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.














2 comments:

  1. Loved all the pictures, of course, but especially those at night. Funny about the kid looking shocked at you ... how do your Korean friends feel about your Korean pronunciation? Do they think your accent is acceptable? So glad you got out to see S. Korea! Enjoy your weekend.

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  2. I have an accent obviously...and trouble communicating sometimes, but for the most part I hear that I speak well.

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