Later start today, we are not sure if it was because he was at Church before he came and got us or because there isn’t much to see, hopefully it was the former! We set off at 9.00 and went to Gamcheon village in Busan which has been painted and is classed as a national treasure. Similar to the Favela’s in South America, it is built on the top of the hill and was originally where the poor were forced to live, a long way from the main town and out of harms way. Also like the favela’s it has fantastic views over the city and down to the bay. To try and improve the area a number of artists got together and said they would paint the houses, what they actually did was quite spectacular, some were just painted nice colours to make the place look a bit brighter, others have quite intricate paintings on the side such as one that has plants painted up the side, using the drainpipe as the stems and another that has a fish painted on the side but this is made up of a number of other paintings. We went for a bit of a walk round the village then got in the car and drove to Yangdong village, on the way we had views over Busan from the many bridges they have built between the old and new towns. Apparently on a clear day you can actually see Japan from the bridges but unfortunately not today. One of the bridges was shut as it is a popular thing to walk over the bridge and there was thousands of people doing it, I am just glad we weren’t trying to go the other way! The new town is a popular holiday destination and has a sandy beach which apparently between half and one million people populate during the summer! We drove past a town which has only been built to support Hyundai both car and ship building, apparently 95% of the people that live there either work for or are supported by someone that works for Hyundai. Finally we got to Yangdong village where Yanban (nobility) have lived for many generations, there are over 150 houses built during the Joseon Dynasty (1392 – 1910). It contains houses for all classes and most are still lived in although it wasn’t clear what they do for a living. In contrast to the village we saw first thing this morning, the head of the clan have their houses at the top of the hill while the worker or lower classes has houses on the flat ground. The upper class houses have tiled roofs and in some cases gates and shrines in the garden, lower class houses have thatched roofs which Paul said needed to be re-thatched every year but I am not sure he had that right! This village is on the world heritage list along with Hahoe village that we saw the other day. While we were there a woman was writing your ‘family motto’ in Korean calligraphy, as we don’t have a family motto we picked on of their phrases which was ‘Fly high and see far’ which seemed quite nice as a phrase, however to be honest she could have written anything, it would seem that she is a quite famous calligrapher so we were lucky to have a piece of her work for free! After a wonder round and a lunch break for Paul we set off for the Buddha shrine at Gyeongju known as Seokguram grotto, we parked then walked up to the grotto which houses the Buddha this has been carved out of granite and is lovely, unfortunately during one of the Japanese invasions the ‘natural air-conditioning system’ was broken and they now have to keep it behind glass and use a generator to keep the atmosphere constant. Our final stop of the day was Bulguksa Temple, this was built by Prime Minister Kim Day-seong in 751 and completed in 774. The centre of Silla Buddhism and of prayer for the protection of the country from foreign invasion. The temple was burned by Japanese invaders in 1593 because the temple was used as a volunteer militia base, the main hall and a few other buildings were rebuilt but it was not until 1969 – 1973 that it was completely restored. The key items that caused the temple to be designated a World Cultural Heritage site by UNESCO are Seokgatap and Dabotap stone pagoda and the seated gilt-bronze Amitabha Buddha statue. After this we went round to the hotel and Paul managed to get us a room with a view over the lake which was nice so we went for a bit of a wonder round outside as this is home to the largest waterwheel in Asia although it doesn’t seem to drive anything, then it was back to the room for a relax before going out this evening.
