New Year's in Busan and Gyeongju! Pt. 2

Pt. 2 from my other blog

Day 2: Busan/Gyeongju

Gyeongju is one of the most famous sites in all of Korea. The city itself is like a giant open air museum. It boasts hundreds of historical sites from the Silla Dynasty, one of Korea's "Three Kingdoms" (Baekje, Silla, Goguryeo). The Silla Dynasty lasted from the 1st Century AD to the 10th Century. Temples, royal tombs and dozens of other sites frequented by the Silla kings of old. It is a must see if you are going to Korea. Me and Jaeeun planned to make the most of our trip there.

Phase 1: We made little plans in advance, only to see some of the hotspots.

Phase 2: Getting There

We awoke somewhat early the next day of our trip to head to the famous city of Gyeongju. Gyeongju is about 1 hour north of Busan via train. We again had difficulties finding a train from Busan Station, we made a connection in Daegu and then to Gyeongju. We later found out that Haeundae Station has a regular train to Gyeongju :(.

Phase 3: Gyeongju

We arrived in Gyeongju rather exhausted. Our first stop was to get some famous Gyeongju bread...which was absolutely everywhere!!! After that we walked around trying to find a place to stay. We figured New Year's in Gyeongju would be fairly quiet, we were wrong. We spent a good 2-3 hours looking for the guesthouse we originally wanted, Sarangchae. It is a guesthouse with individual buildings based on traditional architecture. We finally gave up and decided to look for food which we originally found to be very difficult. We eventually found a little restaurant in an inconspicuous looking building aside the tombs.

Inside the little restaurant

Yum yum!

We never found our guesthouse and they never answered our calls. We settled for a hostel which I will not name. This hostel was terrible, dirty and expensive. It was already evening at this point and we had accomplished very little. So we went out to the famous Anapji Pond! It is a site where the Silla royalty used to throw parties. It was originally built in 674 A.D. My love of history and passion for archaeology was kicked into full throttle! Me and Jaeeun loved Anapji. It is beautiful at night and the surrounding sites were decorated with beautiful Christmas lights.

Anapji Pond

Enjoying the lights

After Anapji we went on a quest for ssambab. Ssambab is a traditional meal where you wrap vegetables, sidedishes and meat in lettuce with rice included. We found an incredible restaurant. It too was like a museum inside full of Korean antiques primarily from the 20th Century. I though the food was great! Like a lot of Korean food it was very salty though.

Antiques everywhere

Ssambab

Ssambab, like a boss.

Ssambab was consumed. We walked to downtown Gyeongju. I learned to eventually like the town. At first it was easy to get lost, but like Mokpo, everything is very close together. On the way we passed dozens of tombs. The tombs range in height, some only a few feet tall and maybe 10 ft in diameter to tombs that soar fifty feet in height and 100 feet across. I used my imagination, imagining a zombie apocalypse, Jaeeun though I was crazy for being so creative. I went on a little rant about how Peter Jackson could have filmed some Lord of the Rings here, Jaeeun put up with me. Truth be told these tombs are quite terrifying at night, especially in the moonlight. My traumatic experience was rewarded with gelato. Day 2, success.

One of the many tombs

Gelato