Gyeongju

After nearly two months in Korea I finally had a chance to get out a bit and see the countryside. Since arriving it has been all city living, and big city at that. Sure, I take the occasional jaunt up the hills in the area. I get my fill of nature, but at every look-out, every landscape opens up to skyscrapers, supermarkets, and concrete-block forests. Heeding the advice of those English teachers that came before me I decided to sign up for the 2^nd Cherry Blossom trip to Gyeongju with the travel agency Adventure Korea. I've never really been much for travel agencies and tours. The idea of just getting shuffled around from place to place with a whole mess of foreigners doesn't necessarily sound too appealing to me. To Adventure Korea's credit I felt that we did get a lot of chances to explore on our own and on top of that, I didn't have to spend countless hours planning just to get there and find things myself. Such a task would have been quite overwhelming at my current level of Korean. I'll leave that adventure for another day.

No time was wasted. All packed up and ready to leave from work Friday night we hopped right on the metro to make the hour-long trip into Seoul where we would catch our bus. The bus, leaving at 11:30pm arrived at the hotel at 4am with a few hours of sleep to be had before beginning our Saturday on bikes. The Korean hostel experience is a big open room with enough blankets and pillows to go around. Before long the bedding was laid out on the heated floor and I was fast asleep.

A 20 minute bus ride dropped us off at the bike rental place where we quickly grabbed bikes and headed to the first destination, Bunhwangsa Temple. The five minute bike ride took us down our first of many cherry-blossom lined lanes along a wide open field of small yellow flowers. Out there in the field we hung out on an old rock wall and a small monument before entering the Temple. Bunhwansa dates back to the year 634 when it was the principle temple of the Silla Dynasty located in Gyeongju, the Silla capital. Upon entering the temple brightly colored lanterns hanging just feet above catch the eye. Centered in the complex is a three story stone pagoda which was apparently nine stories tall at one point.

Lanterns and the stone pagoda.

From the temple we cruised the cherry-blossom lanes of Gyeongju along the river to the lake. The blossoms where the prettiest along the walkways lining the lake. After an extended lunch of delicious pork and Korean sides we continued our cruise around the lake and back to the historical part of Gyeongju.

Our next stop was the beautiful Anapji Pond. Dating back to 674, the man-made pond was part of a palace. Over the years it fell into disrepair until it was excavated and renovated in the 70's. It is now a beautiful historic site with a few picturesque pagodas which offer a great view from the walkways around the pond.

Our final bike stop was at Daereungwon Tombs Park featuring royal tombs in the form of large grass covered mounds. It was in this park that the majority of the Gyeongju visitors congregated, exploring the gardens, flying kites, relaxing and viewing the Cheomseongdae observatory. Cheomseongdae is the oldest surviving observatory in East Asia dating back to the 7^th century.

After turning our bikes in we returned to the hotel and my evening continued with my first visit to a Korean spa, some delicious Korean food and a somewhat late night at the noribong. The Korean spa and noribong will certainly be subjects of later posts.

Our Sunday started off with a 20 minute bus ride up a winding mountain road to one of Korea's most important religious sites, Seokguram Grotto. As an extension of the Bulguksa Temple, Seokguram Grotto is a hermitage about 4km up the mountain. The pagoda holding the grotto's bell stands within sight of Bulguksa temple and a short, ten minute walk from there opens up to the grotto complex which features two main temples. One of the two temples is built into the mountain and it features a 3.5 meter granite sculpture of Budda. Tourists and pilgrims shuffled in a line through the front room of the grotto. A pane of glass separated visitors from the main room where Korean Buddhists were praying. I struggled to get a good view as I was constantly being bumped by ajimas (old Korean ladies) eager to get a central viewing position. Despite the hordes of people shuffling in to see the Buddha, standing outside the temple it is easy to block out the damage by tourism when you take in the view of the mountains in front of you.

Following our grotto visit we bussed it back down to the hotel to enjoy a meal of bibimbap (rice, egg and vegetable mixture), pack our bags, and prepare for our final site and trip back to Seoul. Our last major stop was to be the main Bulguksa Temple complex.

Entering the temple complex you pass through a nice garden and a pagoda containing temple guards standing at around 3 meters tall. The fierce look of the temple guards is intimidating but you feel at ease when you see the real demons secured under their large feet. Bulguksa is a large temple with several buildings. In my wandering through the complex I passed by six buildings containing golden statues of various Buddhas but I'm sure that there are still some that I did not see. The main courtyard features two stone pagodas but one of them was under going some restoration as it was surrounded by a large metal structure. In each of the buildings older Koreans knelt down in prayer to the golden statue centered at the back wall. Once again, the many visitors and tourists didn't seem to obstruct my peaceful wanderings through the complex. We were given just enough time at the temple to see the different buildings on our own and to even stop along the way taking in the scenery. The temple seemed a fitting end to the beautiful weekend spent in an ancient Korean capital.

The bus ride back to Seoul took us through the heart of the Southern half of the peninsula with mountains on both sides. As we neared Seoul, traffic picked up and added at least a couple of hours to our ride. It must have been 11:30pm when I finally walked through my door and after such a long bus ride it was great to be home. The trip was a great way to kick off spring in South Korea and I am now looking forward to the next few weekends of exploring my favorite season here in the Incheon/Seoul region of the country.