Trip to Gyeongju

This is a picture of the Sa Rang Chae Guest House where we spent three nights, in Gyeongju. We took a train from Daegu and arrived in about 1 1/2 hours. We decided to go "first class" because it cost less than $10. The train was very clean, fast, and had plenty of leg room. We learned later that the car we were in was the "quiet" car. Believe me, it was very quiet. A nice ride. The guest house was absolutely awesome! Owned by a Korean couple, probably she was in her mid-forties, he in his 50's--world travellers. They take a month or two off every year to travel somewhere--and they have been just about everywhere (except America, which is a bit pricey for Koreans, tho they plan to get there within the next couple of years).

We hung out quite a bit in the courtyard and met people from at least 10 different countries, and four different continents!

On one of our days there, we took a rather long hike to Namsan. Aside from the itense humidity, it was the closest

thing to hiking in Colorado I've experienced so far. We climbed a lot, and saw many buddha statues--very ancient,

some missing their heads. Close to the top of our hike, there

was a small temple/monastery, complete with a small beautiful vegetable garden, very well-tended by the monks.

We were also (thankfully) able to get water up there. That humidity, as I said, is intense!

Another day, we decided to take advantage of a package tour--we rode a bus to four different locations. Spent the day viewing temples, the Sea Tomb of King Munmu, where we had lunch along the coast and found beautiful colored sea stones at the shore line. Put my toes into the East Sea (or Sea of Japan), tho not much more than that since it was cool and overcast with some rain showers that day.

My new friend Catherine (Cat) and I had some fun experiences while shopping in the downtown area of Gyeungju. One evening, we were just looking in the window of a music store when the door opened and the man insisted we come in and join them. Inside, we found ourselves in a very small (about 8x10) room, with a low Asian-style table in the middle and several people gathered around. Turned out it was the middle of a flute lesson. This older gentleman was instructing a young girl (about 13) in playing the traditional Korean flute. He insisted we sit at the table, he poured us some tea, then played us a few tunes. Very beautiful. The young 13-year old was the only one who really spoke any English, so we began trying to communicate with her. We finally, with some prodding, convinced her to play a tune for us. She was pretty shy, but played beautifully as well. Korean people are very warm and welcoming!

Another time, we found ourselves on a street which seemed to have a lot of artsy type shops. We found a rather unique store that contained many items made from Korean paper. There was a lamp I liked (and needed for my room) so I decided to buy it. We had a nice conversation with the owner (and maker of the lamp) then had to rush back to our guest house because in the evenings the owners usually did some kind of craft project with the guests. This night we were going to be making Korean fans--so we didn't want to miss that. Well, when we arrived at the guest house, within minutes our instructor for the night showed up--and yes, it turned out to be the owner of the lamp store! We made some pretty cool paper fans and had fun. The next night, we were walking down the same street and stopped in to say hello. Well she insisted that we have coffee with her and she showed us more of her work and we just chatted about families, etc. She spoke very little English, but we sure enjoyed each other's company!

This bicycle looks pretty normal now in the picture, but in "real" life, it looked exceptionally long and large, especially since the Korean people are rather short by our standards. Anyway, I saw it while in Gyeongju and thought Ryan and Bobby might enjoy seeing it. (And no Ryan, I'm not shipping it to CA for your birthday--sorry!)

Well, I'd better get this posted, since it's been over 4 weeks since I got back from Gyeongju--and I'm getting ready to head to Hong Kong on Saturday. I really will try to post more frequently. I know no one likes to read these long posts. I'll try to do shorter, more frequent ones--I promise!