Haedong Yonggungsa Temple

Haedong Yonggungsa Temple is one of those Busan sights that, before settling out for it this morning, I thought, “This had darned well better be good.” I think there’ll be a few more of those to come during my stay in Busan, but Haedong Yonggungsa will probably be one of the ones I feel the most that way about.

The thing is, it’s a long distance from the core of Busan, as many tourist attractions seem to be in this sprawling city. (Just to be clear, it’s not sprawling due to low density. There are plenty of mid-rises, high-rises, and skyscrapers. It’s just that mountains get in the way in the city.)

When I looked at my mapping app, it told me it would take about an hour and a half to get to Haedong Yonggungsa Temple by public transit. The journey requires a subway, a bus, and a bit of a walk.

Instead, I treated myself to an Uber. Even then, it took me over half an hour to get there. And that included a drive through a not-particularly-short tunnel. I can’t imagine how long it would have taken if the cab had to drive around, rather than through the mountain.

And much of the way was on an expressway, not city streets with intersections to traverse. So, that too shortened the trip, but it still took about 35 minutes.

At Haedong Yonggungsa Temple

Haedong Yonggungsa is a Buddhist temple perched on the Busan coast in the northeast end of the city.

My guidebook warned me that it can be jammed on weekends. Today is Tuesday. I’m not aware of any world cultures where Tuesday is part of the weekend. If there are any, it’s not here.

But there were hordes at Haedong Yonggungsa. Several tour groups were being led by their noses, which must be painful. And an even larger portion of the people was composed of small, un-led groups and individuals.

If it gets even more crowded on weekends, my advice is to stay away then. You could cover yourself in honey and venture into a den of ravenous bears if you’re looking for something more enjoyable to do on a weekend.

It was hard to find places from which to take pictures. I hope the little, old lady I pushed down a flight of concrete stairs to clear a spot for me is okay.

Of course, I’m joking. She wasn’t that little. In fact, she was at least a head taller than I am, and I’m not talking about one of those shrunken Pigmy heads.

And she wasn’t especially old. I don’t think she was much past middle age. She was certainly considerably younger than I am.

Obviously, I’m joking about that too. No little old ladies, or any other people, were harmed in the making of this journal entry.

I only contemplated it at times. Sure, who wouldn’t?

But I only contemplated it. In the end, I patiently waited for a gap to open up in the throng of people taking pictures of what I wanted to take a picture of. Then I swiftly took my shot and cleared out to make way for other people.

Once, the patient waiting involved standing by while someone posed dead centre immediately in front of a major photo op, so no one else could take a picture without getting that person in the middle of the shot. Her companion, who was taking the pictures, then spent considerable time directing the subject’s poses. When finished, they quickly swapped places in a way that wouldn’t allow anyone else to take an unobstructed picture during the swapover. Rinse. Repeat.

Some people are incredibly rude. Take your farshtunken picture quickly and clear out so other people can do the same, especially when I’m one of the other people.

Having said that, as you’ll see below, I took a couple of short videos. Doing that required waiting a few minutes for someone else to finish taking their video and leave so I could swoop in and take their vacated spot.

In my defence, neither of the rooms where I recorded my videos was particularly crowded, and only a small minority of the crowd appeared to be interested in them.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, which is every bit as difficult in the physical being of our normal space-time continuum as you would expect. Allow me to get even with myself and continue.

From where the Uber let me off, the entrance to Haedong Yonggungsa Temple was about one block along a street lined on both sides with food and souvenir stalls, along with an occasional more substantial coffee shop.

Just inside the entrance to the temple, there’s a row of stone statues, twelve deities of the Oriental zodiac. According to a sign beside the statues, the deities were “regarded as the origin of Oriental philosophy and the ultimate truth of the universe.”

I don’t mean to be in any way disrespectful, but everyone knows that if they are the origin of the ultimate truth of the universe, there would have to be 42 of them. (Anyone unfamiliar with “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” please move along. What are you even doing here?)

Across the way from the zodiac deities, there was a tall statue of a fierce-looking, but not at all threatening, old, robed guy. He held his hands together, with one on top of the other. The upper hand held a sphere. His arms were tight against his chest, leaving no gap between arm and chest.

Several people threw coins trying to get them to land and stay on his arms. I didn’t see anyone succeed, but judging from the pile of coins up there, a lot of people did. Or maybe one person did several times. I don’t know.

Further into the Haedong Yonggungsa compound, there’s a giant, gold-coloured, sitting Buddha. He has a broad smile on his face, as if he existed on a higher plane and in much greater humour than a corporeal being among the hordes. (That was where the photo offence mentioned above took place.)

There’s a large, stone, standing Buddha statue on a terrace up a flight of stairs or, on a different side of the terrace, a sloped path, from where the sitting Buddha sits.

Other Buddha statues of varying sizes are scattered about, including some sitting incongruously on rocks. And there’s a tall stone pagoda.

There are also a few points with great views of the sea and the rugged coast.

Down a set of stairs, there’s a small shrine, just a single room, carved into the rock below ground level.

Two small buildings are prayer, or maybe meditation, or maybe praying meditation halls. In one, a monk sat on the floor chanting. In the other hall, two monks sat on the floor, chanting.

In both halls, the monks were chanting when I arrived and continued chanting while I waited for an unoccupied spot in front of a doorway so I could take a video. They were still chanting when I finished my video and left.

Both of the halls had multiple entrances across the front of the building. The centre doorways were roped off. People entered the halls only by the doors at either side of the front of the buildings.

I don’t think there were any restrictions on who could enter the halls as long as they took their shoes off first. But the few people who went inside appeared to be worshipers. So I stayed outside.

People (including me) took their pictures and videos through the open, but roped-off front doors.

Here are my videos of the chanting in the halls:

It surprised me that photography was allowed at all. It’s often not permitted in Buddhist temples. But pretty well everyone who even just passed by took a picture or video.

The monks in both halls wore microphones that amplified their voices, even though the halls are small and anyone inside could easily hear them without amplification. I can only guess that the microphones were there so those of us who chose to remain outside could hear too.

I mentioned that Haedong Yonggungsa is on the coast. It’s a beautiful, rugged, rocky shore. The rocks looked perfect for scrambling on. And where appropriate, some stairs had been cut into them. But barriers kept the invading tourists confined and off the rocks.

Verdict: Without the crowds and with less restrictive movement along the coast, Haedong Yonggungsa Temple would have been a gorgeous place to be and spend considerable time. With it, not so much.

Because Haedong Yonggungsa Temple is out in the extremities of Busan, there’s not much else to see near there. My guidebook recommended, rather than heading back right away, spending some time in a theme park a couple of blocks away from Haedong Yonggungsa. That didn’t interest me.

Instead, I got an Uber taxi (some taxis run under the Uber brand here) to an attraction highly recommended by my walking tour app, Haeundae Beach, about 20 minutes away from Haedong Yonggungsa, in the general direction of my hotel, but still a long way from it.

I’m not especially big on beaches, but the app said that it’s worth a look even when it’s not beach weather. More importantly, it is close to the sights I want to see this afternoon.

Haeundae Beach

Haeundae Beach is a long, slightly curved, golden sand beach in a shallow arc along the waterfront. I don’t know if it was high tide, low tide, or somewhere in between, but the beach was quite wide when I was there.

For those people who are so wimpy that they don’t like to get sand in their shoes, or between their toes if they take off their shoes, there’s a broad, paving-stone-covered promenade behind the beach that runs the full length of it. So wimps can walk along the promenade and keep their oh, so precious shoes and toes sand-free.

There were also two spots along the beach where the beach gods placed narrow boardwalks jutting into the beach so the sandless can walk out a bit onto the beach too.

There are two widely spaced statues sitting in the ocean. Even with my contact lens-enhanced eyes, I couldn’t quite make out what they were because they are a fair piece offshore, a distance that was lengthened more than otherwise necessary, because I am one of those wimpy people I mentioned above.

I used a 10x zoom on my iPhone, which is well beyond its optical zoom capability, to see that they are both human figures. One had its arms outstretched, but one arm was tilted up at about a 45-degree angle. The other arm was tilted down at roughly the same angle.

The other figure held a telescope and was looking out to see.

For most, but not all, the way along the promenade, there’s a narrow band of green space on the inland side. On the other side of that, there are mostly tall buildings, including a lot of skyscrapers and a group of three that I think would all qualify as super-tall buildings.

It is a beautiful oceanfront beach. And, while the skyscrapers take away from the natural beauty, they add drama to it.

When I was there, a cluster of large artificial sand mounds stood on the beach. A sign said that they were there for the Haundae Sand Festival 2026, from May 15 to 18. (It’s now April 28. I’ll have been back home in Toronto for more than a week at the start of the festival, so that’s not happening for me.

The mounds are for sand sculptures, some of them giant. Today, a couple of the mounds were blank canvases, so to speak, but most were being worked on and were in various stages toward completion. One looked close to complete to my eyes, but an artist was still there working on it.

It looked like it would be quite a show when it’s ready. And I felt like it was time for lunch. I’ll be back later with a post about my afternoon.

More pictures from Haeundae Beach: