Before heading to Busan we took a 30 minute bus ride north of Gyeongju to visit the UNESCO-listed Yangdong village. On the way, we gave up our seats to two old Korean women (ajumma) and in return were rewarded for by the ajumma making sure the bus driver let us off at the right stop. The village is about a 20 minute walk away from the closest bus stop, but a man who got off the bus with us flagged down a car heading in our direction and we all hitched a ride down the road to the village. Koreans can be super friendly and trusting!
Yangdong village has many old Korean hanoks (houses) that date back as much as 600 years. The village is maintained to present itself as an old traditional Korean village. Most of the houses are still lived in and walking around this place you have to be careful not to stomp on someone's garden or wander into their back yard. Since it's a real village, there are also some modern touches...there are still cars and satellite dishes, but you can definitely get a feel for what life must have been like for Koreans hundreds of years ago. Overall, it was interesting and we recommend going, especially if you get out there early before any tour groups show up.
Gyeongju, a city in Southeast Korea, was the capitol of the Shilla Kingdom from about the first to tenth centuries. The city and surrounding area are full of historical sites, including royal tombs and temples, several of which are UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Like many Korean cities, Gyeongju has an adorable mascot... or in this case, two mascots!
The area around the bus terminal is full of flashy motels. We're staying at the Show Motel, a Korean "love motel." We like it because it's clean, large, well-located, quirky, and has a huge TV and computer. We plead willful ignorance on the reasons why locals might like this motel. See the video below:
Is that Obama in our hotel's wallpaper?
There are a number of royal tombs within walking distance of our hotel. Shilla tombs are basically just big piles of rocks and earth that housed the remains of kings and queens along with their favorite belongings, gold jewelry and other important items. We took an evening stroll through a few of the tomb parks, including Tumuli Park where thousands of people were out flying kites, strolling, socializing and learning about the tombs. We were in the park for sunset, which was amazing over the mountains to the west of Gyeongju. While a pretty city, Gyeongju has the worst air pollution of the trip so far. Even though the skies have been clear, all of our pictures show white hazy conditions and there is a slight smell of burning wood or industrial byproduct in the air.
Tumuli Park
Sunset over Shilla Tombs
The Gyeongju National Museum has a lot of the treasures from the tombs, including a more than 1000 year old golden crown. We also visited the adjacent Anapji Pond at night, which was beyond crowded with Korean tourists snapping pictures left and right. The pond was on the site of a large Shilla palace. Lit-up at night the reconstructed buildings and their reflections in the pond were beautiful.
Anapji Pond
For dinner on our first night in Gyeongju, we tried the local specialty: ssambap. It's not really a type of food, but rather a way of eating it. Dozens of small dishes are brought to your table, with several different types of leaves to wrap them in. A variety of Korean leaf sandwiches, basically!
David is shocked by the quantity of things to wrap in leaves
First thing Sunday morning we caught the bus to go visit Bulguksa and the Seokguram Grotto just south of Gyeongju. These two places are UNESCO heritage sites. We had a bit of delay on our journey to the sites, because traffic in Gyeongju is awful! Maybe it's just because it's the weekend
and temperatures are warmer than usual, but the streets are clogged.
Traffic jams are common, and our buses got hung up for a
while. All of the parking lots at each site were overflowing, and all of
the buses were standing room only. Domestic Tourism is alive and well
in South Korea!
Bulguksa is an active temple that was originally constructed in 774 AD as the hub of Shilla Buddhism. It was heavily restored in the 1970s. Many of it's architectural characteristics are similar to those we've seen in temples and palaces in Seoul, but it's in a beautiful mountainous area. Not too far away is Seokguram Grotto,which houses a Buddha sculpture in a cave within a temple. Both sites were neat, but absolutely packed with Korean tourists, so we didn't have much time to linger.
Bulguksa was crowded!
Beautiful Bulguksa
Next we stopped at Gyeongju World amusement park for an hour so Paul could ride a few more roller coasters. Phaethon was really fun, while Space 2000 (Atomic Coaster) was awful!
The first loop on Phaethon
Toilets in Korea have been abundant and interestingly signed
Finally, we went to Sukyeong Restaurant for dinner. The house specialty was a regional bibimbap with lots of banchan, and dongdongju to drink.
We sure are eating well in Korea.
Something we noticed everywhere is Gyeongju bread. There are dozens of shops plying the treat. It seems to come in two varieties: two small pancakes with a smear red bean paste in the middle, or a small round piece of bread full of red bean paste. David prefers the pancake form, while Paul prefers the round form. Both yummy!
We arrived in Seoul just a bit after the peak of fall colors, but there were still a few areas with vibrant leaves. The bright yellow ginkgo trees and red maples were particularly beautiful. Enjoy the pictures!
We used Samcheok as a base for visiting two tourist sites on the east coast - Hwanseongul Cave and Haesindang Park. Hwanseongul Cave is a large limestone cavern with kitchy neon lighting. We were advised by the local tourist office to visit Haesindang Park, because most Westerners think it's funny. The park memorializes a maiden lost to the sea through the demonstration of numerous phallic structures. No worries, all pictures here are PG-13 at worst, and there were numerous families with their children at the park.
Samcheok's mascot. Less cute than Sokcho's.
The city of Samcheok was interesting. Our hotel was right by the bus
station, and surrounded by several streets full of shopping and
restaurants. We stayed at the Kukje Motel (International Motel), which, ironically, had no English speaking staff and no foreigners in sight.
After checking in, we caught the first bus to visit Hwaseongul cave. It was a 40 minute bus ride up to the cave through a very scenic valley. At the park entrance we were able to catch a monorail up the mountain to the mouth of the cave.
Can't have caves without running water!
mmm soybeans (or something)
We were lazy and took the monorail up...and the steps down.
The cave itself was very impressive. There is a long (2km) steel walkway through the cave. There was good signage in English to help you better appreciate what you were viewing. The Koreans flew through the cave, as they have tended to fly through all the museums and parks we've visited, but we took our time and were here quite a while. Paul got lots of good pictures of flowstone, stalactites, stalagmites and waterfalls. Some of the pathways had neon lighting for effect. We weren't sure what kind of effect they were going for, but it definitely catches your eye. To add to the kitchiness, there was also a giant open platform area outlined in red rope lights shaped like the Korean peninsula, and a rainbow bridge. Mario Kart anyone?
Eerie!
Even the Bridge of Hell has an adorable mummy mascot!
Waterfall
Dear Korea, please tone it down. Love, David and Paul.
We made it back to Samcheok after dark and went out to find dinner. The city is compact so there were lots of restaurants in a small area of town. We walked around the markets and shops for a while, looking for a restaurant that served mandu guk (dumpling soup). We found one with a picture of a dumpling eating another dumpling... it had absolutely no English on the menu, but David ordered us some mandu guk and some kimchi fried rice. Yum!
Apparently, the conventional market in Samcheok has a lot of middle-class gays. We didn't see any though.
Korean national motto #164: Everything is better with a whole fried egg on it!
The next morning we were up early and off to Haesindang Park. It was another 40 minute winding bus ride south of town along the coast. In addition to the interesting artwork, there were some great views of the Sea of Japan (or the East Sea as the Koreans call it), a fishing village museum and about 1 billion spiders. The most interesting artwork we found was the Chinese zodiac!
Waiting for the bus. Our bus was filled with soldiers, and you see them all over Korea.
Chinese Zodiac
At Haesindang Park
Early morning at the East Sea
It was as big as it looks and had about a thousand friends per acre
From here we're bound for Gyeongju, the ancient capital of the Shilla Dynasty that ruled Korea for a thousand years. We have less than a week left in Korea, then off to Japan we go! And just when we're getting the hang of playing charades with garbled Korean phrases!
