Chuseok vacation day 5 part 2: Temple of the Floating Stone

I spent quite a bit of time and frustration getting on buses to the next temple. I transferred to the small town closest to it but could not get anyone at the (intercity) bus station to help me figure out where the connecting city bus was. Finally an old man at one of the several possible bus stops showed me that the time table for that bus was posted, not at the bus stop like most of the schedules but instead in the window of a derelict store. Obviously, how silly of me to not see it. No one there spoke English and I had exhausted my Korean knowledge in asking about the bus times so I couldn't figure out if the time-table was actually still in use or accurate, which was worrisome since it seemed that I'd just missed the only bus for hours. I was about to agree to a cab when the cab driver stopped me and pointed to the bus arriving late, which was awfully kind of him since it cost him a nice expensive ride out to the temple.

The temple itself was worth the effort. . There were shaded fields of ginseng growing on the path up to the temple, which had lots of buildings nearly as old as those at Bongjeongsa, but actually looked their age and were more complex and interesting. Beyond the usual stone pagodas Buddhas, and and lanterns, there was also a tree that grew from a monk's staff. The name of the temple--Buseksa, Temple of the Floating Stone--comes from another legend about a woman who turned herself into a dragon and lifted a rock, which somehow stopped the pagans from stopping the building of the temple. I don't really understand the causal connection between the stone lifting and the resistance to the temple's construction, but it resulted in a cool name in any case.

I had planned to stop by another temple on the way back, but realizing that there wouldn't be time I instead went back to Daejeon to get ready to start work again after the nice five day break.