South Korea's cultural heartland
Trip Start
May 28, 2006
1
79
162
Trip End
May 17, 2007
Gyeongju,
Korea Rep.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
14 Sa-rang-chae Guest House
Jim had booked us a room in what sounded like a beautiful traditional Korean guest house; it was only once we'd been walking around with our backpacks on, in the rain for nearly half an hour that he remembered to tell me that the guidebook had suggested we double check the hotel's location as when they went to press it was thought it may move! Guess what, it had...
05 South Korean autumn
Now addresses in Korea are not straightforward to begin with - it seems buildings appear and disappear with alarming speed, not only that, but bizarrely, buildings are numbered not according to where they are on a street, but according to when they were built - so 27 may be next to 349. Add to that the fact that most streets aren't even named and it all gets a bit complicated!Fortunately, Korea is the most wired country in the world and you're never far from a computer connected to the worldwide web. A quick check of the map on the hotel's site, put us on the right track and we arrived barely an hour after we set off to walk for 10 minutes.
11 Burial mounds of Silla kings in Gyeongju
Gyeongju is definitely on the tourist circuit and with good reason. In 57 BC it became the capital of the ancient kingdom of Silla - a role it bore for nearly 1,000 years. The Silla dynasty ruled most of the Korean Peninsula from the 7th to the 9th centuries and although the city gradually declined in importance after the kingdom fell, the wealth of sites of archaelogical interest is stunning. We spent a full two days exploring the area, but only really scratched the surface. 
22 Silla gold crown
It turns out the reason our hotel had moved was to landscape the area around a series of large ancient burial mounds in the main shopping district of the city. There are dozens of these grassy hillocks around and although they're not as immediately noticeable as the Egyptian pyramids they served the same purpose. Several of them have been excavated (mainly by the Japanese during the 1910 - 1945 occupation, but some more recently by the Koreans too) and you can actually walk inside one. 
18 Silla treasure
When they opened up the Cheonmachong (Heavenly Horse Tomb), which is 13 metres high, 47 metres in diameter and was built around the end of the 5th century AD, they found an amazingly elaborate, pure (97%) gold crown decorated with jade nuggets, along with other priceless treasures. Many of the finds are on display in the excellent city museum, along with a small fraction of 33,000 objects that were discovered when the Anapji Pond in the town was drained for repairs in 1975. It's quite mind boggling walking around the exhibits and seeing among other things glasses imported from Eurasia and a 12-sided wooden die used in ancient drinking games - forfeits inscribed on it included necking drinks and singing bawdy songs!
02 Inside Bulguksa
It's beginning to feel a bit as if you haven't really done any worth while sightseeing, unless you manage to fit in at least one Unesco World Heritage site before lunch, so we braved the crowds of hundreds of excitable school children (every single one of whom shouted "hellooo!!!" when they spotted us!) at the Bulguksa temple complex just outside town. The shrine was founded in 528, expanded in 751 and remained intact until it was largely destroyed by the Japanese in 1593. The temple languished in ruins for centuries until a reconstruction project was started in the 1960s. The whole site is beautiful, the painted wooden eaves and ceilings in particular.
15 Walking up to Seokgurum Grotto
The other sight nearby also awarded World Cultural Heritage status is the Seokguram Grotto. It's just a small complex by comparision - only really a one roomed hall which houses a stone carving of the Sakyamuni (or historical) Buddha - but the figure is really delicately executed and the walk up through the woods with all the turning leaves is stunning. 
