Girimsa Temple and Gyeongju

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After the temple stay I spent the day touring around and saw Girimsa Temple in the lovely little city of Gyeoung-ju.

Girimsa is temple with a lot of buildings and land. If it's not a regular set for some of the historical dramas they make here, then I would be surprised.

Gyeong-ju is one of those areas with a huge amount of ancient historical sites and landmarks within a short distance. I took a day and walked around the city with all sorts of interesting sites. My favorite was Cheomseongdae , which is the oldest astrological observatory in the Far East. It is one of the national symbols of Korea and I remember wanting to go see it when I was a kid. It's pretty short for an observatory - some trees are taller, but I guess that was tall enough at the time. It was built about 1400 years ago and a lot of thought went into it. It has 12 large stones for the base for the 12 months of the year, 30 layers of stone - for the days of the month, and 366 stones in all for the number of days of the year. The tower's postion was built in relation to to certain stars. That kind of stuff always perks my interest.

Instead of telling you about my adventures... I thought pictures would explain more. I hope you enjoy them....

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Photos

Girimsa
Courtyard at Girimsa

Budda Shrine
One of the many at Girimsa

Shrine
One of the gods - I think this shows a definite Indian influence.

Gate guards
The lady who brought me bowed several times to these guys.

Gyeong-ju
There is a walking route in the city to many of the historical sites. To the left you can see some large mounds/small hills which are 5th century royal tombs from the Silla dynasty.

Royal Tombs
Here's a better picture of the tombs.

Lotus field
Gyeong-ju.
This was so pretty. I took a walk through a lotus field.

Lotus
The Koreans use lotus for many things. It's pretty and they use it as a symbol of Buddhism. The other day I ate some lotus gruel which, despite it's name, was actually pretty good!

Cheomseongdae
Built around 632 A.D.
The oldest astrological observatory in the Far East.

Kimchi pots
In Seoul, most people have replaced the Kimchi pot with Kinchi refridgerators, but I saw a lot more kimchi pots in Gyeoung-ju.

Comments

[Ann Marie]

hey!
You write a very interesting travel blog! Great pics!