- Feb 4, 2021
- 10 min read

Autumn Vibes in Gyeongju

Saturday, October 31

We're back in Gyeongju folks! Home of Bulguksa and Seokguram, the temples I visited back in September. After dropping our bags off at my hostel, four other friends and I walk over to the pink muhly field. It spreads out in all directions looking like a sea of super soft cotton candy. To my disappointment, it isn't soft at all, but that doesn't stop us from enjoying the beautiful view. A ton of other tourists have the same idea so we have to scoot around couples with tripods and families with selfie sticks on our way past the flowery fields. We walk just a short distance to Gyerim forest. Right now Gyeongju is in peak fall foliage mode so the ground is strewn with fallen leaves and the trees are all sorts of colors. The weather is crisp and cool, bringing a kind of serenity you can only find in autumn at golden hour. Luckily we have a local with us today who guides us through the Gyochon Traditional Village to what is probably the coolest bridge I've ever seen. On the upper floor there's a little museum and the bridge itself is lined with old photographs. From here, the sunset is absolutely stunning.

Well what do you know, there's a festival going on today. We've stumbled on a bread and coffee festa with live music and lots of free samples. We eat a few breads briefly then take a walk along the river. There's a little stone path cutting across the river but apparently it's one way only, so we cross on an infinitely less exciting bridge down the way. Now we've come to a bunch of people harmonicaing. We stop for a little, feeling slightly bad that there's not much of an audience. As we turn to go get dinner, some guy says they're gonna play a pop song just for us foreigners. I didn't recognize it.... but we had to stay and listen right? Now starving, we're quick to turn around after the song despite protests from the guy that Let It Be is coming up next! We spend a while strolling around what looks like Gyeongju's cafe district. There are so many coffee shops and pasta restaurants and all of them look cool. Right now we want Korean food and end up having meat, fish, seaweed soup, and other side dishes. It was delicious.

After dinner, we realize that our evening isn't feeling Halloweeny enough so we decide to spook it up at some royal tombs. First we stop by Cheomseongdae. It's Asia's (and possibly the world's) oldest astrological observatory. At night it's all lit up in changing colors. When we enter the royal tomb complex, there's no one else there. The lamp lights are incredibly dim and we're surrounded on all sides by towering mounds of earth. It's certainly spooky and just what I needed. We wander around telling ghost stories. One tomb, the bamboo soldier tomb, is the resting place of a king who helped defend Silla against invaders. In another attack after his death, soldiers with bamboo leaves in their ears appeared in defense. Someone saw bamboo leaves piled on the late king's grave and thought his spirit came back to help their victory. Another tomb, the Heavenly Horse tomb, is excavated for visitors to explore. Inside, you can see many of the artifacts that were found inside this particular tomb as well as how the tombs are structured. Tired from walking but not yet ready to turn in, we head to a really cool looking two-story hanok cafe. We have fun playing Heads Up for a while, sipping hot chocolate, and nibbling cake. Happy Halloween!

Sunday, November 1

At 9am, I meet up with the group again. Today is supposed to be a hiking day, but I walk outside to pouring rain. So instead we head over to a cafe for breakfast. With our luck, it doesn't open for another hour. Having not had a good enough view of the tumuli park last night, we give it another go in the daylight this time. The fall colors are gorgeous and the park turns from spooky to peaceful in the morning drizzle. In America, lawns may seem commonplace. However, for the longest time in Korea, grass only existed on top of tomb mounds. Apparently many kids here don't even know what lawnmowers are.

We spot a cafe near the entrance of the park and luckily grab a seat just as it opens, avoiding a line that soon gathers outside. We all get: grilled cheese and french fries. It was so delicious and comforting and probably the best grilled cheese of my life. Korea is known for sweet things, especially bread. You want garlic bread in Korea? No you get garlic bread with cream cheese or honey. Even pizza can be sweet sometimes. So it was a joy to get a perfectly non-sweet grilled cheese with not one but multiple types of cheeses inside. And the fries were actually seasoned well. Now I've talked way to long about this grilled cheese. Anyway. We go immediately to another cafe, this time for tea and a shared croffle (croissant waffle) with ice cream. Absolute heaven. Next, we hit up a cute souvenir shop and buy a bunch of postcards and things. Finally, we stop by hwangnam bread once again to introduce our friends that hadn't been yet.

Now we walk the 30 minute trek over to Donggung Palace and Wolji Pond. We stroll the serene paths surrounding the pond while admiring the palace replica. It's raining a bit now so we take refuge in the pavilion. It acts as a sort of museum with artifacts and a huge scaled-down model of what this place would've looked like had all the buildings not been left to crumble. It's at this point that I notice that the $20 worth of souvenirs I bought is no longer with me. I invite my friends to proceed to the Gyeongju National Museum as i retrace my steps and try to find it. I walk the 30 minutes back to the bread shop, the last place I remember having it, nothing. I take a cab back to the pond following the same route, nothing. I go back around the pond paths, nothing. Finally, I quit, leaving my number with the ticket people if they see anything. It's a bit of a bummer and I end up buying all the stuff again later on. I walk over to the museum and catch the tail end of my friends' self-tour of it. I briefly see some old statues, stone reliefs, and excavated pottery. It's all pretty interesting given the lack of Renaissance art. We still have some time to kill before our train at 5 so we check out the muhly fields once again and see Cheomseongdae in the daylight. I'm absolutely loving Gyeongju and will have to return again to go hiking in the national park.

Saturday, November 14

I have returned again to go hiking in the national park. Two weeks later, a friend and I have made the trek to Namsan in Gyeongju National Park to catch the last of the autumn vibes. We get to the parking lot at 10am and try to find the trail-head. It's a bit confusing and signage is lacking so we feel like we're walking through random backstreets and away from the nature. Luckily for us, two hikers see our struggle and help us get to where we need to be (which we never would've found on our own). Unluckily for us, they're talkers and they walk really fast. They speak even less English than I speak Korean so we have our translator apps out and running. I've always heard Korean hikers are friendly but I didn't realize just how much. Though when we make it to the actual trail, they ditch us slowpokes pretty quickly. Understandable. I prefer to take it slow and enjoy the nature. Most Korean hikers I've seen are speed demons and won't rest until they're hungry for lunch. The trail is uphill all the way but doesn't seem difficult or particularly long. Besides the pretty oranges and reds of autumn, the hike up isn't particularly noteworthy. Once we're near the top, we come across an old hanok, walk through a bamboo forest, and emerge to see a beautiful temple on the side of the mountain. (We also pass the two hikers that helped us earlier already on their way back down.) At this point we realize just how high up we actually are. The main draw of this hike is the 7 Buddha rock carvings standing tall outside. It's as old as the 700s but completely open to the elements.

We admire the old stone before deciding to trek past a little further to get some better views of the surrounding area. We are so glad we did. Just ahead the trail opens up and we can see everything spread out before us. We take some photos then notice that the trail splits off in two. We go left and down and come up on another beautiful eighth century carving overlooking an amazing view. It seems crazy that these things are just here scattered throughout a mountain, but they don't call Gyeongju the "Museum Without Walls" for nothing. We have lunch, kimbap for me, on a rock facing outwards, the most beautiful spot to eat. Back down at the bus stop, we enjoy the avenue of ginkos and the yellow leaves blanketing the road. We even see a few people having full on photo shoots in the middle of the road. We head home feeling tired; my phone says we walked 6.8 miles today.

Sunday, November 15

Today I meet some friends for brunch before we take the bus to Ulsan's Oegosan Onggi Village. Onggi is a special type of pottery that you can't go anywhere here without seeing. It's breathable and perfect for storing kimchi and sauces and fermenting vegetables. Since onggi making is a dying art, potters created the village to protect this tradition. Eight master potters live here as well as many others. Today is actually the Onggi Festival! Things are scaled back a lot, but there's live music and sales. We walk around, checking out the huge furnaces, the Guinness World Record two meter Onggi, and the museum. It's a nice chill day, but they're not doing demonstrations and the Onggi making class is full. Regardless, I'm satisfied with the two tiny pots I buy. That is, until the bag breaks from the weight of like ten pear juice packs and they shatter on the floor. Oof. I end up buying a tea cup/strainer just in case I can't piece together the broken ones. Luckily, Elmer's comes to the rescue and I'm able to glue them (almost) back to their former selves.

Saturday, December 12

I don't have many exciting things to report during the rest of November and December. The COVID levels have been on the rise throughout the country so there's not much to do. Cafes and winter activities are closed, travel and restaurants are highly discouraged, and the holidays are coming up. Next week the Ulsan crew is doing a zoom secret santa party since groups over 5 people are banned. Maybe the one activity I don't feel too stressed about is hiking. Though it's gotten so cold, going outside is nice after being stuck inside most of the time. My friend and I start the hike at about 10, however neither of us has eaten breakfast and we only brought a small snack. Hint: do not do this. We are dumb. We're back in the outskirts of Ulsan today to hike Gajisan, the tallest mountain in the Yeongnam Alps range surrounding Ulsan. The hike starts out easy enough, uphill but not too bad. But then it just keeps going and going and going. At one point we're walking up a never-ending set of stairs and I'm certain that the peak is at the top of them. Nope. I can see it in the distance now, following an up and down ridge of two more smaller peaks. I feel exhausted at this point and we actually question going all the way up on an empty stomach. I power through though and continue on. Now we have some better views and get a couple breaks walking down the ridge before walking up again. The final stretch includes some scrambling up rocks but nothing dangerous or scary. Finally, finally, finally, we make it to the top. It's insanely windy up here and I'm scared to lose my balance and fall. However vertigo-inducing, the view is absolutely incredible. The air is a bit hazy, but it's really cool being the highest point in the surrounding area. We're both so glad we bit the bullet and trekked all the way up.

Going down is the easy part right? Yes and no. It's much easier to endure longer without a break, but my knees are killing me. We end up overshooting the trail we need by a bit so we have to backtrack. The final stretch seems to take actual years and I'm questioning if we're lost on a never-ending route through the forests of South Korea. My mantra of "food" and "bed" is the only thing that's getting me to put one foot in front of the other. Like a sign down from God himself, I see a road in the distance. I practically want to sprint there just to be able to sit down. This is definitely the longest and toughest hike I've done which scares me because there are definitely longer and tougher hikes I want to do. My phone says we walked 9.3 miles and climbed 303 flights of stairs. Needless to say I ate and slept very well that night.

Saturday, December 26

Merry Christmas! Yesterday I had a relaxing day watching Christmas movies, video calling my family, opening presents, and eating pancakes. Today, instead of the failed ski trip I had planned. I decided to go down to Busan for an evening as a consolation. First I go to Haedong Yonggung Temple. The weather is so perfect and the sun is just starting to sink in the sky. This temple is one of the most famous in Korea and touted as the most beautiful. It's easy to see why. You pass by a row of statues representing the Chinese zodiac, through intricate gates, past buddhas, down stairs, and eventually reach this temple by the sea. It's built into the rock ledge on the coast and has a gorgeous view of the East Sea. I wander the grounds and soak in the peaceful ambiance. Then, I go to Gwangalli Beach just after sunset. The sky is full of beautiful colors and the city and bridge lights are just coming on. I walk along the beach until it's fully dark before heading home. Though it's not skiing, I had such a nice day.