Goraesa fish cakes at Haeundae

In the previous Busan post, I was writing about Haedong Yonggungsa, which I mentioned was the furthest point I reached from the Busan centre.

To get there, I actually took the Busan metro from Busan centre (the Gwangbok metro station; that was when I saw that there was a pop-up Pokemon store!) to Haeundae, and took the bus from Haeundae to the temple.

So after visiting the temple, I took the bus back to Haeundae and spent the rest of the day there.

Haeundae is basically famous for its beach. But there are also lots of restaurants there, and there are lots of hotels too. (Who doesn’t love a sea view?) When I was researching Busan, some articles actually recommended Haeundae as a good place to stay, since it is somewhat in the centre of the touristic areas.

After visiting, I also feel that Haeundae is a good place to stay. Mainly because I love the beach and the main road. Not sure how I would feel if it was an extended stay; would I get tired of it? :P However, I am also very satisfied with the hotel I chose in the centre of Busan. It was probably more cost- and time-effective because otherwise I would have needed to take the metro to the Busan centre on multiple days to visit the different places. It is nearer to the train station too, where I took the train to Gyeongju, my next destination (the same train that goes directly to Seoul).

From the bus, I caught sight of some sort of statue and managed to snap a photo. (I think the bus was stopped for a while at a junction)

This love story was happening near the metro station, if I remember correctly.

And here's the first view of Haeundae, the main road!

See those fishcake sticks on the right? Well, let's take a foodie detour there.

The Goraesa fish cake is one of the famous fishcake stores in Busan. Another one is Samjin, which I also visited (spoiler: I prefer Goraesa). Here's the facade of the store:

Inside, they sell both packaged eomuk (that is what they call fish cakes in Korean) and fresh ones to eat immediately. There are many rows of this...but I only snapped a few photos.

my choices

My bill came up to 9k won.

translate it yourself if you like :P

this one contains squid

and this one, tteokgalbi (minced beef patty) inside

The other one was basic fish cake. The fish cake had a very springy texture, I liked it!

the paper with the shop's name on it (can you see it shining with oil?)

What was not so good about this experience was that it was extremely confusing. We were supposed to reheat the fishcakes ourselves in the provided microwave ovens. The cutlery was somewhere, and there was another place to put the disposable cutlery. And there was a place to get soup, but I didn’t notice it until halfway through my meal. There was also a place to get water (with tiny tiny paper cups…whereas the soup cups were bigger).

Towards the end when I had almost finished eating, an obviously foreign girl (English, maybe) came in and was looking around in a confused manner, which was probably how I had looked earlier. I told her where to get the cutlery and soup. She said that she saw the used cutlery, but the words clearly indicated that they were used, so she shouldn’t be using them! And the clean cutlery was nowhere to be seen… (I have forgotten now where it was, but I do remember it was NOT in an obvious place).

After the meal I went on to visit the beach...that will be for the next post!

The story of Haedong Yonggungsa

Shall we continue visiting Haedong Yonggungsa?

In the previous post, we had reached the staircase that led us up to see the standing Buddha statue (the Great Goddess Buddha of Mercy).

Reaching upstairs, there was this platform.

The lanterns make a great shade from the hot sun. :D If I remember correctly, I rested there for a while too.

the other side

And here's the view down...with more gold leaves!

we can see the two pigs from here too...and the rocky viewing area

And then, back down...

Look at all those lanterns! I assume those are prayers or wishes hanging from them. (Do note that there are so many lanterns because of the Buddha's birthday coming up. I don't know whether there are any at other times, but definitely not as many as this, because you don't see them in online pictures!) Their shadow makes a nice design on the ground too.

spotted someone hanging a lantern

stairs going down

I have no idea what all of these are...

Back up:

dragon!

Then there were all these figurines on these ledges.

don't understand the water purifier

Besides the gold leaves, they have wishing tiles too!

I just translated a few of them with Google Lens. Two of them in the middle have the YouTube symbol, with "100" and "200" written on them. Turns out that those are wishing for 1 million and 2 million subscribers, respectively!

Another view out to the sea. This is back where we can see the relic pagoda (the small pagoda at the edge of the sea). If not mistaken, while following the signs showing the way out, I was brought through this area again.

And a selfie!

I like how the dragon sign says "Yonggungsa exit"

the road out is lined with trees

I actually didn't expect that there would be a different way out. I thought we would be going out the same way we came in. So unexpectedly, I didn't get to see some of those things again...

Reaching the traffic safety pagoda at the entrance. Remember it?

The picture of the temple has a dragon drawn onto it. It seems to show that the temple is constructed to represent a dragon?

psst...the dragon sign here says "Yonggungsa entrance"

If you look at the map, no. 10 is at the entrance, right on the path that leads to this signboard...the twelve zodiac animals that you will see later (though I don't think I captured all of them on camera). 

So this is the path out (and also the main path in, that I didn't take earlier):

Better view of the statues: 

the story of Haedong Yonggungsa

There were really too many statues, so I just snapped a few photos here and there.

Did you notice the zodiac animals? You can see the pig, the dog, the rooster, the monkey, ...

And right at the entrance, there is a sign actually declaring that they are the twelve zodiac figures. From here you can see the rat, the cow, ...

Turns out that I have got all of them in the photos after all...just that some are too far away to be seen clearly.

And this marks the end of our trip to Haedong Yonggungsa! I loved this place, hope you enjoyed it too. :D

Beautiful temples of Haedong Yonggungsa

After the previous post where we entered Haedong Yonggungsa, now we shall actually visit the temple!

If you noticed the bridge in the previous photos, this was what we saw looking down from the bridge:

Looking the other side, out to the sea:

Finally setting foot on the temple grounds! (well, technically everything before this was probably the temple grounds as well...)

See those two golden pigs? You can spot them in another pic later to orient yourself :P

notice the partially hidden fat Buddha on the left of the temple...we'll see it again later

the pigs and that temple in the same pic, and you can also see the Buddha's statue high up there

The main Buddha hall:

I think we weren't allowed to enter the temple, which is why it's so empty.

beautiful

beautiful...

beautiful....... ♥

I love the lotus lamps hanging from the ceiling!

the stairs that you can see from the overall pic of the temple, with the relic pagoda in the background

Then there is this second temple called Gwangmyeongjeon Hall (I'm getting all these names from the map that I snapped a photo of):

On the left and right of the three statues:

And a more overall view of the whole room:

Again, beautiful...  

And here's the fat Buddha I pointed out earlier! It's actually called the Happy Buddha.

And on the left of the Buddha...

There are stairs leading up to the highest Buddha statue.

And I shall leave that for the next post!