Busan: the temple gifted me chestnuts

Slept like an enlightened log in the Zen Backpackers hostel.  The bathrooms were refreshing too.  Jason and I thought it would be cool to check out this temple in a park, halfway up a mountain, by the name Beomosa.  We didn't really ready exactly how to get there, having seen that there is a Beomosa subway stop that, on a map, looks close to a big green blotch, I figured we could just walk in that direction until we hit trees--this was no problem.  But the trail we got on wasn't really marked, so we just kinda followed it.  This mostly worked, but we did go a bit off course and were rescued by a hiking group of old men.  We followed them the rest of the way to the temple.

The temple was a, well, temple  At this point they are all starting to look the same.  The best part was the bag of smoked chestnuts that this lady gave us from there.  They seriously tasted exactly like smoked gouda.  After the temple we walked down towards the train station, guided by the cheap compass on my casio wristwatch.  We took a quick detour for some Bi Bim Bop and then rode the train to some renouned "largest department store ever".  It was big, but it was just a department store.  There was a rooftop that offered some crucial perspectives and a members only spa that we almost got a peek into, otherwise it was a giant building of clothes.

We got back to the hostel and met some new travelers, a 3d Artist from France and a student from Holland.  The four of us went out for bbq, at the recommendation of the hostel owner (he actually wrote down our order for us).   We "kinda" made friends with the table of korean businessmen next to us.  I mean, in the end, they bought us a bottle of soju, but they really seemed to be laughing at the 4 white guys eating in a foreign diner.  I guess it would be no different than 4 Korean kids walking into a Waffle House and getting some hashrowns smothered and covered.

Gyeong-Ju: Gettin' a little Temply

Got up in a slightly more musty smelling Optimus Prime calf carcass and crept over the same Australian girl who could give Rip Van Winkle some serious competition.  Paris Baguette for breakfast again, this time with Jason from LA.  I don't really see a lot of people come into this particular Paris Baguette, and at the rate the manager eats the bread out of boredom, I don't see how they can turn much of a profit. 
After Breakfast Jason and I walked to this National Museum.  That was our intention, but on the way we found other sites that actually turned out to be much cooler.  There was this ancient Ice Storage thing and a fancy man made pond with a few temple like structures around it.  Apparently the pond is built in such a way that you can never see the entire body of water, thus making it seem bigger than it is.  I didn't find this out until I had left the pond, but I trust them. 

The museum was still cool, but mostly pots and daggers.  I was more interested in architecture or engineering to be honest.  Pots are pretty much pots regardless of what culture your from. 

After the Museum we took a bus to this temple, Bulgulksa, that was recommended by a lot of other people at the hostel.  So by this point in my trip I feel pretty comfortable reading stuff in the korean alphabet, so before we got on I checked all the stops listed at the bus stop.  There was only one Bulgulksa listed, so I could wait until I heard that.  But naturally things don't work so easy.  It turns out that bus stop only listed major stops, and that there were actually other stops with Bulgulksa in them, which means we got off the bus at the wrong stop.  In a way, though, I am glad we did, because I got to go into this Chinese restaurant and order a "Ketchup Fried Rice" dish, which came clothed in a thin egg toga.  After our meal we just kept walking in the direction the bus had gone.

There were awesome old buildings all over the place.  It was fabulous.   We kept walking, for a while.  We thought we were close when we past a bus station that appeared to tell us the temple was at the next bus stop, but three bus stops later, no temple, so we just waited for the bus--again, only listing of major stops. boo.  The temple was cool, but the adventure to it was probably the highlight. 

Dinner was supposed to be an adventure for Korean Fried Chicken (yea it took me about 10 days to make the KFC connection) with me, Jason, and the Australian Rip Van Winkle.   We walked and walked but never found any (we swore we had seen loads the night before), so we settled on this place that serves Ginseng Chicken soup.  It was great, and the guy who ran it was totally a sailor.  The rain kept us in for the night.