As we left the Express Bus Terminal in Seoul and merged into busy traffic we wondered who was flicking through the channels on the TV at the front of the bus. To our horror we realized it was the bus driver. I would have liked to have seen him caring a little bit more about the 5 lanes of traffic we were navigating at the time. He finally settled on a baseball game, which managed to last for our entire bus ride (baseball games play for 4 hours?) and the passengers started getting pretty rowdy near the end of the game as the Samsung team tied up their match with the Doosan, Lotte, Wal-Mart or whatever corporate team it was that they were competing with.
We were pleased to find that directly outside of the Gyeongju bus terminal was a street full of shiny, new love motels. Some of them were surprisingly expensive (we were quoted 100,000 Won at the Sugar Hotel!), but we got a whirlpool room at the Icarus Hotel that we thought was really nice for 70,000 Won.
On Saturday morning we woke up to rain- don't you hate it when the weather forecast lies to you? It was really pouring so we decided that instead of going to see (the outdoor) Bulguksa Temple as we'd planned, we'd go to the Jasujeong Amethyst Cave in Eonyang instead. After we got back to Gyeongju we had dinner at a cheap galbi restaurant and then walked around the town for a bit. We'd been in the Gyeongju area for close to 24 hours by this point but hadn't seen a bit of the city. Gyeongju is a small place, but it's a popular destination for Korean tourists travelling in Korea. Why? Gyeongju used to be the capital of ancient Korea and many of the country's oldest cultural sights are located there. It's so many history!
The historical feel extended to the look of the city and the products that were sold. At one store I found the doghouse that I want to buy if I ever get a dog- it even has a traditional roof!
We came across this apartment building... the New Brunswick Ville! In Panda Class we've been learning about the flags of the world and one of my little girls asked me if I cry when I see the maple leaf. No, I don't, but for some reason seeing this apartment building (of all things) made me a bit sentimental. Maybe I felt like I should be living there.
We were still wandering around when we noticed some giant mounds peeking out from behind a gas station. We took a look and found that there was a whole park full of these mounds called tumulis, which are ancient burial grounds. That means there's bodies inside!
We decided the best thing to do would be to climb one of those suckers.
When I was at the top I realized we probably shouldn't have been climbing up ancient burial sites (nobody else was!), but we were already there so it was time for a photo shoot. The tumulis really transformed the landscape of the city and made for such an interesting-looking place. It was amazing how Gyeongju was just built around all of this interesting history.
At the park there was a stage set up where some Vietnamese musicians were performing a concert. There were even some dudes in dragon costumes dancing around the stage. It was cool.
It was just us and the adjoshis of Gyeongju enjoying the show.
On our second night we decided to try another love motel. Icarus Hotel was very nice but we always like to try different places. We stayed at Will Hotel, which was just a few buildings down from Icarus. It was the same price and looked very similar but it didn't have a whirlpool tub. Most love motels were built with some strange quirk and Will Hotel was no different: the bathtub drained onto the floor of the bathroom instead of down the pipe in the tub! The floor of the bathroom was soaked, along with the clothes I'd left there to change into.
The main draw of this tumuli park is that you can actually go inside one of the burial mounds. You can't take photos in the tomb but I can report that inside there are a bunch of old treasures (crowns, swords, plates- that sort of stuff) and a replica of the buried remains.
We left the Tumuli Park and walked a few minutes to Cheomseongdae, the oldest surviving astronomical observatory in east Asia. It was built in the 7th century! Did they even have stars back then?
We had some snacks in the Gyerim Forest, which was close to the observatory and then I spotted an ajumma selling Vietnamese-style cone hats! Mel had bought one at the Jisan Valley Festival and I really regretted not buying one too- let's face it, they're so wearable- so I bought one too. Wearing it was easier than carrying it, so for the rest of the day I was given even stranger looks than usual. At Anapji Pond (above) a couple of complete strangers even asked us to take photos with them. Can you imagine stopping a random Asian person on the street in Canada and asking them to take a photo with you? Oh Korea, you're so sheltered.
Conehead @ an old ice storehouse.
With another hour left to kill before our bus ride back to Seoul we hung out next to yet another one of Gyeongju's over-400 tumulis. At this point Mel was getting sick of looking at them while I was still smitten with the interesting landscape and the many opportunities to hum BEP's "My Humps". After eating it was time to catch our bus home...
...and we are never, ever taking another long-distance bus into Seoul on a Sunday evening ever again! Because of the traffic, it took 6.5 hours to get home and we felt super bus sick by the end of the trip. We also had to listen to the foreigners in front of us inanely jabber on about mayonnaise and book genres for so long that by the time we got to Seoul we swore this was really the last time.
Until next time.
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