Sunday, August 15, 2010

Historic Temples! And Kitties!

On August 2, 2010 I took a spur-of-the-moment trip up to Donghwa Temple (Donghwasa), located on Palgong Mountain, just outside of Daegu. It was a blisteringly hot day, and I arrived at the temple drenched in sweat, only to discover that I'd left my spare camera battery in the charger, and that the one in my camera was near death. Ooops. I took some pictures, but not as many as I normally would have. I went back to Donghwasa today with my cousin in tow - it was his first trip outside of Daegu (OK, so it's not like we went that far, but it still counts!), and his first visit to a Korean temple. He seemed pretty impressed. As you might expect, I took a ton of pictures, and not just of the temple.

Every single time I visit a Buddhist temple in Korea, it seems I see at least one cat. And not a terrified feral like the kitties I see scampering around my neighborhood late at night, but critters which while not friendly, aren't terrified either. I guess they realize they won't be mistreated in these places. (My mom suggests that they are a Korean
Maneki Neko incarnation.) Today I saw not one, but four! One was a playful tomcat; the others were a mother and her three kittens. Sadly, none let me catch them - but they did let me take quite a few photographs! Additionally, it seems to be dragonfly season up in the mountains, and I found numerous dragonflies willing to pose for the camera. I've selected some of my favorite shots to post below. The complete set can be seen by clicking here. Enjoy!

Donghwa Temple (Donghwasa)

Donghwa Temple (Donghwasa)

Donghwa Temple (Donghwasa)

Donghwa Temple (Donghwasa)

Donghwasa (Donghwa Temple)

Donghwa Temple (Donghwasa)

Donghwasa (Donghwa Temple)

Donghwasa (Donghwa Temple)

Donghwasa (Donghwa Temple)

3 comments:

MLange said...

Hmm, do you take black and white photos in the camera, or convert them in post-processing?

annie said...

convert them in post-processing :-)

์กฐ์•ˆ๋‚˜ said...

Hey, thanks for the link to my blog. Some of you're photos are really beautiful! Nice work!