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| Peace Bell to cleanse the soul |
From Busan, I met some new Korean friends (Youngbum Hong, Soyeon Park and Ji-Hye Kim) we all found out that we were heading to the same place next, Gyeongju. So why not see the sights together.
We took the train from Busan to a small town called Gyeongju, about 2 hours out of Busan by train, I had already booked my accommodation before hand so was in a different hostel to the others, but that was ok.
After checking in we all met up again and started seeing the sights.
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| 3-Story Pagoda |
Gyeongju is an old Korean capital city back when the Korea today was split into 3 kingdoms some 1100+ years ago. It is full of old king burial sites, temples and artifacts from the past.
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| Lotus Flower |
We all started out at one of the oldest temples in the town, some 20 min walk out of town. It had a 3-story pagoda, which use to be 9 stories but was destroyed during Japanese occupation in the past. The site also featured a large peace bell, which we could ring to cleanse out soul.
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| Old Prison |
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| Photo Op with Friends |
From here we walked a few KM and got lost but managed to find our way again to an old storage mound and prison.
Unfortunately my camera was playing up and I could not change the settings to take a decent photo, by turning off the flash.
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| Observatory at dusk |
We past some mounds which were burial places of old kings, there was so many of them, then past a old observatory used back in the ages of kings. It was just on dusk and getting hard to take decent photos with the camera, it was starting to play up even more...
We found a place where the flowers had grown high and played around in them for a little while, taking photos and laughing. It was fun. Before moving on to find some dinner.
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| Ssambap with friends |
Gyeongju is famous for Ssambap, a dish where you get lots of small side dishes, rice and lettuce. There was pork, smoked fish, mushrooms (Asian type they are so nice), sardines of various marinated flavors, 3-4 different types of kimchi and a whole host of other things. We truly ate like Kings and Queens, it was sooo nice. All finished off with local Barley cakes.
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| Pond at night |
Once we had finished off dinner we moved to the palace ponds and gardens. It was night now and the pond had lights on which lit up the lake. The Palace was destroyed several hundred years ago but is in the process of being reconstructed from documentation and models. But the pond is still alive and well and the buildings around are now built. It gave a realistic feeling to what it must have been like in the middle ages.
That night my hostel had a party (actually they have one every night but first night so yeah always good), we all decided to go and have a few drinks. Sadly the others couldn't stay long as they were in a different hostel but we organized to meet the following day to see more sites. I drank on with the new hostel until the early hours and met some great new people.
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| Temple Complex complete with rain coats because I left mine at the Guesthouse |
The following day as planned, we all went to a large temple complex. As it was a active temple with there was several restrictions on photos, not that it mattered as my stupid camera was not able of taking photos much anymore, one of the buttons was now stuck and the battery was being run flat within the 1/2 hour. It was also bucketing down with rain... *Sad face* so the photos were not only poor quality but also limited. The temple was extremely beautiful though, it had several complexes and sections.
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| Bug soup, Yummy! |
When we finished walking though the temple I decide to try a local delicacy, butterfly cocoon soup. It wasn't the tastiest thing I have tried, it wasn't crunchy, and it was soft. The center tasted like stuffing from a chicken. But never the less I tied it, and finessed 1/2 the cup before I had enough. From here we took a shuttle bus to the next temple, it was located high up in the hills.
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| Seokguram Grotto |
The world heritage listed temple, Seokguram Grotto was a giant stone Buddha that was carved out of granite stone and a tomb with several guardians and followers also carved into the stone. It was extremely beautiful, however we were not permitted to take photos, as it’s an active temple. So I will link a photo from another website instead (Just have to trust me I was there).
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| Farewell, see you later! |
The weather was still shocking, so Youngbum Hong, Soyeon Park and Ji-Hye Kim decided to head home back to Seoul.
That afternoon I still had some time to spare so I went to the national museum and walked around for a few hours, it was interesting as it explained the history of the area and why there is so much stuff here. Unable to turn off the flash on my camera I was not able to take any photos :(
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| World Cultural Expo 2011 |
The following day the weather had cleared, I was on my own travelling again *sad face* but I had a few more things to see, I hopped on a bus and headed out of town. Unfortunately I have a tendency of falling asleep when I'm on public transport (I sleep on way into work in Sydney as example every day), but this time it wasn't such a good idea.... I woke up 1 1/2 hours later at some random town in the middle of nowhere. I had missed my stop and connecting bus. So after a quick walk around what I can only describe as shacks and a bite to eat, I said hi to the same bus driver that had woken me up 30 min before and headed back in the direction I came. Now eating lunch tends to make to sleepy so guess what happened. Zzzzzzzzzz
Back in Gyeongju and thought it best to hop off at the world cultural expo that was being held in Gyeongju this year and see that.
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| Play poster |
The Expo was a mixture of plays, dances, religions and cultures from all around the world, with the main focus being Korean culture. It was a really neat thing to see. They had a tower with a cut out center part in the shape of a 13-story pagoda, a circus, dancing stage, and a theatre. I visited the theatre first and watched a play called fly-ing! It was basically a mix of martial arts, cheer leading, break dancing, and gymnastics. It told a story of a martial arts contest in the middle ages summoning a demon and then a hero having to save his friends, but then getting sent into the future to the local high school and him teaching traditional martial arts to a bunch of teen ages (basically).
It was so funny and cool to watch.
I walked around the park and watched several other plays and visited a fossil museum, I ended up spending a good 3-4 hours in the park before heading back to the guesthouse.
That night we had a big party at the guesthouse, I had decide to head to daegu early to meet a friend and buy a new camera. My old one was well and truly busted and from reading online forums it was not uncommon.
I had a lot of fun that night socializing with the guesthouse staff in particular with "Soyoung Yoon" and a guest from Swaziland. It was a very long night and a lot of interesting discussions.
The next morning, I boarded a bus and headed to Daegu, get me a decent camera!
Next post will be from Daegu and Sokcho,
Cheers Steffen!
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