driving up the coast

After visiting Gyeongju (the old capital of the Shilla Dynasty, 57 BC - 935 AD) on Wednesday we rode up the eastern coast to Mt. Soerak (Seoraksan National Park), which is at the northern tip of South Korea and borders North Korea.

We started off the day at a local bakery to buy some Gyeongju Bang, which are little barley pancakes filled with bean. Delicious.

The drive took us along the East Sea, where we stopped at a beach and put our feet in. The waves splashed a little higher than we thought so we got a bit wet! And, we also stopped a rest area and the girls got an ice cream!

Then we stopped at a local seaside restaurant for some traditional korean soup. We sat on the floor at the little tables. The girls ate the noodles from a noodle soup. While the woman gave the girls a fork to use, they made it through the meal with just the chopsticks. Korean chopsticks are metal and rounded at the bottom, so they took a little getting used to. Im used to the wooden chopsticks that are more square at the bottom. They seem heavier and slipperier. The woman who owns the restaurant went out to her garden and picked fresh tomatoes for us to eat. She also said the girls were "beautiful" and "well behaved". Of course all of this was said in Korean but that is what our friend Miyoun told us she said.

For the most part we took the Asian Highway north, and periodically we would see the signs for Russia & China. Partway through the drive Scott took over as driver, so he is now quite proficient at reading road directions in Korean. haha. Actually we have learned the korean script for a few very important words (men/women - for the bathrooms!). haha.

Gyeongju roadtrip

What a great day today. We rented bikes at the train station and rode around Gyeonju, checking out the historical relics of the Shilla dynasty, which ruled Korea from here from 57 BC to 935 AD. This was the first major dynasty in Korea, we already checked out the third and last, and we'll get to the second when we get back to Seoul.

Bee rode with Angie on a mini tandem and loved it. Frankie rode on a child seat behind me. Next vacation, we do all-tandem.

The Shilla buried their royalty in pyrimid-like mounds, which are now all over Gyeonju. I figure you've really made it in the "Dead King" category if people are still mowing the lawn on your mound 1000 years after you die.

The best part of the old stuff was the Cheomseongdae astronomical observatory (below). It consists of 366 stones, one for each day of the year, 12 stones at the base, one for each month, and 30 levels, one for each day of the month. Not sure what observations could be done here, but...



Then it was the Children's museum, where B&F (with some help) did some archaeology, by putting together the urn puzzle below. It was especially hard because kids kept trying to touch Frankie's blonde hair the whole time we were doing the puzzle.

For dinner we tried to go to the Terrace, which was just next door to the place we went to the night before. Unfortunately, the Terrace had new owners, and only served dishes containing abalone (!) but the owner directed us to the "Spoon and Chopsticks", a Korean restaurant that definitely did not cater to tourists- no English in sight, but lots of great food.

Bee and Frankie didn't eat as much as we did, so we treated them to Isaac Toast, where they made the grilled cheeses right on the street in front of us...

Waiting for the bus

We will have lots of other pictures from our adventures today but we thought we would put a few of our bus trip into Gyeongju (where we ended up renting bikes to get all around town). One of the bus stops had a lake with lotus flowers in bloom. It's the big summer lotus flower festival here since this is their peak season.

The bus stop near the train depot was surrounded by lots of sidewalk vendors. We were really impressed with the artistry of the food presentation! There was all kinds of fruits, vegetables, fish and lots of other things!

Gyeongbokgung Palace

Yesterday was our busiest day yet.  We started out by ordering our own breakfast at Tae Geuk Dang bakery down the hill from the hotel.  We were completely clueless as to what to order, but Angie is always good about asking. She looked up the word for "breakfast" (achim) and "what do you recommend" (mwo chucheonhae jusillaeyo) in our handy dandy lonely planet guide, and asked a very nice lady who suggested a big-sized roll that they could cut into quarters.  It looked like it was custard-filled but otherwise was the size of a half-loaf of bread. When they served it, it turned out to be filled by a cross between egg salad and cole slaw, with a Korean twist of course. Surprise!  Angie and I ate the whole thing, and frankie even ate a couple of bite.  But, both girls really had ice cream sandwiches instead.

We took the subway down to Gyeongbokgung Palace, seat of power in Korea during the Josean dynasty from the 1500's to 1910.  The palace included a history museum, a changing of the guard reenactment, and lots of old stuff in general.

This is the stupa from the high-monk Jigwang-guska, a masterpiece of ancient Korean stone stupas, believed to have been built around 1085, making it the oldest thing we saw today. It was built during the Goryea dynasty, the one that came before the Joseans.  The Goryea palace is about a kilometer away and we'll visit it later this week.

Somehow, Bee and Frankie's Korean outfit wound up in a museum.  Who knew?

This guard was clearly intimidated by Bee and Frankie.

After the palace we met Angie's friend Miyun and went to a very nice noodle restaurant.  We finished the day in a place that was very familiar to us...