To Sui China, then to Tang. Some spent decades across the sea before coming home. What they brought back was not objects but the very framework of a state.
For more than three hundred years, burial mounds kept growing larger. During the 7th century they shrank, and in the early 8th century they disappeared. There was more than one reason.
Asuka-dera, Toyura-dera, Yamada-dera, Kawahara-dera, Daikandai-ji, Moto-Yakushi-ji. Who built them, and for what? Once you grasp that, temple ruins start to look different.