Day 154: Cherry Blossoms and History

The past two weekends we've been pretty busy exploring our host country. Two weekends ago we went with a group of friends to Gyeongju, the capital of the Shilla dynasty, which ruled Korea from the city from around 50 BC to the 900s AD. It was a history-filled day, which made me (Steven) really happy. First we saw the tombs of many Shilla kings--they buried kings (and other really important people) in a wooden vault, which they then covered with stones and then earth. The result is impressive mounds, some of which are over 30 meters high and 200 meters around.

All of the buildings in the historic part of Gyeongju are built in the traditional Korean (Chinese) style--even Starbucks!

This is the oldest astronomical observatory in East Asia--built in the 600s

After that we saw an old fortress where they were currently doing archaeological work, and then went just outside of the city to Bulguksa, one of the most famous temples in Korea. It was perched on a mountainside like most temples here are, and was quite beautiful (but incredibly touristy).

The wall of the fortress

This was the refrigerator!

Bulguksa

Sarah was happy about the history, but happier about the flowers. :)

After Bulguksa, we drove farther up the mountain to Seokgoram Grotto, which was possibly the highlight of the day. The grotto was near the top of the mountain and was a room basically dug into the mountainside. Inside was a gigantic statue of Buddha with lots of intricate carvings on the inner walls. Pictures of the inside were forbidden, so we only have pictures of the outside, but the whole thing was quite impressive in its architecture.

This is the view from the parking lot (it was a half-mile hike to the grotto). It was super hazy that day, which was a bummer.

We also ate a delicious traditional Korean-style lunch!

This past weekend we did some adventuring slightly closer to home. On Saturday we went with two friends to Jinhae, where they have a cherry blossom festival. The trees were really beautiful and we enjoyed the morning wandering around a new place, looking at beautiful flowers and eating festival food (which in this case was roasted pig and ice cream).

In the afternoon our friends headed back to Geoje and we took a bus to Busan. That afternoon we went to Gamcheon Culture Villiage. It started as a refugee camp during the Korean war and continued to be more or less a slum until the government poured a ton of money into it in 2009 to turn it into a tourist attraction. Why is it a tourist attraction? Colors!

We stayed overnight and in the morning took the subway north of the city to go to Beomeosa, another temple. We've been to a lot of them here in Korea, and sometimes they start to seem the same: same style, same colors, all set on a mountainside, and mostly tourist-filled. But Beomeosa stood out. Even though there were a ton of people there, it seemed more authentic. Part of that was that there were actually people worshiping in the buildings. While some of the people I am sure aren't any more dedicated to their religion than nominal Catholics who happen to pray if they visit Notre Dame, there were also some monks performing a ceremony of some sort. And the buildings and scenery were absolutely beautiful.

The lanterns are only up temporarily for the Buddha's birthday, which is sometime in May.

There was a museum full of artifacts from the temple. This was a printing block, completely hand-carved.

This is the same block with what it helped produce.

We spent the rest of the morning hiking on the mountain that Beomeosa is on, and it was nice to be away from the city and crowds of people, especially on a beautiful day like the one we had.

North Gate of the Geumjeongsan Fortress 

A few bonus pictures from some of our runs here on Geoje!