Blogs from Gyeongju, Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Korea, Asia - page 5

Or anyone grossed out by sexual "art" and toilet humour. Seriously, I'm not joking. There'll be another post for you to read, I promise. Last chance to turn back. Well first of all, I know I've been even worse than usual with the posting. But I've had a hell of a time lately, lost (and found!) passport, etc. Sigh. To answer my cousin's query, I'm in Seoul right now. Sunday I fly to Bangkok through Beijing. Gyeonju To return to the story, I arrived in Gyeonju (the pronunciation is actually closer to Kee-yong-ju despite the spelling) by bus from Busan. It's only a couple hours north. The Korean buses are in excellent condition, over air-conditioned, just because they can be. They're also cheap, at least compared to Japanese transportation. Gyeonju is known for being a "museum ... read more

In June we took another day trip and went to visit Gyeongju, Korea's museum without walls. Gyeongju as the capital of the ancient Shilla Kingdom, one of the main three Korean Kingdoms, which reigned from 57BC to 935AD. As a result, it is very rich in Korean history. After we got off of the train we went across the street in search of food. We didn't have any luck finding a restaurant so Mike settled for Dunkin Donuts and I ate the peanut butter and honey sandwich I had brought with me. To supplement our meager lunch, we bought a small bag of mandarin oranges from a woman on the street. Although there were probably close to 10 mandarin oranges, they did not last very long. We continued on foot, making our way through town to ... read more

Wow.. what can I say about temple stay! One of the weirdest and most amazing experiences of my life. I spent 24 hours living like a Buddhist monk! They have a lifestyle very different to most of us, from getting up at 4am to pray, to eating every last speck of food on their plate. I mean there’s no way I could do it for longer than a day or 2.. but it was great experiencing it just for one day. When I first arrived at the temple, I was shown to my room. Now buddhists don’t believe in possessions, so the room only had a pillow, and 2 blankets for me to sleep with! I didn’t mind though. So I left my bags in my room, then I was shown around the temple by a ... read more

FIRST IMPRESSIONS Well, I’ve been here over a month so far and still sort of settling in. I now realize that South Korea is a lot more modern than I expected. Of course, these are my much generalized, comparisons with Australia and my limited experiences in China. Everybody here seems to have a high standard of living. It is fairly clean with not much litter, unlike many Asian countries. The traffic seems to flow well, with good roads and transport system. There are good wide main roads, although some smaller roads can be tight squeezes. Parts of the cities could be parts of Sydney. I visited one of my student’s father’s Fire Station and it was very big and modern, even for a small country town (see photos). All students seem to have Broadband access at ... read more

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 ... read more