When I told my Mum where we were going for the weekend this is how I described Gyeongju; "the old capital of the ancient Silla Kingdom.... a bit like Korean York." So off we went on the late Friday night train to York.
We took the KTX to Singyeongju - a 15 minute taxi ride outside of Gyeongju centre, saving us 3 hours on the slow train.
Our hotel was 'Sugar Hotel', slap bang in the middle of Love Motel Street and shining like a neon beacon of tacky tourism. It was actually wonderful; our room had a jacuzzi bath tub, a sky light, a steam room and a TV bigger than my white board at school! It was also conveniently located 5 minutes from the two main bus stations and the tourist information centre. I would highly recommend this hotel.
As Gyeongju has the largest number of temples, palaces, royal tombs and historical monuments in all of Korea, I chose it as the perfect place for my parents to get a dose of Korean history. Perhaps unfortunately however, Gyeongju has been turned into a tourist trap with theme parks, golf courses and hot air balloon rides left right and centre. What's more, you have to pay to visit
everything, whereas most temples I've visited have been free of charge.
The main sights were:
Bulguksa
We first visited Bulguksa temple. The temple is up a mountain about 30 minutes outside the city centre. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site (since 1995), it has 7 of Korea's so-called "National Treasures" and is classified as a "historic and scenic" site (Korean's love labelling things as 'treasures', it makes things seem more important).
The temple is described as Korea's most beautiful temple, and I agree that it was splendid, especially hidden amongst the reds and golds of the Autumn trees. Unfortunately, one of the stone pagodas (a national treasure!) is currently being repaired and was 'protected' by a huge glass and steel box - right in the middle of the temple! What an eye sore!
The only other thing that spoiled the serene magic was the thousands for Korean's there being touristy in their own country. People kept barging me out of the way with their giant smart phones to take photos of themselves. How rude.
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| "National Treasure" - a stone pagoda at Bulguksa (the other one is being repaired) |
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| Parents at Bulguksa |
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| Bulguksa Temple |
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| The front of Bulguksa Temple |
Seokguram Grotto
A short yet harrowing bus ride up the windy road to the top of the mountain (Mt Tohamsan) brought us to Seokguram Grotto, another national treasure and UNESCO site. There sits a 3.5m tall granite Buddha inside a granite grotto. You can read about it
here. The view from the top of the mountain was great, even with the afternoon haze that had settled by the time we got there.
Feeling hungry, Ric bought himself a snack... a paper cup full of fried grasshoppers! I ate one (trying to put on a tough-guy-world-traveller act for my parents). It was crunchy, crispy and not very flavoursome. It didn't have a very offensive taste but once I'd swallowed I realised what I'd eaten and my stomach started doing flips. Yuck. Ric easily polished off the rest of the cup, he said they tasted like crisps. Needless to say, neither of my parents had the balls to eat one!
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| The view from the top of Mt Tohamsan |
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| Snacks |
The Royal Tombs
All over Gyeongju you will see these strange grassy hillocks, it looks a bit like Teletubby land. Unfortunately, you won't find Tinky-Winky or Lala inside, they are in fact burial tombs for the rulers of the Silla kingdom [600-900 AD]. You are able to go inside one tomb at
Tumuli Park, the name of the tomb is "Heavenly Horse Tomb" [lol] or
Cheonmachong in Korean. Inside there are replicas of the artefacts found inside the tomb, if you want to see the real thing however, you have to go to the Gyeongju National History Museum.
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| Tink-Winky.... Dipsy.... |
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| Tumuli Park |
The highlight of the weekend for me was hiring tandem bicycles and exploring Gyeongju whilst Ric did most of the pedalling! We went through
Gyerim Forest, stopping at
Cheomseogdae Observatory for lunch, then visited
Anapji Pond, and cycled along the river and through some rural parts of the town. It was great fun and only cost 10,000 won (£5.50) per bike for two hours!
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| Cheomseogdae Observatory |
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| Anapji Pond |
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| Tandem Team 1 |
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| Tandem Team 2 |
What I liked most about Gyeongju was the total lack of high rise apartments that clutter the rest of Korea. As the city is so full of historic monuments and "national treasures" it was ruled that buildings mustn't exceed a certain height, so the skyline is unspoilt and you have an almost 365 degrees view of the mountains that surround the city.
On the other hand, we did have a lot of difficulty finding places to eat in Gyeongju. We went out at 8.30 - not extremely late for an evening meal - to the area recommended by the tourist information for its many restaurants. And they were all closed!! We were rejected from restaurant after restaurant until we ended up walking all the way back to our hotel and having dinner in a restaurant opposite! The food was great though - we had our own rotisserie-come-barbecue in the middle of the table and we ordered dozens pork, lamb and prawn kebabs to cook ourselves. Fun and tasty! For the evening's entertainment I introduced my Mum and Dad to the great Korean custom of..... getting pissed in a supermarket! As we found ourselves hard pushed for a bar that didn't require you to order food with your drinks we sat in a supermarket for the evening and played cards. You can drink anywhere in Korea and drinking in supermarkets is very common (especially in summer when they put chairs and tables outside.) To my surprise my parents loved it; cheap booze and all the food you want, what's not to love! Guess they're not too accustomed to the high life in Spain after all.
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| Rotisserie dinner |
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| The best of Korean nightlife |
