Saturday at Sanbangsan

Yesterday we took a trip to Sanbangsan, a volcanic mountain on the other side of the mountain.  Supposedly the second highest on Jeju but you can't actual hike to the top because its used for botanical research.  There were lots of cool things to see.

There are two Buddhist temples on the mountain.   The first, Sanbangsa Temple, is just a short hike up and has one of the famous giant bronze Buddha statues.  This one had a mustache, which I don't recall seeing on others but I don't know for sure. (Photo captions by Captain Danger)

Us with the giant Buddha.

I, like Nancy, have never seen a Buddha with a mustache (it's hard to see in the pictures. I had to do this pose.

View from the temple. That ship down there is a replica of a ship from the Netherlands that got lost and landed on Jeju and then the captain ended up being like the first westerner to write about Korea or something.

This mountain gets its name meaning "a cave inside a mountain" because it contains a cave.  When you venture a little higher up the mountain, you can see this cave, which is also a second temple containing many Buddhist relics.  It was a pretty small cave but still pretty cool.

STAIRS! What's a Buddhist temple without them?

Cave temple up on the mountain.

I always think it's cool when they do this thing with the bajillion tiny Buddhas. 

I also think that these Buddhist belfries are cool.

Then we headed across the street to the coast.  It was just like most coasts with an ocean and a couple gold sand beaches but in between these beaches were some really neat rock formations with a rock  pathway  going around the rocks and next to the water.  It was a really nice walk (minus the thousands of cockroach like roaches) with some really pretty rock formations, awesome tide-pool like inlet areas, and lovely grandmothers selling mysterious sea creatures.

That's not the camera lying. It really is that green here. And my wife really is that attractive.

I told Nancy that if she was into Facebook profile pictures that didn't show her face, this would be the best one ever.

Some random foreigner asked if we wanted a picture together. We said what the heck. 

Pretty kickawesome inlet.

Arch!

The way in/out.

One last photo of the mountain. Interesting tidbit: Sanbangsan is like the only hill/mountain on the island that doesn't have a crater. They have a legend that said a god broke the top off of Hallasan (the big volcano in the center of the island) and threw it and it became Sanbangsan. Also, this give a good perspective on how big that Buddha is. He's pretty dang big. This is Captain Danger out.

Anyways, it was a great day and well worth the trip to this beautiful ocean and mountain.  This was also our first visit to a Buddhist temple on the island.  Guess we got all tired out of them for awhile from our trip to Japan.