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On the four and a half hour journey down south in the comfortable plush seats equipped with foldaway table and foot rest in a somewhat dated style, I took the opportunity to read up on this cultural haven we were about to encounter. Gyeongju was the city that allowed the Silla kingdom to flourish and bring together a united Korea back in the 7th century. It had a succession of 56 kings over three centuries before internal corruption and external forces brought about its decline. The sights that we were to explore are tributes and relics of this time of affluence and power.
As we stepped out of the train station we were immediately presented with images of Gwani and Geumi – the characters of Gyeongju. Of course, we were still in Korea; city of culture or not, there is apparently no escaping the excuse for the cute. We spent the first night in downtown, meandering through the handful of streets adorned with neon signs, bars, cafes and restaurants before retreating a couple of streets over to the dimly lit back alley where our hotel was situated.
Gyeongju is split into four areas: downtown, the Bomun lake resort, Bulguksa (holding the main temple of Gyeongju) and Namsan (the mountainous region).
We spent the first day enjoying the crisp air walking through parks filled with tombs (see right) – large mounds not dissimilar in function to the Egyptian pyramids; magpies – the city bird of Gyeongju; and oblivious exercising elderly Koreans. We gazed at the findings in the National Museum, including articles found at the bottom of Anapji Pond – a beautiful garden created to represent utopia: constructed so that at no point is one able to view the pond in its entirety; and the Emille Bell – which a tour guide might tell you can be heard to a 3km radius if only hit lightly with a fist. We looked upon with mild disinterest at the Cheomseongdae Observatory – allegedly the oldest astrological observatory in East Asia, built with 366 bricks to represent each day of the year. Obviously their years were different back then. Equipped only with a tourist not-to-scale map, we embarked upon walking to the Bomun lake resort. We were not, however, prepared for the 6km walk along the highway with nothing in front of us but more road – not making for a particularly inspiring walk. We eventually caught a bus for the final kilometre which rode us by the largest watermill in Korea, though with a 13m diameter it wasn’t that impressive. What excited us more was handling Walther PPKs (yes, real ones) at the local shooting range and practising our target shooting. Even better, we got to keep our paper targets as proof of our proficiency, or, in my case incompetence; I think I will have to forgo that career as a secret agent for now.
Clearly an area developed for tourism, with no tourists around but a handful of mothers with children on rented plastic tricycles, we decided to move on (by bus) to the Bulguksa region. Once we’d settled into our hostel – in which we decided we were the only guests – we wandered around the small grid of restaurants and entertainment establishments looking for somewhere to eat.
Considering the choice available to us, we felt a distinct eeriness as we barely crossed another human being on our scout. The term ghost town sprung to mind, almost as though the neon signs were flashing due to bulb failure and a stray cat might crossed our paths looking for scraps. Naturally since we’d chosen to visit in the time furthest away from peak season, we were not expecting huge numbers of tourists accompanying us through the sights. In fact this rather worked to our advantage, not having to battle through crowds, queues and groups of noisy tour buses. However the fact that we’d read that the area gets swamped in peak season implied we might cross someone, but alas, no such luck. Despite the lack of tourists, the restaurants still appeared to be ‘open’ with the owners sitting around watching TV on the off chance someone might walk in, although whether they expected to receive business or not is debatable. (Left: the empty streets of Bulguksa as the day comes to an end)We suspected that the restaurant that we eventually chose might not have seen customers for a few weeks and hoped that the inflated tourist menu might come down a notch in view of this, but to our dismay the stated prices stood. Disconcertingly an elderly lady sat at an adjacent table and watched us eat. Her glazed look, stooped back and walking stick made me wonder whether she was indeed focusing on us, but when she came round afterwards and pointed at the leftover rice it suggested that perhaps this was her intention – to stare.
In Bulguksa temple the next morning we did come across a number of other tourists which rather begged the question of where they’d all been the night before. Regarding the temple, it was interesting to wander around and see various Buddhist monks performing their daily meditations, unfazed by the number of onlookers. From here we did the 3km hike up the side of a mountain to reach the Seokgaram Grotto: a large Buddha statue in a small temple shaped hut. It was an impressive sight but knowing little about it, it seemed like we were intruding on some kind of religious pilgrimage as other Koreans bowed down to the Buddha while we looked on, forbidden to take photographs. Still, I’m sure it’s a different story in the summer.
We arranged a taxi tour to other places around this area inaccessible by public transport. We were taken to Golgulsa Temple where the main attraction was a large Buddha statue carved out of the side of a rock – reached by a series of upward slopes and a set of poorly carved steps. Again, it felt as though only the particularly religious and diehard tourists would make the effort of the climb, yet the engraving was pretty amazing. We moved onto King Munmu’s underwater tomb, though this was just an excuse to see the beach as the ‘sight’ was just a pile of rocks out to sea. Still, we breathed in the sea air and bought some dried squid from one of the various sellers along the shore. (Right: fresh squid hanging to dry)On the way back into downtown the bus driver of the bus we’d waited patiently for decided he was an ex-rally driver, jumped a red light and smacked into the back of a truck. Luckily no one was hurt – despite the old man at the front picking out shards of glass from his clothing – but the bus took a pretty large beating. No one seemed particularly disturbed by the incident and we all just piled on the next bus to come along.
Our final visit of the day, and indeed the trip, was a short ride out to the Namsan area where we visited Poseokjeong: an old banquet place now remaining parkland, with a small water channel where people would sit and play drinking games back in the days of the Shilla dynasty. It was pretty, but without knowing the full historical relevance of the place we felt we’d seen enough.
The train journey home was filled with idle chit chat to a couple of elementary school girls, eager to practise their English. We exchanged telephone numbers – all Koreans seem insistent on this ritual upon a five minute chat in the supermarket – and they have dutifully text to inform of their devoted English study. These maniacal Koreans and their devotion to learning, eh?
Today we headed for the Korean War Museum. It had a large section on the various wars of ancient Korea, but the main feature was naturally the Korean War. Here my knowledge on this subject went from minimal to passable, though my interest in guns and tanks is limited and thus my attention waned as the end of the walking tour approached. Still, I am impressed with Korean museums as much effort is put into making the displays fun and attractive, making the information easily accessible. I must endeavour to swot up more on the subject before making the trip up to the North, though...
Photos of Gyeongju
1 comment:
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