Busan Day 2

On Sunday, we all got a late start. We didn't check out of our motel until a little after 11 am. We then headed back to the beach to eat lunch at the Tom & Tom's coffee shop. I had a very delicious acai-blueberry yogurt smoothie. YUM~! 

After our lunch, we were determined to do something touristy. After some failed attempts, we finally decided and arrived at the Chungnyeolsa Shrine. It was particularly interesting that two women are also enshrined here-- the mistresses of two important military officials. These women committed suicide when their paramours were killed in battle. If I remember the placard correctly, they were also considered patriotic by participating in the battle of Busanjin Fortress by throwing roof tiles down on the Japanese soldiers. 

I was really surprised by the nationalistic tone of this shrine. Although, I suppose that was naive of me, considering how much pride Korea has in its military past and how that military past of defending Korea is propagated to encourage a strong military today.

Wikipedia Says: 

Chungnyeolsa is a sacred shrine, where the spirits of the patriotic martyrs in the Busan region, who fought against the Japanese troops in the battles under the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592, are enshrined.

The present Chungnyeolsa was first built in 1605 as Songgongsa. Then, in 1624 the name of the temple was changed to Chungnyeolsa, also enshrining the spirit of Jeong Bal, a patriot who died at Busanjin Fortress.

It's interesting that in the English (and I assume the Korean as well) they say "Japanese invasion of Korea." That line is missing from the Japanese version of this paragraph. Revisionist history at work. 

After visiting this beautiful shrine, Himeko and Claire left to spend more time at the beach and then go home. Stephanie and I headed back to Sajik for our second JYJ Concert at Sajik Gymnasium.

JYJ Concert entry to come~! 

After the concert, we ran back to the station, got our stuff out of the locker, ran for the subway to get to Yeonsan, where Stephanie and I went separate ways. She went south to Busan Station to catch a train and I went north to Nopo to catch a bus. It truly was a fantastic weekend~!   \^o^/