Gyeongju anyone?

We just arrived back home yesterday from a memorable trip to the ancient capital city of South Korea, Gyeongju. It is a spectacular place! Tons and tons of history to be known and explored! Okay, it was pretty sweet!
We jumped a bus at 8am on Saturday morning and headed to Ulsan Station. From there we took our first economy class train ride to Gyeongju. We jumped on the train at 9:20am. The train left about 30 seconds after we got on. It was a standing room only trip for us since we didn't know how to translate our seat numbers. It was only a 35 minute trip so we decided to stand instead of try and figure it out. As it turns out, we were 3 rail cars away from our seats, which were probably open.
We arrived at Gyeongju Station ("yok" in Korean) at 9:55 on the button. We then proceeded to the waiting room and waited. For what you might ask?
Well it was only 25 minutes later when hemeeting? It was a lonely traveller by the name of Shaun Unger. Yes, my good man and treeplanter stepped off the train and walked into the station. Who was it? Who could we possilby be foremanning co-worker, Shaun! In his many travels, Shaun decided to head in the direction of South Korea for a couple weeks. We were able to hook up with him in a city nearby for a short visit. It was a blast!
We quickly got reaquainted and headed out on our Gyeongju adventure. First stop: find a motel to drop off our bags and later crash for the night. Shaun pulls out his trusty "lonely planet" Korea guide map and we head towards our destintion, Sar an chae. The map seemed fairly simple. Just down a couple blocks from the station and hang a right. But. . . which right would that be?
After we tried almost every possible right and asked a few locals where this "Sar an chae" was, we found a map on the side of a fence, probably at the old Sar an chae, yes, you heard me, the old Sar an je. There was a new building and a new location just across the way. The right turn quickly became a left and we finally found our beloved Sar an che. . .


. . . .











. . . with a Korean sign that must have said "no vacancy", as we soon discovered. They had a vacant room for the following night, but not this one. So we headed back to the tourist information booth. On the way we though we'd try out a "barebones" motel Shaun discovered in the pages of the "lonely traveller". We checked it out. It was a room with a floor and a TV. That's basically it. And they wanted 20,000 won for it, which is way too expensive around here. So we proceeded to the info booth. They helped us out so much there! Not only did they find us a place, but they called a reserved a room for us in a motel in the Bomun Resort area.
So we hopped on bus #10 and headed out on our way to our motel. By now we had spent a good portion of our day walking back and forth to the same place thinking that somehow a road would magically appear on the third or fourth walk-around. But we were finally going to find a place to stay. And it was definitely a step up!

Between the three of us it didn't cost much for the sweet shower, bathtub, and a 4th floor view of the Bomun Lake area, not to mention the bed, TV, and mini-fridge.
So we dropped our bags and headed on our way to see the performances at Wolseong Park from 3pm-5pm. Oh. . . we got lost again finding it. But we did end up walking through Tombs Park. It's a park full of burial sites for ancient kings. They are buried under huge mounds of dirt. These mounds are all over the city too, not just in Tombs Park.

We also found our way into Gyeruim Forest. It wasn't much of a forest compared to what I'm used to, but it was pretty neat. The trees are obviously different than the pine and spruce we treeplanting Canadians are used to. In the forest we came across an open tomb site where we could look in and see the "shrine" build for these kings dead bodies. It was huge! I suppose the body was buried right in the middle. But I'm not sure. Nonetheless, it was a very spacey area for one guy. Before running into this I didn't realize these hills were covering a huge shrine-like tomb.

After we exited the Forest we "stumbled" (no joke!) our way into Wolseong Park and actually found the performance stage. We paid our toll and headed in to see this great orchestra. . . practicing for the big night. Apparently we were a few hours early. We would have loved to stay, but we were freezing cold! Yes, freezing cold in Korea! The winds were up and the evening chill had a harsh bite. We decided to enjoy the practice and skip the performance. So we headed out to find a bite to eat.
We finally decided on a small restaurant with nice looking picture of food on the front window. Shaun ordered the picture (some squid dish), I ordered a pork cutlet, and Christine had the same with some cheese. I would have had cheese, but I forgot to mention the stomach problems I was having all day. I had a massive headache brewing on top of that. My stomach had finally decided to react to the different food I had been eating. . . so I thought. I ordered a meal that was supposed to come without rice, but sure enough . . the cabbage and corn were replaced with a nice clump of rice. I've eaten more rice here than I have in my entire life. I didn't eat it this time.
From there we headed back to the motel since I was barely surviving the vicious cold weather, a pounding headache, and strange new pains in the mid-section. I was extremely thankful for a warm bath at the motel. It felt so good! We relaxed and chatted for the evening until we dosed off.
Up at 9am the next morning! We were ready to go! We had a temple to see. We needed somewhere to put our bags while we explored so we thought we'd hit up the lockers at the train station. But we arrived only to find them all completely full. What now? Well, Shaun was going to be staying another night. Why not see if Sar an chae had some room? We went to our favorite place, the info booth. Sure enough, they hooked him up and got us a free ride to the motel. Shaun checked in and the three of us enjoyed a nice cup of tea while his room was being prepared.
Afterward we jumped our well-known bus #10 (maybe 11..the same thing) and headed to the Bulsuksa Temple. We got dropped off at the bottom of the mountain and began our journey. First we explored all the shrines and the temple at the bottom of the mountain. There were some sweet sights there. There were a bunch of different Budda shrines, each with a different pose of Budda. There were also some neat souvenir shops in the temple grounds. Of course, we first had to pass by the four temple guards.

After wandering around for a while, Shaun and I found a stairway at the back of the souvenir shop. We didn't know what it was or where it went so we basically "had" to go down and see. We weren't sure if it was off limits or what. It wasn't.

It was an awesome little tea shop/lounge. It was the coolest atmosphere ever! We decided to sit down for a while and enjoy the sounds and smells of this place. We all ordered some tea. I asked the waitress to give me a tea that would be good for my stomach. Of course, I didn't ask in Korean, I just simply rubbed my stomach and looked as ill as I could. It worked! She brought me the best tea I have ever had in my life! It tasted more like a cider drink, but it was fantastic. So much flavor! I have to find out what it is and learn how to make it!

After we thoroughly enjoyed our tea, we prepared for our 3km hike. It was beginning to get late and we wanted to get some daylight pictures at the top so we thought we would take the shuttle up to the top. But as our luck would have it, the shuttle just finished it's final run. So we hopped in a cab and headed up the hill. But a few seconds in we found out that he would not take us up unless we would pay him an arm and a leg to wait for us and take us down. So we said "no", and he took us back down and we set out on foot. It was a bit of an exhausting hike but we made it to the top in about 30 minutes (the taxi told us it would take 1 hour..ha.. of course he did). It was a beautiful walkway all the way up. All made of stone and packed sand. The retaining walls were amazing. But the veiw at the top was incredible!

At the very top was a shrine with a huge budda made of stone. It was pretty amazing art! I wasn't supposed to take a picture so I turned off the flash and took an quick pot-shot photo of the inside of the shrine. It was pretty cool. Although, it felt so empty. Many people walk up the mountain to pray to this budda for enlightenment. All I could sense was a complete emptiness. But there was something about the beauty in all of the art surrounding this place. And the view was magnificent!

But, time was ticking and Christine and I had to get back to the train station cuz we had to teach in the morning. So we walked down the mountain as fast as we could and flagged down our #11 bus as it was pulling out. We got off near the Sar an chae and quickly picked up our stuff and headed to the station. Of course, we couldn't help but stop at the street vendors for some chicken on a stick! That stuff is the bomb! It's a snack in Korea, along with a bunch of breaded deepfried stuff. It's the goods!

We said our goodbye's and jumped on our train and headed home. It was a wonderful time in Gyeongju. We were glad we had the chance to spend it with our friend Shaun. We're definitely going to go back out there for another visit to Gyoengju and hit up the Sar an chae. I think there is much more to see there!