Weekend in Gyungju

A few weeks ago (April 12-14) I went with some friends down south to visit a town called Gyungju. This area is known for their beautiful cherry blossoms.  The cherry blossoms in Korea are so beautiful, unfortunately it is hard to see them sometimes.  They are only in bloom for about 5 days, so it is hit or miss if you will see them.  For me it was a miss :(  I didn't mind though because the weather was beautiful and I had so much fun :)



Here I am with my friend Tamara posing with a sign with the town name on it so I wouldn't forget what the town was called.  We are very excited to be here.

We found a few trees with some blossoms still on them.  I had to get at least one picture with some cherry blossoms. 

For our trip we went with a tour group called Adventure Korea.  It was nice they planned a bus for us to get there and set up our accommodations and had some food for us for breakfast.  They also arranged for us to rent bikes for 6 hours to ride around the town to see all the sights.  We left Friday night at 11:30 p.m. and arrived at our motel around 4.  Slept the rest of the night and then left on our tour around 9:30.

Here I am with some beautiful flowers behind me.  I was so happy to see all the flowers in bloom.

Our first stop is something I have been wanting to see before I left Korea.  It is the Cheomseongdae Observatory.  Why was it on my list of things to see?  Well in the text book I use to teach grade 4 they talk about it.  Koreans are so proud of it, so I wanted to see it.  Pretty much what you see here is all it is, but it has been around for a long time to look at the stars.

Koreans like to make big hills over important people when they die.  It is kind of like the Egyptians I think.  One of these hills is open so you can see what it is like inside.  Basically they bury the person with their most important stuff.  I didn't learn much about it, but I am guessing the more important you are the bigger the hill over you.

More flowers, and they are pansies my favorite spring flower.

We found a village that has Korean Traditional houses and I had to visit it.  I love the old Korean houses.  I think they are so beautiful.  You can tell no royalty lives here because they don't have the 5 Korean colors (red, black, white, green, yellow) painted on them.  Oh and this picture also shows me on the bike.  Proof I rode one (or at least was around one for this picture)

Close to the village was this beautiful bridge.  I love the colors on the bridge and how much detail goes into the bridge. 

I love these statues.  This is showing a traditional Korean game the children play.  When I taught at the high school my students wanted me to play with them and I told them no way.
How do you play you ask, well for a good explanation listen to Bill Cosby's "Buck Buck".  That is what I always think of when I see people play this game.  Basically the children line up in a row, the first person stands up straight and the others bend over and put their head through the legs of the person in front of them.  Now can you see why I didn't want to play with my high school girls.  Then the children not in the line run and jump on the backs of the people in line.  The line is long and they are trying to get as close to the front as they can.  When they land they land hard as well.  Another reason not to play with my students.  Can you imagine telling a parent I broke their daughters back.

Now I am on the other side of the hills.  There is a fence guarding the important people under the hills.

While we where in the park it was exciting because Holly (on the right in green) saw a squirrel.  She was so excited and she and Erika found a hole in the tree and check to see if the squirrel left anything behind.  He didn't.

We found some black bamboo and had to take a picture.  It was my first time seeing black bamboo that I remember.  I thought it was so beautiful.

This is an old school Korean refrigerator.  The natives built this a long long time ago and stored their perishable foods in here.

We went to a beautiful place called Anapji Pond.  I wish we could have been there when the trees where in bloom.  It was still so beautiful.

Next we went to Bunhwangsa Temple.  They are getting ready for Buddha's Birthday that is on May 17th.   I love all the lanterns that they hang in the temple area.

They have a giant bell you can ring if you pay 1,000 won ($1).  I had to do it, and I looked beautiful while ringing it.

Along the way Tamara and I met a new friend named Ramsey.  I am sad I didn't see him again the rest of the trip.  He was taking such awesome pictures, I would love to steal some of the ones he took.

Tamara found her favorite flower.  She had to pose with it.

I am not sure what this building is for but it was at the temple and they are repainting it.  I am sure it takes them a long time to paint all of these buildings because they are so detailed.

Here is a statue of Buddha with some of the stones stacked next to him.  I have been told that you have to stack the stones without them falling over and you say a prayer as you stack them.  If done correctly you may receive a wish.

Outside of the temple was a beautiful flower field.  I don't know what kind of flowers these are but I loved them.

As we where returning to meet up with our tour group I had to stop and get a high five with the king.

The next morning (Sunday) we had two more stops before we went home.  First we went to Deokguram Grotto.  It is important because it is the number 24 national treasure in Korea.  (They have a list 316 national treasures).  It has a very old statue of Buddha in the position of enlightenment.  It is a very important statue to the Buddhists.  It was very beautiful to look at.  Sadly you can't take pictures of it.

This bell is the Unification bell.  They pray for the Unification of the Koreas on a daily basis here.

The last place we went to was the Bulguksa Temple.  As you can see it is guarded very well.  These guys scared me so I wouldn't do anything to make them mad.

Here are some more of the stacked stones for wishes.  I think they look very beautiful all together.

I am told this is the money shot at the temple.  Apparently if you take a picture from this angle you will have good fortune.  There was a line of people wanting a shot from here so it must be true.  I hope my good fortune comes soon.

All in all it was a beautiful weekend, and I had so much fun.  I am glad I went.  I wasn't sure how I would do riding around on a bike for that long, but I survived.  I was very sore for the next week though because of the seat of the bike, but it was worth it to see the sites.