I picked Gyeongju as a detour from Busan due to its historical significance to Korea. It was the first capital of Korea, founded during the Silla Kingdom. In fact, the entire city of Gyeongju was awarded as a UNESCO world heritage site. So unarguably Gyeongju was a must-visit place from my cultural checklist of Korea.
I arrived at Busan ~3hr behind schedule, due to my Jeju flight fiasco. Thankfully, car rental procedure in Busan is much more friendly & convenient than that of Jeju. No shuttle buses or anything, the car rental booths are situated across from the arrival gate, with cars parked outside in the parking lot. So I managed to get my rental car within minutes.
The car also came with an GPS, but UI was much harder to use than the one I had in Jeju. It took me 30+min to somewhat get use to the UI, after I missed couple turns & made few more wrong turns. I finally managed to arrive at Gyeongju ~4pm.
Highways are tolled-road in Korea (at least the one I took from Busan to Gyeongju). You need to first stop and get a ticket from the booth (I did not know, thankfully the staff grabbed a ticket for me). When exiting, give the ticket to the receptionist, the toll amount will then be displayed in a LED board. In general, the drive to Gyeongju was very pleasant: there were cute decorations along the way, plus mountain ranges & colorful leaves.
It was rather obvious when I arrived at Gyeongju. The toll gate was built in the historical Asian building shape, with Cheomseongdae statues all over the place.
Trees were everywhere, and with the arrival of the Fall season, even the streets looked amazing.
Ironically though, as part of the cultural experience, I did not visit the typical touristy spots. Instead I went to the Teddy Bear Museum, followed by the Heritage Money Museum nearby. Both of these places were barely mentioned by most of the travel blogs, so they both barely had any visitors.
I highly recommend the Heritage Money Museum, it is much more worthy than those well-known touristy spots. Next to the entrance gate, there was a big banner with many country flags on top, plus 2 messages that I love at the bottom:
There is no future in the nation have forgotten history.
The culture is the prosperity and glory of nation.
The museum consisted of many exhibits: money, machine, folk, oriental medicine, sex, & outdoor.
The money museum, as the name suggested, was all about currencies & coins. Aside from all the historical Korean currencies, there was a display of [old] world currencies (a 1million dollar USD, Canadian bills that I’ve never seen before, and Chinese Yuan from the 90s). There were also transit tokens from the 1984 LA Olympics.
I wasn’t a fan of the machine museum. It was a small room with some ancient tools plus an old convertible with a Texas license plate (which I found weird).
The folk museum, a personal favorite, displayed Korean arts, furnitures, traditions etc. Historically, Korea used Hanja (Chinese characters) until Sejong the Great invented Hangul (Korean alphabets). So I was able to read most of the calligraphic writings displayed here (really helped with the appreciation).
The oriental medicine exhibition were about acupuncture and herbal medicine stuff. This supposedly be a really cool exhibit, considering it was the only exhibit with an English booklet explaining the current related researches & studies done by a medical school in Korea.
The sex exhibition had various sexual toys, statues, & drawings, including Shunga (春宫图).
Last but not least, the outdoor exhibition had many interesting duplications & displays, including a duplication of the Cheomseongdae, the famous astronomical observatory. Except you climb into this one & enjoy the view of the sky, as it was intended originally.
Finally decided to visit Cheomseongdae and its surrounding areas after my museum tours. Partly because I wanted to see the real Cheomseongdae after visiting its duplication, but also most of the Gyeongju landmarks were located within block reach from Cheomseongdae.
As shown on Google Maps, the park is HUGE. Though there are parking lots near the ends, but only street parkings are available to the closest entrance of Cheomseongdae. I also saw people navigating around via golf cars or bikes, though I did not find either of the rental shops. I do recommend renting a bike (for solo traveler) or a golf car (for small groups) if you’d like to see everything, though I personally would not waste my time here. Some tourists also wore hanbook, but not as much when compared to the Gamcheon Culture Village of Busan nor the Insadong district of Seoul.
Rather disappointed with Cheomseongdae, I wanted to visit the Bulguksa Temple. Unfortunately, I was not able to locate it in my GPS. After getting lost for ~30min, I gave up & decided to check-in at a Hanok I reserved. Except the GPS was not able to locate the Hanok either, and the owner did not speak English. Eventually she found someone who spoke some English, but we were still unable to communicate. With much frustration, I wandered around the parking lot of the Gyeongju National Museum.
I was so happy when I saw a couple far away, that I ran to them and burst out “Can you help me please?”, handed them my phone, and continued, “Can you tell him where I am, and how should I get to his place?” The couple froze for a second, and I thought to myself, “oh shit, were they able to understand me?” Luckily though, they were fluent in both English & Korean. So within minute, I was en route to my accommodation.
I always wanted to stay at a Hanok as part of the culture experience. Gyeongju felt like the destined place due to its historical significance.
I was absolutely right about this, at arriving at my Hanok. It was situated minute away from the Cheomseongdae, in an area called the Hanok Village. Exactly how it sounded like, every motel in this area had the historical architecture look.
The interior was actually wallpapered with Korean rice paper for a more authentic feel. There was also no locks on the door, though it could be locked with a latch from the inside. Bedding supplies were neatly folded & placed on top of a cabinet. Exactly how I’ve seen on TV & exactly how I expected.
I went to the Anapji Pond (a.k.a the Wolji Pond) around 9:30pm, mostly for night time photography. To my surprise, the parking lot was full! Also to my surprise, there was a small museum/exhibition in the main palace.
The place isn’t big (~10min walk without stopping?), though it is a perfect place to visit after dark. Without any unwanted light sources, it was unbelievably easy to capture a mirror reflected image.
This is NOT in Gyeongju. I only listed it here because it was part of my Gyeongju detour.
The following morning, I headed to the Homigot Sunrise Square to watch sunrise. It is the easternmost end of Korea. The winding mountain road was also a fun drive, somewhat reminded me of Big Sur. There are actually 2 hands facing each other, one in the ocean (that I photographed), and the other on the square. I was rather surprised to see tour groups here as well.
It was a cold cloudy day, yet I still had so much fun playing with the hand & my bears. (Someone later walked up to me and borrowed my stuffed animal as a prop too =p) Due to the heavy cloud, the Sun was also playing hike & seek with me.
