Gyeongju - Korea's Kyoto, not exactly
Trip Start
May 18, 2006
1
23
27
Trip End
May 30, 2007
Gyeongju,
Korea Rep.
Monday, May 7, 2007
Mathew here, I've got a 4 day weekend so I thought I would get a quick blog out regarding what I did this weekend and update you regarding our plans in the coming weeks.
As we said in our prior blog we are out of here in two weeks May the 21st to be exact but we're not counting. We have booked out tickets home and will be touching down in Brisbane on the morning of the 31st. We have decided to spend a week in Taiwan as "we will properly never get a chance to see it again". My mum has already promised a hearty meal of beef that isn't 60 % fat, that night and the first thing on the agenda when we arrive will be a decent coffee and breaky. It will be great catching up with all you guys and girls and swapping the war stories that have happened this past year
a big bell at the museum
.Now for my adventure. Not content with the thousands of temples we have seen in Korea, Japan and China I decided to visit Korea's #1 temple region "Gyeongju". 1000s of years ago this city was the capital of the Silla Empire that reunited all of Korea under one ruler and showed the world just how mighty, strong, smart and brave Koreans really were!
Nicole had enough of temples and decided to let me do this along. After spend 5 hours on a bus that was attempting to hit light speed on the high way I was dropped of in Gyeongju, a small town of 300,000 proud Koreans. Having all ready booked a motel to stay in I started off on my walk to find it and was at once "hit on" to try this old mans house 2 things caught my attention regarding this: first he spoke perfect english and i really needed to speak to someone in full and complete sentences and second, the room was cheaper by $7 score. The guy was really nice and pointed out were all the cool temples were i was soon on my way after catching a bus in which the bus driver told me in english how much the fair was Crazy!
My first stop was Bulguksa temple, a nice temple that had some cool pagodas while the same as many others in Korea, Bulguksa was certainly on a grander scale as my photos will attest to. Just above that temple was the Seokguram Grotto, a nice cave that contained the most amazing sculpture of a seated Buddha I have ever seen - indeed it was the first time in Korea that I have actually really been impressed with something. However, like many things Buddhist no photos were allowed so i will just put one on that i found on the net
a headless buddha
.It was getting late so I went back to the hotel and meet up with three people from ??Germany??? who had decided to travel over to Asia and visit Korea for 10 days - while i thought that was a little strange they seemed to be enjoying themselves and loving the food . We all decided to go looking at some of the touristy things that were lit up at night around the town. As the title of this blog mentions, Koreans believe Gyeongju to be their version of Kyoto in that it is an open museum. While I saw some cool things, I don't think i would go that far! What is cool is that the Kings of the Silla reign got buried in these huge grass mounds and they are still all around time - as the photos show they are massive and its pretty cool to see them as you are working down the main street. Gyeongju also has Asia's oldest observatory, which was really pretty all lit up.
The second day saw me climb up Mt Namson a 500 metre mountain just outside town that is famous for having thousands of statues, pagodas etc everywhere it was a nice hike and I meet many Koreans who offered me their water and some food - I decided to rough it and just bring my camera. Many statues were seen and while they all began looking the same the views made the climb enjoyable. To finish the day I went t the local museum, but by that time i had had enough of statutes and bits of bone and just rested on their seats relaxing. However, it was children's day in Korea that Saturday so there were thousands of kids out with their parents - to say i was popular was an understatement - very little relaxing was done with kids wanting pictures with me and their mothers telling them to go over and talk to me.
A huge buddha that was carvedinto the mountain
Well that was that, hopefully I won't have to see anymore temples in my life but I highly doubt it. Hope you are all well; I will see you in about three weeks time for a cold beer and a chat
matt
Nicole's Weekend:
Hi once again, i wasn't as lucky to have 4 days off, just the normal 2. I have really gotten use to not having to work weekends, the thought of going back onto a work roster with weekends scares me......but I am sure the money will be needed once we come back though.
I set off Friday night to visit Therese in Suncheon, a city 1 1/2 hrs east of us. I had been there before, but wanted to go see her new place. And it was great, she is all set up in a nice little apartment - and loads of other foreigners live in the same building. We went to a few different foreigner hang outs. I quickly realised life in Suncheon would be a lot different to our current life in Gangjin, and for those that had never experienced "rural Korea", some of my stories shocked them a little.
Saturday Therese, Rob and Sarah came to Gangjin. It was bad timing that Matt was away, as Saturday night we had a bit of a gathering and figured it would be the last time we, all those still in Korea, would be together before we left. Ummm, what else, ohh they are painting our apartment building, so the other morning i got a bit of a shock to see a guy sitting on a wooden plank suspended 11 floors up...that was interesting. And, it involves the door man constantly making public addresses over the loud speaker in our apartment (of course they are in Korean, so we have no idea what they are saying), we always make something up......Eg. "Do you know that the fresh paint will be wet, please don't touch it", "License plate 892 k, sorry but your black hyundai is now white "...etc.
Can't wait to see you all soon. Nicole
