Gyeongju, South Korea

Sorry it has been forever since I have written on my blog. I guess I went on a short hiatus. I'm back anyway and I have a few stories to share from the past month. I finally started doing some things, so now I actually have some stories to tell. I'm hoping I can write a couple a week, so keep watching for little stories being published.



The First Friday in April (April Fool's Day) our boss gave us the day off and she drove us down to Gyeongju, a city about 5 hours by car. She paid for everything, including the one night stay at the Hilton. Gyeongju is a very important city to Korea's history because "Gyeongju was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Silla (57 BC – 935 AD) which ruled most of the Korean Peninsula between the 7th and 9th centuries," cited from wikipedia.org. I have to cite it because a lot of the museums and monuments we visited had most of their signs and information in Korean, so I couldn't get the full understanding of everything. And our tour guide spoke no English.



We saw many important things: Tumuli Park (where lots of important kings, queens and generals are buried ~ one hump means one person is buried and two humps means a king and queen are buried together), Cheomseongdae (which is an astronomical observatory that is the oldest surviving observatory in East Asia), Seokguram Grotto and Bulguksa Temple (which is a Buddha statue next to a traditional Temple) and Anapji Pond. All very important monuments in Gyeongju and Korea. A few are on the UNESCO World Heritage List.



I sat in the front seat so I could help my boss with the directions. She had a GPS, but sometimes she would look to the passenger seat as if I understood what the GPS was saying in Korean. Good thing I looked at a map and knew a little about what direction we were headed in. I also just looked at the map and followed the arrows from the GPS. My Korean isn't that good that I can understand. It was a pretty cool experience. I think we got lost a couple times, but that's what makes those adventures so much fun!



It was just a short trip; we drove down there Friday and arrived in late evening and had dinner and went swimming. Then we woke up the next morning and ate breakfast at the hotel and hooped on the Gyeongju City Bus Tour and saw all the monuments. The weather was great for the time of year and the trip was really educational. Definitely one I will remember.



For all those who don't have Facebook, here is a link to my album where you can see all the pics I took: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.10100728410516420.3194090.13932786&l=154f232f20