Gyeongju (The Museum Without Walls) -- August 22/23
Late, but never forgotten, since it was the lynchpin to my last month and a half. This was the trip I took with Allie, to Gyeongju and Mount Namsan. Gyeongju was the capital of the ancient Silla Kingdom, which last for a millennium in before 970's BC. I knew pretty much this and nothing else, aside from the fact Alice had raved about wanting to see this city when it all started.
We woke up crazy early Saturday morning, like normal, to catch our way to the bus pick up, and rode on our charted for about five and half hours before arriving in the lovely Gyeongju. We started in the early afternoon with a cultural heritage tour at Daeneungwon ( Cheonmacheong), aka the Tombs of Shilla.
That's right. They have warning signs for is now.
The Tomb with the museum inside of it (which we weren't to take pictures of the inside, le sigh.)
Some tomb mounds and crazy wind
A lovely pond on the grounds
Next we walked our way to the Cheomseongdae Observatory across and down the road but two minutes.
In its glory
A picture of Alice, Kimberly, and I hamming it up.
Then it was a much longer walk across a few streets, through some truly stunning flower fields to reach the Gyeongju National Museum.
On the grounds of the National Gyeongju Museum now
And one of me with them!
Some interest architecture on the main museum building
One of my teeny, tiny elephant pictures for elfinecstasy
Back outside on the grounds. Korea really loves it's huge bells.
And tucked away heavenly pond places
The collection of headless Buddha’s.
After this we all grouped for dinner, and heading back to our lodgings. Alice lead us to a place where we had a dish famous for the location, but it being far past midnight and nearly seven weeks ago I'm at the loss for the name or waking her to ask it. But I remember it was a spicy tofu soup of some kind, and it was rather delicious.
Pretty streets
Delicious eats
And some signage
Kimberly, Alice and I wandered the night. Popping into and out of stores. We picked up the country famous bread to take back to coworkers, and tried it ourselves. It was passable. This was an amusing, amazing, memorable sort of night. I finally acquired a shoulder bag for carrying things while day tripping during travel so as not to lug my entire backpack around. It was also the advent of the taxi driver who didn't want to let us out of his car. And the free fruit samples or fruits piled high in single lines.
In the morning we went to Seokgulam Grotto (a Unesco Cultural Heritage sight)
Another giant bell outside the Grotto, leading up to it.
The away, down from it shot, taken on leaving this area, much later, too.
The grotto hidden in the trees as we made our way up to it.
So unassuming it looks doesn't it? You'd never assume walking up to this, that you'll step inside the door and see --
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This. It's truly heart stopping. So big it fills you to over flowing.
Taken from the AK site, as it is another thing they won't let you photograph.
The picture doesn't do it justice. The thing towers over you. It's the largest thing I've seen here.
That tiny dark thing you can make out at the bottom of it. That is the monks praying altar.
And it is the size of half a person standing.
We wandered around here for a while, hiking the up and down trails, before moving on to the connected Bulguksa Temple.
It started with a river oasis.
Had amazing guards ( on both sides!)
And was huge, but un-enterable through the front gates due to its age.
The first like this I've found. It was truly amazing.
It had little details like this all over it.
A courtyard in one of the inner areas of the temple.
One of the shrines, where a monk was playing a Moktok (!)
One of the many protected reliefs
After we finished with the Grotto and Temple, we turned to our hike of Mount Namsan. This is the hike that took me out of walking for over a month, but going into it I was still all rays of sunshine and gung-ho. As with all my trips and hiking done with Adventure Korea. This was vaunted at the amazing hike to a summit pagoda at the top. By the middle of the hike, I was contemplating with every step if I should turn back, but I really wanted to see the end. I told myself to keep making it.
It really was beautiful.
A headless Buddha shrine on the hiking path
A Buddha relief on one of the mountain walls we curved past
One of the many views going up
Uh. This last one, is the stunning lack of historical pagoda or even like a view from the mountain top, which possibly part of what took me so long to want to get through cataloging this one. The utter innocuousness of having reach the summit of the top most point in the old Silla kingdom, and losing six weeks of locomotion, for.....a rock that was put there in the last few years. I was very unpleased to say the least, especially with how many kilometers i had to hike back down.
But it was a beautiful weekend regardless.
And if you want more, the gallery has something around 200-300 pictures.
Galleries Created & Updates
Traveling in South Korea
Gyeongju: Bulguksa Temple, Seokgulam Grotto & Mnt. Namsan
Coming sometime soon, this past weekend's trip to Ullengdo Island!
We woke up crazy early Saturday morning, like normal, to catch our way to the bus pick up, and rode on our charted for about five and half hours before arriving in the lovely Gyeongju. We started in the early afternoon with a cultural heritage tour at Daeneungwon ( Cheonmacheong), aka the Tombs of Shilla.
That's right. They have warning signs for is now.
The Tomb with the museum inside of it (which we weren't to take pictures of the inside, le sigh.)
Some tomb mounds and crazy wind
A lovely pond on the grounds
Next we walked our way to the Cheomseongdae Observatory across and down the road but two minutes.
In its glory
A picture of Alice, Kimberly, and I hamming it up.
Then it was a much longer walk across a few streets, through some truly stunning flower fields to reach the Gyeongju National Museum.
On the grounds of the National Gyeongju Museum now
And one of me with them!
Some interest architecture on the main museum building
One of my teeny, tiny elephant pictures for elfinecstasy
Back outside on the grounds. Korea really loves it's huge bells.
And tucked away heavenly pond places
The collection of headless Buddha’s.
After this we all grouped for dinner, and heading back to our lodgings. Alice lead us to a place where we had a dish famous for the location, but it being far past midnight and nearly seven weeks ago I'm at the loss for the name or waking her to ask it. But I remember it was a spicy tofu soup of some kind, and it was rather delicious.
Pretty streets
Delicious eats
And some signage
Kimberly, Alice and I wandered the night. Popping into and out of stores. We picked up the country famous bread to take back to coworkers, and tried it ourselves. It was passable. This was an amusing, amazing, memorable sort of night. I finally acquired a shoulder bag for carrying things while day tripping during travel so as not to lug my entire backpack around. It was also the advent of the taxi driver who didn't want to let us out of his car. And the free fruit samples or fruits piled high in single lines.
In the morning we went to Seokgulam Grotto (a Unesco Cultural Heritage sight)
Another giant bell outside the Grotto, leading up to it.
The away, down from it shot, taken on leaving this area, much later, too.
The grotto hidden in the trees as we made our way up to it.
So unassuming it looks doesn't it? You'd never assume walking up to this, that you'll step inside the door and see --
This. It's truly heart stopping. So big it fills you to over flowing.
Taken from the AK site, as it is another thing they won't let you photograph.
The picture doesn't do it justice. The thing towers over you. It's the largest thing I've seen here.
That tiny dark thing you can make out at the bottom of it. That is the monks praying altar.
And it is the size of half a person standing.
We wandered around here for a while, hiking the up and down trails, before moving on to the connected Bulguksa Temple.
It started with a river oasis.
Had amazing guards ( on both sides!)
And was huge, but un-enterable through the front gates due to its age.
The first like this I've found. It was truly amazing.
It had little details like this all over it.
A courtyard in one of the inner areas of the temple.
One of the shrines, where a monk was playing a Moktok (!)
One of the many protected reliefs
After we finished with the Grotto and Temple, we turned to our hike of Mount Namsan. This is the hike that took me out of walking for over a month, but going into it I was still all rays of sunshine and gung-ho. As with all my trips and hiking done with Adventure Korea. This was vaunted at the amazing hike to a summit pagoda at the top. By the middle of the hike, I was contemplating with every step if I should turn back, but I really wanted to see the end. I told myself to keep making it.
It really was beautiful.
A headless Buddha shrine on the hiking path
A Buddha relief on one of the mountain walls we curved past
One of the many views going up
Uh. This last one, is the stunning lack of historical pagoda or even like a view from the mountain top, which possibly part of what took me so long to want to get through cataloging this one. The utter innocuousness of having reach the summit of the top most point in the old Silla kingdom, and losing six weeks of locomotion, for.....a rock that was put there in the last few years. I was very unpleased to say the least, especially with how many kilometers i had to hike back down.
But it was a beautiful weekend regardless.
And if you want more, the gallery has something around 200-300 pictures.
Galleries Created & Updates
Traveling in South Korea
Gyeongju: Bulguksa Temple, Seokgulam Grotto & Mnt. Namsan
Coming sometime soon, this past weekend's trip to Ullengdo Island!