Our Trip to Gyeonju

In early October, we had a four day weekend, so we decided to take a trip to an older city in Korea called Gyeonju. The city is about 3 hrs east, close to the coast. We went with our friends Emily, Adrien and Jessie. We took a bus, and actually had a break part way. Even a six hour ride to Ottawa only has one stop. I think they like their pit stops. Anyways, as we got to Gyeonju, we needed to find a place to stay for the night. There were a bunch of love motels, some of them were very interesting, but we were trying to be cheap and found one that was fairy reasonable.

After settling in, we started to tour! There were a lot of things to see within walking distance, the first thing we saw were the Daereungwon Royal Tombs. In ancient times, the Emperors were buried in tombs, that look like giant hills. We were aloud to go into one of the tombs, but photos were not aloud!

Daereungwon Royal Tombs 

We walked around and saw a few other things, such as the Cheomseong Observatory, Gyerim Forest and Anapji Pond. All of these historical sites were beautiful, we really enjoyed being there. 

Anapji Pond

After a long day of walking around, we had some Korean food for dinner, I had bok im bop,  which is a mixture of bi bim bop and kim chi. Robin wanted a soup, so she ordered one, except it was only a small side soup. It was pretty funny, everyone else had these great meals and she got stuck with the small soup. We ended up ordering some more bok im bop for her. That night was an early one, were pretty tired. 

The next say started with us taking an hour bus trip to the coast, to see the Underwater tomb of The Great King Munmu. Although very interesting, there really wasn't much to see, however we enjoyed hanging out on the beach drinking some beer. Robin and other people were playing in the water, it was strange being at the ocean again, but this time, across the world. 

Robin at the beach with the underwater tombs in the background

Our next stop was the famous Bulguksa Temple. It was absolutely gorgeous, the architecture was great! The site is still used as a place for Monks to do their prayers. Several Korean people come to pray there as well. This place isn't just a tourist area for foreigners either, there were a lot of people who came from all over Korea. 

It was very busy this weekend, so it made getting around much harder, we didn't have enough time to get to the Seokguram Grotto, which was another Temple site, but we look forward to going and seeing it again!