Gyeongju-Busan-Seoul Day 3 (Part 4) – visit to Gameunsa Temple site and Silk Production Pavilion with the Gyeongju City Tour Bus

5 May 2012

The Gameunsa Temple was built by King Munmu, whose underwater tomb we visited earlier.  He did not complete it. Instead, his son King Sinmun completed this temple. Legend has it that he built a space under the golden hall of the temple for his reincarnated father (in the form of a sea dragon!) to have easy access.

Once again, the tour guide of the City Bus Tour handed us a English Language brochure describing the Gameunsa Temple and we went off to do the exploration on our own.

Twin pagodas in front of the Golden Hall (now flatten).

Whatever that is remains of the Golden Hall.

The Pagoda is 13.4m tall. Three layer structure is typical of the pagoda design in those times.

Details under the 3 layered structure.

We had enough time to explore the site before boarding the bus to visit the Traditional Silk Worm Pavilion.  I have visited similar facilities before so this visit was not something really fascinating for me.  I  shot some photos of the silkworm cocoons from which smooth soft silk is spurned from.

Silk worms are fed mulberry leaves until they turned into pupa and hid themselves in these cocoons. The cocoons are boiled.

Silk Worm pupae are found inside these cocoons. These pupae are high in protein and is a good feed for Koi (Japanese Carp).

Spinning silk from boiled silkworm cocoons.

From here, we went to our last attraction for the day, the Golgulsa Temple.