Beomeosa Temple & Geumjung Mt. Fortress

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Beomeosa Temple, which means Heavenly Fish, was a beautiful temple outside of Busan. The name comes from the belief that there is a huge rock at the summit where there is a golden well which never, ever dries up. The water of this well is believed to have very special magical properties as one day a golden fish came from heaven and has lived there ever since.

After exploring the temple for a few hours we took a hike to the Geumjung Mt. Fortress. It was built to stop the invasions from neighboring Japan back in 1703. It is the largest fortress in South Korea although only 4km of the original fortress still remain. Cassie and I hiked about 8km in total from the East Gate to the South Gate. The view on this hike was very beautiful. We could see all of Busan and the surrounding mountains. View the entire photo gallery.

One year and counting

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It's amazing to think that Cassie and I just celebrated our one year anniversary in Busan, South Korea. How did the year go by so quickly? We used to count the days until take off like it would never come. It's a simple reminder to live in the moment.

For our anniversary we walked around this small beach with the brighest full moon slowly rising above the Gwangan Bridge. For dinner we decided to finally try some Korean BBQ for dinner. The food was delicious and then we finished off the night with some cheesecake for dessert. It was a perfect evening that we will both cherish for many more years.

Haedong Yonggung Temple

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The Haedong Yonggung temple is situated near the sea unlike most other temples located in mountains. Which makes this a temple worth visiting. Especially when they say that the temples motto is "At least one of your wishes will be answered here through your heartful prayers." Cassie and I made sure to make our wish before leaving the temple while tossing a coin into a small waterfall.

While exploring this temple we had our first prayer inside a buddhist temple which was a pleasent experience. We also walked under the temple to drink from a small stream with lots of other Koreans. I'm not sure if we were supposed to or not but nobody gave us the crazy eye so we joined in. View the entire photo gallery.