Buddha's Birthday Take 2: Busan

Sangwangsa Temple: You know somethings worth seeing when the locals are queuing to get a look.

So a few weeks ago I visited the Seoul Lotus Lantern Fest, and then wrote a very disappointed post about how it was a bit crap...maybe tried to phrase it a bit more gently than that, ha.
Anyway, I'm glad to say that my faith has been restored by my later visit to Sangwangsa Temple in Busan (산광사, 부산). As soon as we reached the road leading up to the temple I knew I wouldn't be disappointed. The street were absolutely crammed with Koreans and tourists all making their way up to the temple, but apparently that was nothing compared to earlier in the day when there was a half hour line just to get into the temple. You know somethings worth seeing when the locals are queuing to get a look. The first thing you see as you approach the temple is a stone staircase encased in a kind of tunnel of lanterns, so as you're walking up to the temple you're completely surrounded by them. This in itself was beautiful, but then you emerge at the top of the stairs to be greeted by the temple itself and what I can only describe as a sea of lanterns. They were literally everywhere. It was an amazing sight to see and probably one of the best experiences I've had since I moved to Korea.
The pictures don't really do it justice in the slightest. Sounds like a cliche, but it was genuinely breath-taking. Each lantern had a wooden tag on it with a number on and the highest number I saw was somewhere between six and seven thousand. I mean seriously, six thousand lanterns!


View from the top, looking out over a sea of lanterns.

The wind blowing the lanterns.

Shameless selfie as we walked up the stairs to the temple, haha.

View from the top of the stairs as we emerged from the 'tunnel', looking down on the city.

Sadly, I didn't bring my proper camera along with me so only managed to snap a few crappy shots with my phone. But this guy has got some awesome shots of the place and you should definately take a look:

http://jasonteale.com/blog/2013/05/samgwangsa-temple-in-busan/