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Published: September 18th 2012
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Final day in Gyeongju and I at last realise that the reason the weather has been so poor recently is that there is a tropical storm approaching. By all accounts, it won't be serious, just a bit windier and rainier than at present - but at least I understand where there is persistent rain and now wind.
The storm is due to hit Gyeongju in the course of Monday afternoon (tomorrow), so I made the most of my last day of comparatively good weather to go see the Underwater Tomb of King Munmu the Great. Better known as the Silla king who first unified six clans/tribes into what we now know as Korea.
Yes, I had visions of great underwater cave complexes, too, when I first heard about it. The actual tomb (or what remains of it) is far more modest than this, being a collection of jagged rocks just off the beach near the village of Ulsan. King Munmu ordered that his body should be buried at sea, so that he would be transformed into a sea dragon and therefore able to defend his people from attack from the West (Japan). This was duly done, and his son
constructed a memorial to him out at sea, which of course has now been eroded to all but a few rocks.
Fortunately, I was spared the anti-climax by learning beforehand what the "underwater tomb" really was and so approached the day as a fun trip to the seaside. I duly (and perhaps stubbornly) strolled down the beach, fighting the wind, before gracefully retiring to one of the seaside restaurants for lunch.
Once I had got back into Gyeongju, I stopped by a tea room, run by a lovely couple who plied me full of at least four sorts of tea - two Taiwanese mountain teas, a Chinese tea whose name I forget and finally a Korean green tea. I was slightly nervous because I am never sure what the deal is with the tea tasting (I'm supposed to go away with some tea, fine, but am I expected to pay for the tea tasting and pouring ritual? not, as it turned out, but they must have wasted a lot of tea on me...)
The tea man, who had reasonably good English having lived in London in - get this - Whitechapel! the world is too small, sat
Bonggil Beach
Which is situated right next to a pine and chestnut tree forest, so I kep seeing conkers and pinecones among the shells on the beach. infront of a marble board on which were set lots of little teapots, small glass jugs and lidded cups.
Tea leaves were poured (dry) onto a polished wooden shovel and given to me (to smell, I think - that's what I did, in any event and refrained from making any facetious comments about bouquet), then placed into the teapot or the lidded cup. Water was boiled and then cooled (the green tea was the most elaborate for the water cooling business - water was poured between at least three different vessels before it was deemed cool enough to pour on the tea leaves). The tea was steeped (only about a teacup's worth at a time), then sieved into a glass jug and served into almost thimble sized saucers for us to taste.
My favourite piece of apparatus, though, was a stone sitting in the middle of the marble tray, topped with a sculpted crab, which was some sort of absorbent drain because the waste water and tea was poured over the crab (turning it briefly bright red, before it went back to being dull red/black) and it would drain away with a slight sucking noise. I desperately wanted
to take a photo, but didn't feel it was quite appropriate! You will just have to use your imagination.
There was some excitement back at the hostel with a brief electricity outage, due to something short-circuiting the system (thankfully not the typhoon), but all restored by the owner (and handyman). Then it was just a matter of winding down and preparing for my journey onwards to the port city of Busan.
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