Buddha's Birthday

Wednesday, May 15^th, 2013 – Sunday, May 18^th, 2013

May 15^th was teacher’s day; I was fortunate enough to get a couple of really nice presents from a few students.

May 17^th was a holiday here in Korea for Buddha’s birthday!  I was blessed with a 3-day workweek having Monday off for Japan and Friday off for the holiday.  It has been a couple of months since there has been a public holiday in Korea so it was a much-appreciated break!

Arianna, Aimee’s sister was still in Korea for one more weekend so we visited Haeundae beach for the first part of the day and then went to a Temple so that we were properly celebrating Buddha’s birthday!  Of course we weren’t the only ones with the intentions of celebrating Buddha’s birthday at a temple, and many people had more legitimate spiritual reasons to be going to a Temple, apposed to our more “when in Korea” type reasons for the visit.  Everyone was in the same boat when it came to the humongous line-up just to get into the entrance of the Temple.  Not to mention, we were stuck in traffic for a while trying to get to the Temple by taking a taxi from the closest subway station.  We ditched the taxi and walked the extra 2.5 km the rest of the way.  The line-up to enter moved quickly and once inside it seemed a lot less crowded! 

The lanterns did not disappoint.  They were set up everywhere in all different shapes and colours!  We would have liked to stay until nightfall and seen them glowing in the dark but we were all a little bit hungry, tired from the trek to the temple, and the sea breeze was making it chilly.

Our backup plan to get sushi on our way home from the Temple was just what we needed!  It was delicious!  Best sushi I have ever had, even better then the sushi we ate in Japan the weekend before!  It was a great way to end the evening before heading home!

The next day we took Arianna to Nampo, the place where I spent a lot of time when I first arrived and we did some shopping at the markets.  There was also a show being performed in a nearby park with traditional music and a singer.  We were the only foreigners in the audience and at one point in the show they brought out a Japanese, Chinese and English translator for a couple of minutes.  We were asked where we were from and given a fan! I also bought a beach towel for the summer! :)

Sunday was an overcast day in Busan.  For something new to do and to kill time on a Sunday afternoon we went to the Busan Museum of Art.  The admission was free and there were some interesting exhibits making it worth going to!