around one temple we took a bus ride up a mountain to another. The bus was packed so we had to stand, being swung around as we made our way up the road. Once we were close to the top, the bus broke down. Instead of waiting we got out and walked the rest of the way. We walked around a smaller temple then continued to walk to grotto. Inside there were stones everywhere. There were large Buddhas carved out of gigantic pieces of stone. In the center there was an amazing Buddha. It was one of the coolest things that I have seen in Korea but we could not take pictures. We then took a bus back to Pohang and relaxed before dinner. Fred and I took the boys to our favorite clams place on the beach. From there we shot off fireworks on the beach. It was a very fun day.

On Saturday it was very rainy. We had lunch then decided to go see a movie. We saw the new Robin Hood movie and then walked around downtown for a while. We just relaxed for the rest of the day.

Sunday was also rainy so we went to the Pohang Museum of Steel Art. Fred and I had been there before but most of the art had changed. From there we had pizza and watched a movie before we had to leave. We decided to take trains home to avoid the traffic on the roads. We took a train from Pohang to Daejeon and a train from Daejeon to Suwon. We got back around 12:30am. It was a very fun weekend and I can't wait to get back to Pohang.