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Hey all.

Thanks everyone for reading at my blogger site. I now have my own webpage, bonniespawprints.com up and running, so please stop by and check out everything I have there. Its a work in progress, but please leave comments and give support.

Thanks again for reading and looking forward to seeing you at the new site!!!

xoxoxox

Bonnie's Pawprints

Gyeongju Escape

Plenty of history and foreigner friendly Gyeongju

  A couple of weekends ago, myself and 3 other girlfriends went on a weekend escape to Gyeongju, which is located in Gyeongsangbuk-do province, South Korea. We caught the KTX down on the Friday night and stayed at a cute hostel for the Friday and Sat nights, returning via KTX on Sunday morning. All things considered the trip was great - brilliant weather, great company and fun things to see and do. Let me break it down a bit more...

Gyeongju

  Gyeongju is old, and has a heap of UNESCO sites all over the place, as it was the capital of the Silla Kingdom (57 BC - 935 AD) and so has a heap of well preserved ruins and tombs of old kings and generals. This period in Korean history is special and important as during this time its people went from small tribes into a large Kingdom taking up much of the Korean Peninsula. Buddhism was the practiced religion during this time, and it is reflected in the temples and artefacts that are from this period. In Gyeongju there are a shit tonne of Buddhist temples around, the most famous in the area being Bulguksa Temple, about a 40 minute bus ride out of town. 

   This temple was beautiful, and I honestly think we went at the best time of the year. The autumn/fall colours were to die for, and everywhere we looked there were people taking pics of the beautiful trees. This temple is a UNESCO site, unfortunately basically the whole thing is a reconstruction. From what I could gather from the scanty information available, the original temple was destroyed during Japanese occupation of Korea (the first time) and they have been kinda rebuilding it ever since. They are doing a great job though, the inside looks great as well as the outside. In the courtyard they were doing more restoration work of some of the stone carvings. Entry to the temple was 2,500 won.

 

   At the bottom of the temple, where you catch the bus from is a huge eating area, where there are many different resteraunts. We ate at a place pretty much at the front, the lady didn't speak a lick of English but there was an English menu. The whole area had really great signs, in many different languages. The bus timetable was easy to read as well once we figured out where to go.
  At the bus terminal in the city there is an information booth with maps, and also English speaking staff.

  That evening we ate an awesome meal with other guests from the hostel, made more fun because the power kept going out and we were sitting in the dark. The food was traditional, being basically a million side dishes. I cannot remember for the life of me what it was called (karma for not keeping an updated blog) but it was fun to share with so many people.

Sideways pic, but you can see how much food there was!

Anapji at night

   After dinner we wandered up to visit Anapji pond. We were told to visit this place at night, and I am so glad we did. It was amazing. The area was originally one of the detached palaces for the royal family, and had exotic gardens and exotic animals housed there. The structures there now are again reconstructions, but you can still get a true sense of what the place must have looked like originally. There are plaques all over the place saying what they believe was originally in a certain area (based on scanty written records) and there is kinda a mini museum there too with some relics and cool royal things. To enter Anapji was 2,500 won for adults, and they stop letting people enter at 9:30pm. Like I said, I would say go at night to see the beautiful reflections, but if you wanted to go during the day it would also be beautiful because of the gardens.

  Also dotted all over downtown Gyeongju are the royal tombs. These are literally everywhere, you cannot catch a bus into town without looking out the window and seeing them. They are park of large park areas, and are free to go wandering around. Unfortunately all the plaques are in Korean so I didn't have any idea which person was in what tomb, but it was still amazing to see. Actually, surreal was more like it. Korea itself never ceases to amaze me, but these were something different. Its like, this amazing bit of history just hanging out opposite the 7-11. Even thinking about it now I can't wrap my head around it. If this was Australia, and these mounds were some ancient Aboriginal burial ground there is no way people would be able to just wander around all over them. I guess it comes down to people in Korea generally following rules and having respect form what culture and history they have left. Anyway out of everything we got the chance to see these tombs were my fave, mainly because of this weird vibe I got from them... Just hanging out in a park. BIZARRE!!!! 

Thats me, standing about 5 feet in front of the base of a large mound.

    There is a tomb somewhere near by that you can actually go into, but these ones you can't. Inside, both Kings and Queens were buried, and in the smaller ones other high status people and members of the royal families were buried. Inside were places things like crowns, jewels, horse equipment and paintings. And bodies of course. There is a room type thing in the middle where everything is placed, and then the whole thing was covered in dirt and made into a mini mountain. Amazing huh?? There guys are also UNESCO sites^^

Getting there

  We took the KTX, but foolishly didn't book in advance. When travelling south ALWAYS BOOK IN ADVANCE or you will be stuck standing the whole way. It happened to us there AND back again. We caught the fast train from Cheonan-Asan KTX station to Singyeongju KTX station. It was I think 28,000 won there the same back again. So all up under 60,000 to travel across the country on the fast train. From the station we got a cab into town to the hostel, with the night tariff it was just over 16,000. 

  KTX doesn't run as often as the normal trains so make sure you are early to the station. You can always stand on the next one of you miss it but like I said, its a long way to stand. In my experience KTX is always late but don't risk it. 

Where to stay?

  We stayed at the Santa Guesthouse in downtown Gyeongju, and they were great. Nice and warm, a good location and they have free breakfast. As with most places in Korea the wifi was also free. There are 2 bathrooms, but they are unisex, so if you are funny about boy germs then this isn't the place for you. There are 3 rooms, all of them are bunk beds and shared. You can request a whole room if you have enough people. There are stairs to get there and no wheelchair access, so please bare that in mind. For travellers like us, 4 adorable young women, we felt totally safe there and had a good sleep. I would stay there again. The price is around 18-20,000 won per night. TOTALLY GOOD DEAL we booked through one of those online booking places and had no problem. 

To sum it up...

  I don't know what else to say really. I want to go back again in Spring and see some of the other sites, we didn't really plan the day too well and I underestimated how long it would take to get out to the temple and it ended up taking the whole day. 

  I have been told that in spring the flowers are amazing, and they have cherry blossoms and other pretty things. The best way to see everything would be to just hire a bike, which you can totally do. There were bike rental places everywhere. 

  For people who don't speak any Korean, this was pretty easy to navigate so you should be fine. As with all of the country, the taxi drivers don't really speak English so have where you want to go written in Korean, or an address they can plug into their GPS. They do know all the touristy areas though :)

  If you have any specific questions, hit me up.

xoxox