Jo Hyun Jae

Our next stop was the Buyeo National Museum where the famous Gilt-bronze Incense Burner of Baekje was exhibited. Since the museum was not very far away from the city centre, we decided to go there on foot. On the way to the museum, we passed by the Gungnamji Pond (the Southern Palace Pond). This artificial pond was built by King Mu as his summer resort. The pond has an island with a pavilion, known as Poryongjeong. Around the pond, there are many boards telling the love story between Seo Dong and Princess Seonhwa. Next to the pond, there is a park called Seo Dong Park. The park is quite big but there aren’t many things in it. We wondered whether they were still building the park.

Finally we arrived at the Buyeo National Museum. Well, anyone who goes there will not miss it because a huge replica of the gilt-bronze burner is placed in front of the building. Every year, many visitors come to the museum to see the gilt-bronze incense burner which is a national treasure of South Korea. Despite being locked in an individual glass case, one can still appreciate the beauty of this incense burner from a distance. The burner is quite small which is approximately 62.5cm in height and it can be classified in four parts: the body, lid, the phoenix-shaped knob, and the support plate, just as described by Moraksu in the last episode of the SDY. While I was looking at the burner, the last scene where King Mu was smiling with tears in his eyes came back to my mind again. To understand the beauty of the burner, I also bought a book which explains every single feature of the burner in detail.

Our final visit of the day was Muryangsa Temple at the eastern part of Buyeo. This is one of the biggest temples in South Korea. Based on the information I gathered which was confirmed by staff at the tourist centre, the temple is about 30 minutes ride from the city centre. We thought that we could get a taxi there and be back within one and a half hours. We got on a taxi and after about 30 minutes, we were still at the remote country side with no sign of the temple. We started to worry as it was getting darker and darker, and when the meter reached about KW20,000, the taxi driver talked to someone on a mobile phone. Suddenly, the driver passed the mobile phone to us. Haven’t got a clue what was going on, we took the mobile phone and found out that it was the lady at the tourist centre who was at the other end of the call. It turned out that the taxi driver thought that the temple might be closed when we arrived and it would be very difficult for us to get any transportation back to the city, so he suggested we cancel the trip and go back to the city. Since the driver could not speak Chinese nor English, he asked the staff at the tourist centre to translate for him. The staff at the tourist centre remembered us as we asked them how to go to the temple earlier in the afternoon. Without any choices, we had to follow the taxi driver and head back to the city centre.

While we were on the bus back to Yu Shing, my friend asked: “Why didn’t the driver tell us before we got on the taxi? We wasted KW40,000 going nowhere!” Well, I guess it is a misery but I did learn a lesson from this incident. Never trust what you read from the website completely. The information there may not be 100% correct!

(TO BE CONTINUED)

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