Yesterday we visited Bongeunsa Temple (봉은사) – a peaceful oasis in the middle of Seoul. From our apartment in Yeoksam, we walked to Yeoksam Station and caught the Line 2 train to Samseong Station and then walked about 15 minutes around COEX Mall to get to the temple.

Bongeunsa is a Buddhist temple and you can see locals offering their daily prayers – in fact, we didn’t see many other tourists, a nice change from the hordes you get at the big temples in Japan.

We didn’t stay long but my favourite building was the Panjeon, which was built in 1855 and holds over 3000 carved wooden blocks used for printing sutras – yep, that’s right, it’s basically a library!

The temple is on a bit of a slope, so the views are pretty good – plus I love to see the contrast of traditional buildings surrounded by modern skyscrapers. We are here at the start of autumn so the foliage is a beautiful mix of green and orange, and the sky is perfectly blue!