Gyeongju New Years

We started to realize that we will have a limited number of breaks during our contract, making it more important to seize those two and three day weekends and explore. Fortunately we had a five day break for New Years (Thursday through Monday) so we had a trip to plan ☺ ..And since it has been so frigid cold in Korea, we decided that we should try to find someplace south that might be a little warmer.

Anyway, for the quick version, here is the video we put together for our trip. We hope you enjoy ☺

Gyeongju is located on the southeastern side of Korea, not quite on the coast but close to it. We had a few options to get there: bus, train, or KTX train. The option that brought us right into the city was the bus, so we decided to go with that.

Bus tickets here are like general admission(?) meaning that they don't have a time or seat number or anything, so we just had to figure out the bus schedule to know when we needed to show up. Unfortunately the bus was thirty minutes late 😔... but everything worked out. We got onto a bus heading to Gyeongju via Pohang, the steel industry hub in Korea. 

Layered up and waiting for the bus

As we made our way into the city we immediately got the feeling that Gyeongju was not like other Korean cities we have been to. It isn't full of high-rise apartments or modern buildings. It's the opposite. Gyeongju was the capital of Korea during the Silla dynasty, which lasted a thousand years. The city itself is a world heritage site for its "remarkable concentration of outstanding examples of Korean Buddhist art, in the form of sculptures, reliefs, pagodas, and the remains of temples and palaces from the flowering, in particular between the 7th and 10th centuries, of this form of unique artistic expression."

Downtown Gyeongju

For most of Saturday we wandered around the downtown area, window shopping and soaking everything in. We stumbled on some historic sites and some local treasures. Hwangnam-ppang, or Hwangnam bread, was one of them. Wow what a delicious pastry. The shop we found selling it was wide open so you could see straight into the kitchens. You could see about two dozen people making the pastries from huge mounds of red bean paste. It cost W 16,000 for a box of 25 pieces and they were so delicious. Check out the link for pictures of the bread and the kitchens ☺

Royal Tumuli Park

These large mounds are the tombs of kings and other nobles of the Silla kingdom

The hotel we booked was close to the temple area, about a 50 minute bus ride from the downtown area on the 11 bus line. This bus line stops at all of the historic areas in Gyeongju, so it was almost like a tour bus ride getting to our hotel. 

The room

This was our second experience with hotels in Korea and both of them have had this strangely glassed-off bathroom area. The hotel itself was great though. It was new, with super-heated floors, and our room had a balcony facing east (for the sunrise)! 

So I mention this because a big part of new years in Korea is not actually staying up till' midnight to "ring in the new year" (although people certainly do that). Instead it seems to be more important to view the first sunrise. People flock to the eastern coasts, climb up mountains, and find other scenic ways to view the first sunrise of the new year. We seriously considered participating in such an event, but ultimately decided against it. Waking up at 4-5 am, hiking for two hours to catch the sunrise, plus then hiking back down to catch two trains back to get back to Sejong.... did I mention how cold it is in Korea right now? 

Kind of turned into a gloomy first day but we loved the views

Found a great pizza place across the street from our hotel

Sunday was a full day in Gyeongju. Our plan was to explore the two areas nearby: Bulguksa Temple and Seokguram Grotto.

All of the buildings in the area have the traditional hanok roof style

Ready for a day of hiking ☺

Bulguksa is located at the base of Mt. Tohamsan and it "encompasses seven national treasures of Korea." There were so many beautiful statues and intricate paintings, it felt like we were in a different time.

The Blue Cloud and White Cloud bridges. These stairs are one of the national treasures

It was popular to drink the mountain spring water from this basin next to the temple

Wishing lanterns &

Intricate dragon head decoration underneath the roof

It was very crowded.

Inside this building stood one of the statues of Buddha

Stacked wishing stones

More stones 

A drum on top of a turtle

We found the golden pig

Rubbing it brings good luck ☺

The most incredible parts of the temple were inside of the buildings, and we weren't allowed to take pictures. Inside were these beautiful Buddhist statues, two of which were bronze cast. Surrounding the statues are detailed paintings on the walls, candles, and burning incense.

After thoroughly exploring the grounds we began our trip up the mountain. We were told it would take around an hour. We had a couple of detours along the way so it probably took closer to an hour and a half.

Some of the different oak trees around the surrounding forest

This sign can be translated as "Talk with the Squirrels" about keeping the forest free of invasive species? It was hard to translate this with our phones.

Somewhat hazy but pretty views as we climbed

Detour: fresh mountain water right from the dragon's mouth

We enjoyed some mountain water at the base of mt. Tohamsan in Bulguksa, but this spring was less crowded so we had a more relaxing experience. There were others around, filling water bottles at other spigots nearby.

Almost to Seokguram Grotto

Seokguram is another national treasure of Korea. This was where we would have had to hike to for the viewing of the sunrise, as you can see an amazing view of the ocean from the top where the Buddha statue sits. Again we were unfortunately not allowed to take photos, but the statue inside the grotto was huge. The largest one we had seen that day.

Bell pavilion

We could hear the bell being wrung as we hiked

For a small donation we also got to ring it ☺

On a less hazy day you are supposed to be able to see the ocean from this spot

After some debate, we decided to finish the day strong with a climb to the peak of Mount Tohamsan.

Sam took a great panorama photo of the view

We made it

The sun was setting through the trees on our way back down

So maybe we didn't greet the sunrise, but we did say goodbye to 2017 by watching the sun set

Thank you everyone for reading. We hope you enjoyed the video and the pictures/commentary. We loved visiting Gyeongju and had an unforgettable time there.

Coming soon: Kpop, snacks, & what would you guys like to hear about?