Gyeongju: Trip One

It being another long weekend me and Jeff went to a city called Gyeongju. Originally I had thought it to be a small village, but surprise to me to find it about the same size as Halifax back home. Gyeongju is the site of the ancient Sila capital of Korea so there are a great deal of temples, historic sites and such scattered throughout the city and surrounding country. We took a bus out to the city, an hour outside of Deagu, arrived early yet still managed to miss all the bus tours. Decided to walk the recommended 1 day tour and then realized it was way too big to walk, rented mountain bikes and decided to head directly to the Seokguram Grotto to see the statue of buddha there. It took almost 2 hours of riding in addition to the sunny day turning suddenly stormy and forcing us to take shelter in a nice country restaurant for almost an hour. True to Korean hospitality the owners talked with us a while, shared some soda and made us feel at home until the rain slowed and we could continue on. After the Grotto we began the journey back to the city, half way back we again had to take shelter for another storm, this time for an hour at a bus stop shelter. After the rains slowed we began to bike again and were riding for no more than 5 minutes when a truck splashed this huge wave of water over us. We could not have been any more wet if we had jumped into a lake.

All in all it could be considered a disaster of a trip, but it was still amazing! It was an adventure. At one point on the way to the grotto (see the second picture) I realized that I was biking through the Korean country side without a guide or anyone to lead the way, just me and my friend Jeff making our own way, and I didn't have a worry in the world. It was awesome! I count this to be my second favorite, but most enlightening, of my weekend trips. If you go to Korea, you HAVE to go to Gyeongju at least once if not twice.

Garden Buddha, Rice Feilds (and Enlightenment) and a mere drizzle during the Rainy Season.

More rain (shocker!) coming, the Grotto (Buddha inside, no photos allowed) and Spooky Grotto Path.