Gyeongju, a museum without walls

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Mike and I spent this past weekend exploring the city of Gyeongju, regarded by many Koreans as one of the most important cities in the country. Gyeongju is about an hour north-west of Yangsan and we got there by bus (the ticket for which cost a mere 3,700W!). During the Silla Dynasty (57 BC - 935 AD), Gyeongju was the capital of the country, so it holds many important remains of that period, so long ago.

The weekend started with me being a little sick but we decided to make the trek anyways, because the beautiful colours of fall make this city a perfect destination this time of year. Unfortunately I felt even worse come Saturday morning so we got off to a late start when I had finally taken enough meds to feel up for getting out of bed. But luckily I did because there was so much to see and do here, two days just weren't going to cut it!

We wandered around for a few hours, mostly admiring the fall trees and colours and the mountainside, but also the city itself. This city is much older than any of the other cities we have seen thus far and one of the first things we noticed was the absence of tall, sky-scraping apartment buildings. In their places were actual houses or small housing complexes, most of which were older looking, but full of character! Each house had a garden in the backyard where they grew their own vegetables and fruit.

Finally, after what seemed like a lot of walking, we arrived at our first destination, Anapji Pond, a pond and garden area that was once a part of the prince's palace. As with most things in Korea's history, most of it had been destroyed or burnt down at some point and only some of it is restored today. Still, it is a gorgeous park, very peaceful to wander around. During the excavations years ago, they discovered the actual water conduits that they used to transport water around the palace and they are still in place today.

After we walking through the Wolseong Forest which houses what little remains from the Banwolseong Fortress. Mostly it is just walking paths, but there is the Seokbinggo Ice House, which is a mound of earth, half under ground, insulated by cement where they used to house...you guessed it! ICE! To our disappointment, there is no ice there anymore (I guess they have developed better, more effective ways to store ice in the last couple thousand years!), but even standing at the door you could feel the cold of the inside of the ice house.

Next we came across the Gyerim Forest which was alive with the beauty of autumn. In the distance we could see the first of the many many tombs that are scattered throughout this city. Back in the day, they used giant earth mounds to mark the burial grounds of important people. The people were buried with their possessions in big wooden coffins, then covered in a layer of stone, then a huge mound of dirt. It is remarkable that these are still around today and it is unlike any other grave site we have seen! Gyerim was home to a few tombs, including that of King Naemul. We saw a cool looking house, headed towards it and wound up at a big Confucian School (don't think we were supposed to be there!) then we found the Old House of the Choe Clan, who was an important family. We also saw the house where Beopju was supposedly invented - Beopju is a Korean rice wine, that as far as we're concerned does not taste anything close to wine or good. lol. But Koreans love their rice, anything rice, and this Beopju is very well-known.

Finally, we made it to the Daereungwon Royal Tombs. This is a large park with many of the most important tombs from the Silla Dynasty. Some of these tombs have been excavated, and one was open to the public to see. Even though everything in it was a replica (the originals are at the museum), it was still very cool to see what the inside of the tomb would look like and some of the ornaments and jewelry buried with the King. It's difficult to convey how interesting this was, because in pictures it looks like mounds of earth, but it actually was amazing, and something you don't see everywhere.

Well, after 5 hours of walking around, my fever said enough was enough! It got the best of me and we went back to the hotel early. I fell asleep feeling worse than ever (and MIke starting to feel sick) and woke up feeling nearly fine! We were not 100% but we were good enough to get a good start to the day and so we decided to rent bikes so we could see as much as possible that day, and boy did that turn out to be...an adventure!

We started at Oreung Royal Tombs, another park with tombs, trees, ponds and general beauty. It was a gorgeous sunny fall day and we were almost the only people in the park, so we took our time and enjoyed the quiet peacefulness of nature. Next we stopped briefly at the National Museum, but didn't stay long because we wanted to make it to the Bulguksa Temple and Seokguram Grotto that day.

Bulgulksa Temple was 15km outside of the city of Gyeongju and we debated between biking and cabbing there...and feeling bad for a slow and not-so-productive day the previous day, I wanted to bike there. Well, not realizing the 15km were uphill, what we thought should have taken us 30-40 mins to bike took us an hour and a half almost! And the bike didn't even feeel like it was that much of an uphill bike. That is, until we were on the way down and barely had to peddle three times to make it all the way back to town (and in less than 40 minutes, might I add!). The temple itself was amazing. One of the best we have seen. It was enormous compared to others, more like a palace we would have seen in Seoul. It is the only temple that has a cement pagoda, which helps in its size! It was different from your typical temple that we had seen up to this point. It had different levels, different colours, but still that same beauty and serenity of any Buddhist temple. Shortly after we arrived it started raining, and OF COURSE neither of us have our umbrellas that day (and let me say that I carry my umbrella in my purse everyday, just in case, except for today. figures!). We tried to wait out the rain a bit but it showed no signs of stopping, so we continued on through the rain. Next was supposed to be a hike to the Grotto, which a website told me was an hour away...but a sign in the temple said was 9km uphill...haha ya right, an hour! Turns out we wouldn't have the time or energy to make it to the grotto on this trip! So, in the rain, we hopped on our bikes and at least got lucky by the easy ride down we had!

Back in Gyeongju the rain had stopped and so we decided to take in one more sight - the Cheomseomgdae Astronomical Observatory because Michael the Scientist really wanted to see it. We had seen it from afar on Saturday, but didn't go to it. Well, it looked the same close up as it did from far away. It was a tower, 27 cement blocks high (the first 15 of which are filled in with stone - wait, that means you can't climb up it to observe the stars? That's right! Bummer!) We were slightly disappointed that we weren't able to climb up the Observatory and check out the ...well at that point, clouds....a little closer up, but c'est la vie!

Well, that's about it from our trip to Gyeongju. We didn't get to see all that we wanted, so we will be making another trip in the spring to see the rest. But it was a great weekend, despite feeling under the weather. Besides the rain Sunday, we couldn't have asked for better weather tho! It felt great to be walking around in t-shirts mid-November!

A few side notes from this week in Korea

1. November 11th is Pepero Day. Ever heard of Pepero, the great warrior? Just kidding, Pepero is a pretzel stick, covered in chocolate. Basically today, you exchange pepero sticks with people you like. It's sort of like Valentine's Day but it's only pepero sticks. Kind of a crazy holiday and a complete money grab, but they get really into it and Mike and I ended up with a few boxes of Pepero and some other variations. It's on November 11th (11/11) because they are sticks and so if you hold up 4 sticks, it looks like 11.11. Clever, eh?

2. November 12th is when the grade 12 students (all over the country) write their university entrance exams. My middle school is being used as a writing facility so we all have the day off school tomorrow. Today at school we spent the day cleaning the school in preparation for the incoming students. Think that's alot? Oh no, there's more! This exam is SO important, that all businesses are pushing their opening our hours back to 10am so that the buses, subways and trains are available for students to get to their testing facility on time (so employees aren't clogging the transit systems!). What's more is that there will be no flights leaving or coming between the hours of 8-10am. The country is turning itself inside out for this one test. But, school is important in Korea, as what university you to into is even more important. This is one of the most important days in these young students' lives!

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Photos

Anapji Pond
Ancient water conduits that were excavated and remain usable today (not that they are, but they could be!)

Anapji Pond
One of the reconstructed pagodas from the palace that used to be here

Choe Clan's House
Gotta love these rules!

A house!
the older houses have some sort of layer covering their roof

Royal Tombs
Two tombs together like that indicate a husband and wife buried together

Royal Tombs
Entrance to the excavated tomb