in the morning we were woken by someone and told we had to get up or we would miss breakfast. it was already 8 and it was only being served until 8:30. we weren't too fussed about it, since none of us really like to eat rice and seaweed soup in the morning, so we took our time getting up. in a period of about 20 minutes five different koreans came knocking on our door reminding us to get up for breakfast! (on a side note koreans are under the impression that no foreigners ever eat in the morning.)
we missed breakfast.
but that was ok... eileen had some nuts and dried banana, and i had some crackers, so we ate those. at nine all the kids and teachers were rounded up for an english competition. of course, it was outside in the same place as the bonfire the night before, even though it was freezing... and the wind coming off the lake didn't make it any better. after a while emma and i snuck inside to where the competition was moving after they had gotten the contestants down to 200 students instead of 900. the contest lasted for about an hour and half and then we were free.
we figured that since we'd gone all the way to gyeongju that we should try to get some sights in before leaving so we headed out of the amusement park to find a cab. that didn't prove as easy as in gimhae, so we got a lady in a corner store to call one for us. he took us to the bus station downtown so that we could see what time the buses were heading back to gimhae. we didn't have much time because we had plans to go to a friends that evening for our ladies wine and cheese night (also known as "chat n fat" - you can read about it here on kim's blog.)
if we learned one thing, it is that gyeongju is huge. it takes a while to get anywhere, and all the many many temples that cover the place are all quite far apart and not in the center of the city (obviously). so after a sketchy lunch of boiled beef soup, we headed to the nearest tourist site - the Daereungwon Tomb Park.
this is from the entrance. it cost us 1,500 won (~$1.75) to get in. it is the biggest park of tombs in all of gyeongju - 23 tombs, which look like this:
giant mounds of dirt covered in grass. well, to be fair, there are things buried inside of them... though most, if not all, have been excavated. you might remember my post on suro tomb - i thought his was big (compared to the ones you see all over), but as it turns out, i guess he wasn't that important.
it's probably a lot nicer when the grass is green...!these are the tombs of the royal Kim Family who ruled during the Silla Dynasty. apparently you can walk inside one of the tombs and see the excavated objects, but i guess we didn't get that far, as we had a bus to catch... oh well, next time!
this sign was atop the gift shop that was open! and yes, everything was (price and quality), so i didn't buy anything...on our way to and from the park we kept seeing stores selling "gyeongju bread" i was really excited because i could read the sign. i know the korean word for bread and sounded out the korean for gyeongju...it's nice to think i may be getting a grasp (however small) on this language. so, we had to get some - gyeongju bread, that is.
this was the shop we bought it at... "barley bread of purity korea", yeah, ok. they're kind of like mini pancakes that have stuff inside. i say stuff, because there seemed to be a couple of different kinds of them in the one box. one of them had red bean paste (sweetened) and the other almost tasted like maple, but we aren't sure what it was. here's what they looked like:
they were pretty tasty and we managed to scarf down a load of them on the bus... we also bought some for the ladies night...all in all, it was a nice day and a half to break up the monotony of gimhae... and i'd do it again in a heartbeat!
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