Over the five day holiday weekend for Lunar New Year (aka. Seollal) Richy, Tom, Lindsey and I visited the city of Gyeongju in the Southeast of Korea. We arrived at our accommodation, Hanjin Hostel in the evening of Lunar New Year's Day to find that most of the city was shut down (as expected) for the holiday. Our kind and knowledgeable English speaking host however, insisted that we visit a nearby restaurant owned by his friend that he was working on convincing to open specially for his patrons. After wandering the city for a bit to work up an appetite and climbing up a couple of tomb hills, we went to the restaurant which was quickly filling up with other foreigners from the hostel. We met some interesting Canadians, ate a lovely dinner of samgyupsal and then spent the rest of the evening drinking beer and chatting at the hostel. At some point, our host came upstairs to where we were drinking, decided we weren't drinking enough and gave us 10,000 won (about $10) to go buy more to drink, which we did. All around, I thought the hostel was pretty interesting and full of character, but our rooms were a little on the cold side. I guess you get what you pay for though, since it was only 15,000 per night per person. I think it would be a lot nicer in the spring or summer when the rooftop terrace is more comfortable (we tried to spend time up there, but almost froze to death).
On day two, we had an amazing day, which started with wandering around the town looking for tombs. We found a tomb park, got yelled at for trying to climb on one of them (must have been someone important), and saw some ancient things, including an old underground ice storage chamber. We then visited the museum and saw the huge Emille bell, which can reportedly be heard from three kilometers away by only banging on it with a fist (we didn't get to try though). We also saw many Buddha statues, most of which were missing heads and hands, but impressive nonetheless. We then took a bus up to the famous UNSECO world heritage site of the 1300 year old Seokguram Grotto, which features an impressive Buddha statue and many plastic lanterns lining the paths. Afterward we went down to another UNESCO world heritage site, the Bulguksa Temple, the foundation of which is thousands of years old, with the wooden structures standing on top dating from a few hundred years to a few decades old. The whole place was so peaceful, even though it was crowded with Korean families taking pictures in their hanbok (traditional Korean dress) for the holiday. Richy's camera battery died just before a beautiful red sunset over the temple, which was one of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring sunsets I have seen. After heading back into the city we found what looked like a cozy restaurant, but they kept leaving the door open, so we weren't quite able to take our coats off. The dalkgalbi (spicy chicken stir fry) was delicious though, and our follow-up course of bokumbap (Korean fried rice) was expertly crafted into a heart shape and equally delicious.
We must have earned some bad day karma from the second day being so great, because the third day was quite disappointing. We decided to take the bus out to the East Sea (also controversially called the Sea of Japan), and from there we wanted to visit the underwater tomb and some fancy pagodas. When we got there, however, we seemed kind of trapped, because we couldn't find any taxis to take us anywhere else and the buses seemed to only go back to where we came from. We wandered around the waterfront and the harbor for a while, checked out a lighthouse, and crawled around on some rocks before we got hungry. We decided that it might be interesting to try one of the many seafood restaurants since we were near where all the seafood is caught, and decided we wanted to try some of the steamed crabs. Fatefully, we walked into what seemed like a nice, inviting restaurant. We found out soon that the restaurant keepers had no intention of keeping the door closed (and the restaurant warm) so we found no respite from the biting cold. On top of that, the menu, although it contained some Enlgish, was very confusing. Then, to top that, the proprietor of the restaurant seemed interested in only getting us to buy the most expensive menu items. After a very frustrating bout of trying to talk to her (in both Korean and English), pointing to the things we wanted (on both the menu and on the other tables), and telling her we were on a budget, she finally told us we were going to get something to eat and wrote 40,000 won on our tab. We waited for our 40,000 won worth food to come and she showed up with one large crab (missing a leg), and seaweed side dishes to share. All the other tables with crabs got soup after they ate their crabs so we waited for a while after finishing for our soup to come. No soup came. We were cold. We left, still hungry (and cold), in disbelief that she had charged us 40,000 won (about $40) for ONE CRAB! Tom and Richy asked around at some of the other restaurants how much crabs should cost... one said two for 30,000. We were all in bad moods and went down to the Family Mart to fill ourselves with something cheap and warm (ramyun, cookies, coffee, etc.). Then we took the bus back to town in defeat. We saw another beautiful sunset starting, but couldn't get off the bus in time to get pictures. We went home to the hostel to take a nap, then ate dinner at Mr. Pizza, which was filling, but riddled with more communication problems with our server. How did we suddenly become unable to order food in Korean? I don't know.
We went to bed early and got up early to catch our 7:45 am train out of town. I'd really like to go back to Gyeongju when the weather is warmer and the grass is green. Either way, I'm looking forward to GOING TO THAILAND this Friday! Ahhh, warmth sounds so good right now...
by Katie
PS. In other, ancient treasures of Korea news, Namdaemun gate burned down last night. It's very sad because it was the oldest wooden structure in Korea (over 600 years old) and considered the #1 national treasure. I'm just glad we got to see it before it went. Read the article about it here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7238210.stm
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