Gyeongju

Today it is raining. Not just 'a fine soft day' but actually torrential downpour river in the street kind of rain. Every time I think it's easing off, after a short period it instantly reverts back to insane downpour levels. After an early wake up (7am), and the slaughter of 5 mosquitos with my pillow this morning (I'm moving beds so it's ok) I sat alone watching the rain and reading my book waiting to move room and hoping the rain would die down. I also did my usual internet rounds, and was reminded by Chi-Hé that I had completely neglected to mention anything about Gyoengju. Now that I am holed up in a Starbucks for the foreseable future, plans to go to Beomosa temple put on hole, this seems a ripe opportunity to write about it. I'll even backdate the post so it fits in where it should.

Gyoengju is a largely unattractive town in itself to be perfectly honest. The hostel was also a fairly unattractive place. I took the opportunity of a night in Seoul to have my first private room since Hong Kong – quite a time. I needn't have bothered as the next night I moved to a dorm (in fact 3 mattresses on the floor in a room rather than the usual bunk bed dorm arrangement) and had the room to myself. The 'tv room' was by the stairs to go downstairs to the main reception and the owners living quarters, a small corner of a room which could comfortably seat 5. However, they were very friendly aside from the son of the owner trying to persuade me to stay in a single room (despite the fact no one else was in the dorm). They've also been open since at least 1985 judging from the 'Thank you' letters framed on the wall – fairly impressive.

The area is full of Shilla era architecture and history (I'm afraid you'll need to wiki that because I can't be arsed). Within Gyoengju there are a number of Tumuli, that is, tombs. Indeed there is a park (Tumuli park) full of them. Although these are quite beautiful, and obviously have quite a history behind them, they are not particularly interesting for more than half a day's walking around. They are at the end of the day just big grassy mounds.

The Bulguksa temple outside of Gyeongju (on UNESCO world heritage list) was a very pleasant (Shilla) temple surrounded by gardens, forests and hills. I walked the 3.2 km up one of these to Seokguram Grotto (also on UNESCO list), which was a very pleasant if somewhat tiring walk up hill through woods inhabited by chipmunks – and everyone loves those. The crowning piece in this Grotto is a stone carving of Buddha surrounded by a range of other dieties and guardians. This is unfortunately behind glass – which is reflective, and you can't take photographs, it was however a fairly impressive set of carvings. The view from up here was particularly attractive, and I was very glad to have been to both places despite the swarming crowds of school children – including the approximately 80 children who I had to wait to go in and come out of the Grotto prior to my entering it. After that I walked back down and towards the local 'folk village'. Some of these villages are actually decent reconstructions of old style villages with nice arts and crafts stuff and some history – including one we hope to go this weekend, and another in Seoul. This one was a set of craft type shops, which was grossly overpriced and in a fairly unattractive setting – never mind, the walk there was pleasant enough. That evening I went out to eat with a couple of people from the hostel. We had ssambap (to quote lonely planet - “Lots of tasty sidedishes which you wrap up in lettuce and other leaves”), although some of the things were quite delicious, as I suppose should be expected, others were not – I just don't like seaweed and very fishy tasting fish dishes, nae mind. And that brings me up to the next blog from Busan.

On another note, I just went to change $300 of traveller's cheques (a lot, but hell it's Korea), and the woman gave me the money and a receipt only after looking at my passport – i.e. She didn't bother asking me to sign the cheques until I suggested I should (I don't want her to get in trouble!)...trusting, or hugely incompetent? You decide. Also, this story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/23/george-osborne-nat-rothschild-oleg-deripaska
is hilarious, and I greatly enjoyed this cartoon: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2008/10/22/bellbell512.jpg