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).
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.
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.
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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