Gyeongju

Our last stop on our wild and crazy trip through Korea was Gyeongju, which is about an hour north of Busan. Gyeongju was the capital of Korea during the Silla dynasty and is one of the best perserved areas of Korea (since the Japanese have pretty much destroyed everything else in Korea multiple times over). In fact, it's called the "museum without walls." I was surprised at just how much there is to see in Gyeongju. You could spend days there, but we only had a few hours. I'd really love to try to go back there at some point. It looked liked a beautiful and fascinating area. Still, I'm glad we got to see what we did while we were there.

Gyeongju is famous for these random grass-covered hills called tumuli. They are really the burial mounds of various Silla royalty. There are hundreds of them all throughout the area.

The double peaked mounds are apparently the burial plots for husband and wife.

We visited Tumuli Park which was full of these mounds and some beautiful shady areas, trees, walkways and ponds.

They have also excavated one of the mounds so that visitors can enter it.

Basically, the tomb of the king or royal person is in the center of the mound, covered by a wooden box containing the remains of the person and all sorts of gold and jewels. The tomb is then covered by a mound of rocks, a thick layer or dirt, and finally the grass. You can see why they don't excavate more of them. It'd be a major pain. Still, I wonder what other treasures they could find.

Zara spent most of the day sleeping. Seriously. We couldn't even get her to wake up to eat. I guess she was worn out or going through a growth spurt or something.

Across the street from Tumuli Park was another open area full of more tumuli and this ancient astronomy observation tower.

It was also near several large fields where they grow flowers and other plants. Too bad we came during the fall. It looks like the are would be absolutely beautiful during the spring.

After a few hours in the area, we climbed back into the car and headed home to Seoul. We made good time (stopping at another rest stop for dinner) and only hit traffic once we entered Seoul again. Luckily, we weren't stuck in traffic for too long. At least we know our way home and didn't get lost again.

I'm so glad we got a chance to get out of Seoul. Korea really is a beautiful country with a long and tragic history. I call Korea the ugly step-sister of Asia. It often gets lost in the shadow of China and Japan, but it is a fascinating country with a strong and resilent people. I can only hope that I live to see the day when North and South Korea can be reunited as one country.