Only two buses after leaving Juwangsan National Park and I’m now back in a big city, Gyeongju. Before the Josean dynasty, Korea was in what was known as the three kingdoms period because the peninsula was divided between (any guesses?) three kingdoms, the Baekje, Silla and Goguryeo. The Silla was founded in 57BCE when six small towns decided to unite under one king and started violently taking over other towns until the kingdom spanned the entire southeastern part of the peninsula and eventually stretched as far as Seoul. Eventually, in 668CE, The Silla defeated the other two kingdoms uniting the peninsula until 935CE when they surrendered to the following Goryeo kingdom. Anyway, Gyeongju was the Silla capitol and as you can imagine, there is a lot of history and archaeological sites in and all around the city.

I arrived late in the afternoon so I spent my first evening exploring two sites close to my hotel. First, Cheomseongdae, the oldest astronomical observatory in Asia and quite possibly, the world (see pic above). It doesn’t look like much, but it’s 7th century design is quite ingenious. Twelve stones form the base representing the 12 lunar months, there are 30 layers of stone for the days of the month, and 366 stones were used in total for the days of the year. I caught it right at sunset which seems somehow poetic. After that I went to Anapji Pond which is the site of the former Silla Palace. It was discovered only recently, 1975, when they drained the pond for repairs and tons of artifacts were suddenly exposed. They’ve rebuilt a few of the buildings according to historical records and now the place is a very photogenic park which they let far too many people into at one time. I got some very cool pics of bamboo and cherry blossoms all lit up though.

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Koreans refer to Gyeongju as the museum without walls. However, my first official day in Gyeongju I headed to the fantastic Gyeongju National Museum, the museum WITH walls, to learn as much about Silla culture and history as I could before exploring the sites. The Silla traditionally buried their royalty underneath giant mounds. They put the body in a wooden box, next to another wooden box filled with valuables and everything they would need in the afterlife, then built a sort of wooden cabin around those, piled a bunch of rocks on top of that, and finally a huge pile of earth over the whole works creating a very large burial mound. There are a couple hundred of these mounds throughout the city, most right in the center in a large park area. I even saw many outside of the city on my day trips randomly amongst the farms and rural towns. It was so tempting to climb to the top of some of them, until I saw the signs, a fine of 20 million won (20 thousand dollars) or 2 years in prison for making the ascent. Ouch!

Next I braved the local bus to visit two sites east of town, both ancient and excellent examples of Silla architecture. First, Bulguksa, the largest and most well preserved Silla Buddhist temple. I liked that it had dragons carved onto every corner and on all the eaves, something you don’t see often on Buddhist temples. From there I hiked up and over the mountain to Seokguram. In the 7th century these guys hauled huge slabs of granite up what was then just a narrow mountain path to carve a giant Buddha surrounded by a few dozen guardians and other deities. Unfortunately, they don’t allow pictures, but it’s really quite incredible. (below, Bulguksa Temple, check out the dragon on the right)

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My really big, exhausting day came when I decided to hike 10 or 12 miles around Namsan Mountain. It’s a huge mountainous park with several peaks, some more Silla burial mounds, and lots of ancient rock carvings around. I started by walking through a beautiful pine forest, past some burial mounds and carvings until I reached the summit of Geumobong peak.

After a very long traverse over the ridge and almost to the next peak I descended down to Chilbulam hermitage, the hermitage of seven Buddhas where the largest relics in the park are found. The two monks that lived there were really nice and spoke English. They refilled my water bottles for me and invited me to stay for tea. I was getting pretty tired by that point and still had a long way to hike so I of course joined them. The conversation and chrysanthemum tea were just what I needed.

I had a long ascent back up to the ridge for a little backtracking to Yongjang valley where I ended my hike. On the way down I visited the 7th century stone pagoda and (sadly) headless Buddha at Yongjangsaji (Yongjang temple site).

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My final day in Gyeongju I decided to go to Songseonri to hike up to Bokduam for some more ancient carvings. The owner of the hostel where I’m staying, Clint, said it was his fathers favorite place and was so excited to find out that not only had I heard of it, but that I was also planning to go there that he asked if he could join me. So off we went. It’s pretty obvious that no one comes up here as the trail is not maintained and we had to maneuver around some barbed wire fencing to reach the small seemingly abandoned hermitage, but the carvings were very cool and taking in the views from the nearby summit while drinking local rice wine was fantastic.

All my pictures from Gyeongju can be found here

But now my time in Gyeongju is finished. In the morning I’ll be on a bus for a short ride to my next stop. Until the next post…