Okay, so Korea is not really hotddeuguh, but the bus was burning up. haha. I bought some pretty good sweet potato fried bread at the rest stop...kinda like sweet potato donuts. XD
Sooo...GYEONGJU!
10th!
We checked into the Gyeongju Tourist Hotel...(soo touristy) and got tourist information from the little booth. We ended up taking bus number 11 to Bulguksa. Our bus driver was pretty cool, telling us when to get off and all since we were confused. It felt much safer than the buses in Vietnam. Bulguksa is a UNESCO World Heritage site. I studied it last semester in my art history class. The four deva kings are at the entrace (one for each cardinal direction, standing on those bad things...I forgot what they're called, but I like how colorful they are. ^^) There are the stairs that lead to heaven and the archway stairs, but no one is allowed to actually use them, you have to go up the side. It has some great statues of Birushana and Shakamuni, and some famous pagodas like Dapotap and Seokgatap. (Stephanie: the 'tap' part of those...tower/pagoda = 塔 = 탑 = TOP...it makes sense now. I was laughing to myself and I'm pretty sure someone thought I was crazy.) Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures of the actual statues in the temple because of preservation and all that. It was really cool to see all the things I learned about and understand what they're about. (Cause I'm a nerd...)
After Bulguksa, we went to the bus stop to wait for the bus to Sokkuram Grotto. We met an old Japanese guy there. He kept trying to get Monique to speak Japanese and stuff. He kind of weirded me out, but it was alright. Good Japanese practice I guess. The bus we were waiting for came over an hour late because it broke down, but we did also meet a guy from Germany and a Korean girl traveling together, so we were quite a strange collection of people going off to see Sokkuram. So up we went by bus to get to the top of Toamsan. There was some great scenery around, and a little bit of snow left. Unfortunately, again, we weren't allowed to take pictures of Sokkuram. It's lit really well and you could see the kongo rikishi (I forgot what it is in English...but these two warrior guys) and the 4 deva kings again. I wish we could have gone inside (there's glass) because I wanted to see the disciple reliefs behind the Buddha statue. The statue itself was really beautiful. It's very peaceful and well proportioned. It has a jewel 'third-eye' on its forehead that's supposed to align with other places (either temples or King Munmu's Underwater Tomb...I can't remember right now) and reflect the sun. So cool. =D I was really excited to see it.
The bus driver didn't want to drive us all back down early, so the five of us ended up hiking down Toamsan back to Bulguksa. It took us only around half an hour (thank god it was downhill) and then we took a bus back to Gyeongju station. It was a really interesting day. The last thing we did was eat dinner: kalbitang (beef soup) at this little restaurant. It's weird, in Gyeongju it's hard to find restaurants but really easy to find places selling 경주빵, this barley bread that Gyeongju is famous for. Since we were beat, we spent the rest of the night watching music vieos on Mnet, then Men in Black. XD
Today!
Today we left the hotel around 9:30 to find the Tomb of General Kim Yushin. We walked pretty far and ended up asking an old man for directions. I couldn't understand him very well, but he was so animated we were able to figure out what he was saying. Gen. Kim Yushin was a general who had a large role in uniting Korea (Unified Silla) after the Three Kingdoms period. His tomb is very simple though. It's a really big, grassy hill with stone relief work of the zodiac animals around it. There are a couple stone tablets with writing on them, but obviously, I couldn't tell what they said. I just wish the grass had been green, other wise it was neat to see. Some of the zodiac reliefs are wearing down, but we noticed on the way back that the lantern fixtures on the street have copies of the zodiac animals on them.
The bus ride back was uneventful save the fact that there was a tv show on KBS that was about how to smile pretty. XD Weird stuff. Then it got really hot and I started listening to 1TYM and laughing to myself. T_T I had my Gyeongju bread and yangpa rings to occupy me. (I like the yangpa rings here, they're like funyuns but a lot less salty.) When we got back, we relaxed a bit and talked to Marie, who's living in the guesthouse with Seri. She's from Australia but is riding the Korean Wave full on. She went to KBS yesterday and met Sweet Sorrow...crazy stuff. She knows A LOT about Korean entertainment. For dinner, we went to a nearby bbq place and had 'neck scruff' to eat. Hahaha, my dictionary is hilarious. Then back to Lovice for patbingsu! Yum!
We leave tomorrow, so we'll most likely just be hanging out until we have to catch our bus to the airport. I'm surprised at how much I didn't buy, but generally I don't think I need any of it. We saw and ate a lot which definitely makes it worth it. =D
