Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Gyeongju Part 2



After wandering about Seokguram, we headed to Anapji wander some more. Anapji is a man-made pond, made in the 600s and a lot of historical artifacts have been found there.







We walked around the pond, looked at a few of the artifacts on display...















Looked at these buildings...







And some more buildings...





Saw some beautiful views of the countryside









 Saw a man-made river and some ducks



We then started walking towards the burial grounds, which were quite visible, yet somehow still difficult to find. It was quite a mystery. See those large, circular mounds? Those are the tombs. For some reason, we could not get to them.
But, we enjoyed the views on the way there.
And of course, we eventually made it to the mounds. After a bit of aimless confusion.
This is Cheomseongdae, which is the oldest observatory in East Asia.
We passed some houses...
Oh look, they're getting closer!
and closer....
 Oh look, a couple on a bicycle. Notice the girl is sitting very comfortably on a seat on the back of the bike...or uncomfortably. You choose.
These are the foundation stones of the old palaces, according to my friend.


Hey look they're closer!! Except, we ran into a slight problem. There was a barbed wire fence protecting the mounds. Aka, we were attempting to find the wrong tombs. The tomb we were looking for (The one you could go inside) was across the main road and not visible. We were following the wrong tombs on the horizon.
More houses.

Once we figured that out, due to some help from Hye Jin's Iphone, we managed to get to the tombs that you can walk around and see a bit more closely.


I have re-christened these mounds as "The Butt Mounds"

This is one we were able to go inside.

We sat down and rested along this pond, because we had been walking for several years in an attempt to get to the tombs.



We watched the sunset, then headed back to Anapji to see it at night.




Saw the observatory at night

We then bought some Gyeongju Bbang. Aka Gyeongju Bread. There, I've taught you one of my few Korean words!

Here is Anapji at night. It is very beautiful! There were approximately 3 million more people there at night...I think you would agree that it is much more beautiful in the night than it is during the day.





Here is my hair looking like a lion. Actually, I just got my hair done, so it looks perfectly normal at the moment. It was just a perfect wind+lighting=lion moment.
There were fireworks. It was approximately here that a student looked at me in fear when he heard me speak in Korean. Afterwards, we headed home to Seoul. It was a great adventure. This weekend we are headed to Busan, so hopefully I finish my post about Jinhae before then.














Sunday, April 22, 2012

Gyeongju Part 1

I apologize if this blog looks weird...blogger reformatted and I'm still getting used to it. Particularly, moving pictures around.

A couple weekends ago, I went to Gyeongju with one of my new friends. We just did a day trip, so we left about 7:45 in the morning, so we could catch the train. Of course, the night before I went to bed about 2 AM as usual, so I was a tad tired in the morning. Oops. Hye Jin did as well, so I was not alone in being slightly tired. Luckily, we still had a wonderful time.

We arrived at the train station, then took a taxi to our first destination. We discovered when we got there that there was a marathon in Gyeongju, so there was a bit of traffic. Aka we didn't move for a very long time. Luckily, our taxi driver knew a back road through some winding hills, which he drove on while also watching tv on his GPS.

Our first stop was Bulguksa, which is a huge Buddhist temple. The original part of the temple was built in 774, then reconstructed and expanded in the 1600's.

It was quite beautiful. It's about halfway up a mountain overlooking a cool view.



Here I am at the entrance of Bulguksa Temple.











Bulguksa Temple is a World Heritage Sight.










 Here is a lantern.

Even though it was the last week in March, Spring hadn't quite arrived yet.

And a pond.

We walked through this in order to get to the temple. They were extremely tall and had this coming out of their legs.



 Here's the temple. It was pretty enormous and beautiful.


This is called the Dabotap, which was built in 751 and is considered a national treasure.

 Here is a dragon.



I couldn't take a picture inside, but you can kind of see.





























There is a story behind these rocks. It is tradition that if you place a rock on top of another rock, it is good luck. But, if the pile falls over, then you will have bad luck. Of course I tried. I'm sure you're thinking, "Lauren, what were you thinking? You'd knock over all of them at once at the same time and be the unluckiest person who has ever walked the planet."
If you said that, you would be correct....


Actually, no that didn't happen. I managed to place my rock right there, quite stealthily, without   knocking over piles and piles of rocks.

 We continued walking around then headed to lunch.






Our next stop was lunch at this cool, traditional place. Hye Jin said it was one of the more famous restaurants in Gyeongju. Here are some pictures:



Our lunch

Some huge fish
 A giant mill.

Then, we headed to the next location, passing this weird arch on the way.



Our next stop was Seokguram.



 This temple was also built in 751, and is actually part of Bulguksa. we couldn't take pictures inside, but you can see it in the link that I posted.


It was around here that Hye Jin noticed the joys of travelling with a foreigner. Aka, people stopped to talk to me, would run by yelling "hello" and stared as we walked by. She said, "wow, people really do stare at you don't they?" You really do get used to it...except when I'm walking  up stairs next to an escalator and people on the escalator are staring at me with a constant gaze the entire way up the stairs. That does still get mildly creepy. Because they won't stop looking. No matter how many times you look at them with a horrified look on your face. Or startled.









There was a pretty cool view, too. We saw a Korean chipmunk on the walk back.

I am going to end the blog here, but there is more to come from Gyeongju, but it's late and I'm getting annoyed with my attempts to format the blog how I want it being thwarted.