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

What do I have in my pocketssssss

Did you used to have weird things in your pencil case when you were in school?

  By school I more mean elementary/primary school, but I guess in general. I think for me, the strangest thing I used to have were things I found outside, like interesting rocks or sticks. There were other more "normal" things like tazos or other collectible cards, and kinder surprise toys. 

I am sure there are other people out there who had more interesting things in their bags and pencil cases. 

  Kids doing and having weird shit is not Korea specific, I have come to believe that children are, in general terms, the same globally. They all tend to like cute fluffy things like puppies, boys tend to also like gross things like squished bugs, and girls like pretty pens. They tease each other, and draw all over their things. They hit each other, cry, and then make up within 10 minutes. Some are sleepy during class, others are full of beans and won't shut up (and different kids fill these sleepy and rowdy roles every day). 

  Some kids like blue, others green, some can't speak properly in their own language, let alone a second one. Some have a heap of friends, some a few. Some have none. You can generally tell a child comes from an unsupportive home, or a bad environment by their behavior or the way they dress. Or the way they associate with other kids. 

All children, all over the world, are strange. 

  I guess some things they will grow out of (like, at some point little Kang Joo Min is going to stop crying when he doesn't get to sit with his friend, and eventually Hye Jin is not going to try to sit in her partners lap during class... 

  Anyway, this isn't Korea specific, as I said, but I want to tell you some of the things I have seen the kids carrying around. Let me know if yours do the same, where ever you are...

• a frog in a jar
• Stanley knives in pencil cases (they don't tend to use a normal pencil sharpener here)
• a watch face, no band on it
• Pokemon cards
• smartphones with cases so big they need to carry them in little shoulder bags
• fluffy pencil cases shaped as various animals (the best was the fluffy blue whale that one of my gr 6 boys had)
• dead bugs - usually dragonflies
• candies
• vitamins (which they eat like candies)
• passes to get them on to the Air Base - I am constantly telling the kids to keep these in a safer place than their jacket pockets. Its like, a national security risk or something
• hot packs
• k pop memorabilia 
• mini slinkies
• play dough and clay
• nail polish
• spare phone batteries
• sand from the sports field
• a hamster

In other news...

  We had first snow yesterday for the season... and its totally early. Last year it didn't snow until December. But, I have been told by a semi-reliable source (yes, that's right, you know who you are...) that early snow can mean new love is on the horizon! So that, coupled with my new found interest in feng shui love charms means that any day now my milkshake should bring all the boys to the yard. I am still the most unlucky in love person I know, so maybe the snow will bring in some romance. Don't think I don't know that you are all waiting for some smutty stories...

  But the snow is beautiful. I mean, it was really just a fly by blizzard of sorts, and although it snowed a little again today its still not quite cold enough for it to settle and stick. I am a crazy person who actually loves this time of year, when the snow starts and its all exciting. If only they would let me have a heater on at school... But this is old news, everyone surely remembers me complaining last year about the cold?? No??? Rest assured, cold fb status updates are coming. 

  Countdown is on for heading home for 3 weeks. We are down to under 40 days... So I best get started on my Gillian Michaels 30 day shred. Which I was supposed to start this morning but unfortunately due to a mistake on my part my alarm didn't go off. I was late for work AND I didn't get shredded. Was so stupid too, I have like, a million cables under my side table at home, and I plugged my phone into one of them over night to charge and the stupid thing wasn't even connected to the wall. I plugged the phone into the camera charger or something... It amazing I woke up in time for classes at all.

Anyway, that's all for now... I want to do a write up of my touristy trip to Gyeongju soon, so stay tuned. It was a great weekend and pics turned out amazing. 

xoxox