Bicycle Tour of Gyeong-Ju: Day 2 (BulGukSa Temple)

Of all the temples I have visited to this point in Korea, I enjoyed this one the most but got to spend the least amount of time in it. There was something about the place that just radiated calm to me. In a couple of halls monks were chanting, one of my favorite sounds in the world. I don't have a lot of words to tell you about th temple, but I can tell you a bit about some of the things I saw...

 

 

The Dabotap Pagoda, "Pagoda of Many Treasures"... is found on the flip-side of the 10won coin (thank you Wiki, I had no idea!). It was built in the year 751, and has been repaired after being damaged from an attempted theft (theives used dynamite to blow it open and get to the treasures, but they were scared off before they could get anything). You can see one stone lion on the staircase, but the 3 on the other staircases are not there. One is apparently in a museum in London, the other 2 are MIA. The pagoda is unlike others seen in different Buddhist countries because of the way it is built (its structure is unique to South Korea) and the ornateness of the carving/decoration.

Golden seated Buddha statue inside a temple

Seokgatap Pagoda, directly across from Dabotap in front of the temple

Amazing roof lines and tile ends, a guardian at the corner

More rooflines, I love them!

Beautiful lines, blossoms, so beautiful

Amazingly busy and beautiful pagoda housing

I think these things were kept for luck, but hopefully I will become better informed soon... honestly, I just thought they looked cool  :)

A beautiful walkway over the pond that leads to a literary museum

That was the majority of our last day... well, that and getting our bikes picked up and brought back to the rental shop. We had some more amazing food and then spent almost 6 hours on the bus back to Seoul. I managed to catch the very last train connection back from Seoul and arrived back at my apartment by 11pm, safe and sound and fairly exhausted. What a beautiful weekend it was...

Bicycle Tour of Gyeong-Ju: Day 2 (Seokgulam Grotto)

Bright and early (6:45, not so bad) we were up again on Sunday in order to cram as much as possible into our day since we were headed back in the afternoon. The bus left at 7am for Seokgulam Grotto, a hermitage with a cave temple that is a shrine to Buddha up in the mountains high above BulGukSa Temple. It took our bus 25 minutes to drive up the switchback lanes before finally reaching the top and dumping us off.

Almost immediately after stepping through the park gates, a hugely ICY wind came whipping down the mountain right at us. Hoods up, hands tucked in sleeves we trucked on (whatchagonna do??). The BulGukSa is a working Temple, so there were monks all around, some praying, others doing whatever else it is that monks do, and overall people seemed to do a decent job of being respectful.

The grotto itself was at the top of yet another climb (albeit a short one). I'm sad to say that I don't have any pictures of the incredible 3.5metre seated stone Buddha , as photography is never allowed inside temples and such, the whole holiness of it all isn't to be snapped at with cameras. Many people disregard the rule, but I will never snap a photo inside a temple myself, ever, no matter how much I want to remember it. You can try to get photos from outside, but that's it for me. You can see Wiki's write-up HERE with a picture (that does no real justice to it all) if you're interested.

It's hard to explain how it feels sometimes when I'm in a temple. Sometimes the peace and the calm is almost palpable, as though all I want to do is find someplace nearby quiet to sit down and just 'be,' soak up all of the thick, heavy calm. Not all temples feel this way to me, but the grotto did, I loved it.

Once out again I took some pictures of the view from the mountaintop, hands still tucked in sleeves with only my shutter finger poking out when necessary. Here are a few photos from the top...

There's a big bell in the centre there that the monks ring

The city of Gyeong-Ju is down there

The left side looks like a flying serpent and perhaps a phoenix, and the on the right are the heavenly horses, with beautiful firey manes... this is a symbol I saw often in Gyeong-Ju...

The exit from the grotto hung with lotus lanterns

I love seeing the satellite dish on the side of the temple building, hehehe... it seems nobody escapes technology. I can still remember the first time I was on a hike in the mountains in central Korea when I saw a monk in an isolated forest temple walking around on a cell phone - I almost died right there on the spot! Instead, some of my ideas about the world were just properly put in order :)

This is a fountain of fresh spring drinking water at the grotto, you can fill up your water bottle or drink from plastic cups that are provided and hanging to the side; I loved the lions and the little Buddha

After our time was up at the grotto (one downside of being on an organized tour) on the way back to the bus we passed several adjummas selling mountain vegetables and such from big tupperware bowls. You can see how she's wrapped right up to stave off the winds, it was so very cold!! In front of her you can see the couple of frying pans? Roasted Chesnuts. Yum. Yum. And. Yum. And I have to say, the best way to warm yourself back up after getting chilly on a hike!

More soon on BulGukSa Temple (another incredible site) and the remainder of the weekend (before I start the next one!)... hope you are staying warm wherever you may be!!

 S.

Bicycle Tour of Gyeong-Ju: Day 1

So Saturday morning indeed came early, and I dragged my sorry carcass off the floor mat and into the shower to get a start on the day around 5:45am. I finally met up with the girls I'd emailed the night before (J from New Orleans & F from Brooklyn). We trudged up from the depths to find our way to the buses. On the way we were pleasantly surprised to find a 24-hr grocery store, so we each picked up some fruit, cookies and snacks for the bus. I had a brief conversation with the bag-"boy" (adult man) about the sudden invasion of white faces, he was very confused, I was very amused.


This task was not complicated, we actually got there about 15 minutes early as there were 3 busloads of foreigners heading to the same place: 130+ of us all in one place is a bit overwhelming to the senses!! I've found in Korea that I'm quite accustomed to turning off my ears everywhere I go, it's kind of like walking meditation since everyone around me speaks another language most of the time. Walk into a group of 100 English-speakers and my brain got irritated with the innundation almost immediately! I wasn't the only one, so off we went down beneath the streets in search of the nearest McDonald's... though we came up empty (apparently it was almost 2 blocks away and the line was filled with other foreigners... better luck next time!). Poor J was near-dying over her craving for REAL coffee... having just arrived in March, she still hasn't found anywhere in her town that serves a real cup of coffee (more on that another time if you remind me!).

So the 130+ of us all piled onto the buses (well-organized and such of course) and before long we were on our way. Unbeknownst to me it was a near 5-hour drive from Seoul to Gyeong-Ju. Having been up all hours Thursday night writing a paper, and then the night before in the sauna, I was WELL PAST tired and didn't actually think about going to sleep. Instead I chatted with my seat-mate F. Several suggestions about volume later (she's kindof a loud talker) and we were at a public rest stop. I didn't take a lot of photos there, but I did take this one, because 'only in Korea'... "Lactation Room?" Really??

I watched the Korean countryside go by outside the window on the way there, it's so pretty here in the country, much like home. Everything here is already greening up, and as opposed to the flat countryside of the prairies back home, hills and small valleys are the norm out the bus window, accompanied by many burial mounds, rice patties and gardens. Much ado (and 2 pee-breaks) later we arrived in Gyeong-Ju. Now pee-breaks on bus trips are a story unto themselves that I will save for another weekend, perhaps next weekend... ask me to tell you about the adjummas and their shoulders and elbows...

So this weekend was meant to be a bike tour of the city of Gyeong-Ju (hereinafter to be: GJ). GJ is very rich in history. It was the capital of the Shilla kingdom for more than a thousand years, which ruled most of the remainder of the country if I have my history correct. There are a lot of things to do and see, so we were all pretty excited. Our tour leader William (in the left of the photo, brown t-shirt with a swiss-style flag design on the front) had designed a few courses that we could take if it suited us, and printed us out some maps and distance guides to follow. Thusly armed, our busload descended on the neighbourhood bike rental shop, and they handled us all pretty well.

It was kind of cute watching everyone collect their bikes... like a bunch of little kids really, hoping for pink streamers and maybe a basket on front. You can see J in the picture here, grey t-shirt and white sleeves with the pink and cream bike... "Ohhh yaaaaaah" was what you heard when they wheeled her bike out to her. A quick word from Will about the direction to start off in and we were on our way!

First stop, the many hills of dead guys. Now of course it has a much nicer name, that being "Dae-Rung-Won" in Korean, the site of some royal tombs. Big pretty-looking nicely almost sculptured-looking hills that once housed coffins of some memebers of the royal family (long since excavated I think). There were pretty trees in the park, despite the otherwise-boringness of it all (such a history-buff I am). We did actually get to go inside one of the hills to look at some really cool pieces of art and treasure that were recovered when the tomb was excavated (I don't know people, DIGGING UP all your dead guys??)... turned out that the actual items were housed in a nearby museum, and there were only replicas onsite... I hate that! So anyway, we took a few pictures of the flowers and pretty trees, and we headed out to find something (anything!) more exciting.

When we started getting hungry we picked a restaurant pretty much at random in the nearby "Food Village" and sat down to eat. F is a vegetarian so it was fun trying to find her something without seafood in it, but neither J nor I are picky eaters so ordering was easy! The big fried fish you see in the picture seems to have been a local specialty (we saw it a few times through the weekend). 

We stopped on cherry-blossom lined roads, rode down bike paths, and made our way to Bomun Lake resort where there is a family picnic spot and an amusement park. My lovely bike's back tire started running the frame about an hour into our ride so it began to feel like someone was constantly tugging on my back tire - even downhill! We parked the bikes near the amusement park for the evening and took a bus back up to our hotel to get cleaned up for dinner out with the group. 

The hotel was gorgeous outside, I really liked it. Typical Korean-style ondol sleeping (no bed in those rooms!) so we each had a mat and blanket and a couple of pillows on the floor, but it's usually quite comfortable. The grounds of the hotel were lovely, and they were quite close to the temple we wanted to visit the next day.

        

   

Dinner was bulgogi (just a marinated meat meal) with the usual schwack of accompanying sides, and I thought it was pretty good. The company was actually just as good as the food, if not better, I really enjoyed myself!

We followed dinner with a walk in the cherry blossom forest (it was very dark so it was hard to take good photos, but I'll try to upload a video later, I think that captured it better! Lastly, before heading back to the hotel we also stopped at Anapji Pond and took in some spectacular views (unedited and photoshopped, it was that pretty)... 

  

I could have stayed at the pond all night because the reflections of trees, temples, and statues were just incredible, but the bus was leaving and we still had a bit of a walk to even find it, so off we went. When we got back to the hotel bedtime came pretty quickly as we were pretty exhausted from all of the bike riding and exploring of the day. Another day of exploring on the way...