Korea 2024 - Gyeong-Ju Seokguram Grotto Way Up

The entrance to visit the Seokguram Grotto. Our bus parked outside, and from the looks of it, can't say you can see much. I was most excited to visit this place, because I love grotto. I just actually learnt what that word meant when I saw it as one of the exhibition at the National Museum of China in Beijing. And this one has an ancient stone dome and Buddha inside.

Walking towards the main entrance, there were some official information of the place.

Apparently this is a UNESCO site! Yay!

Going pass the main entrance, I didn't know quite what to expect. But it looked like a hike to get there. And some part looked uphill. I was a bit nervous how far or how steep the hike would be. I think my worst hike was at Kunisaki where it was just stones laid out up a steep hill just to see some stone Buddha carved into the rocks. I hope this hike wasn't anything like that!

It was a  beautiful day for a walk. The road, although sandy, was wide and easy to walk. The only problem I might have of it was, there was no fence or guide at the side, so you could accidentally fall down the cliff, lol. Plus, there were some soil corrosion at some area, so it kinda looked rather unstable if you walked too closed to the edge....

I like the colourful paper lanterns that lined the path all the way up to the hill.

Finally, after maybe 15 - 20 minutes easy walk, we reached the based on the temple, and from here onwards, it was just stairs all the way. It wasn't really that bad. Maybe just a 5 - 10 minutes climb. No sweat!

And right at the top, I saw this colourful cute house. I was wondering where the temple was, expecting something huge since it was a UNESCO site and all. Well, apparently, this was it. You walk inside the house, and inside is the stone dome, and underneath sat the stone Buddha. It was all very humbling, cause it was quite dark inside, and plain. No photos were allowed inside. The house outside was actually built to protect the stone structure from the weather elements from damaging it since it was such an old structure. Some of the people might have been disappointed that we aren't allowed to take photos inside, but our Korean Teacher said that beautiful things should only be kept inside our heart :)