A visit from Caroline!!

While hiking Beomeosa was lovely, it wasn't the highlight of my weekend. On Saturday, I had the immense joy of receiving a visitor! My friend Caroline, faithful reader of this blog, stopped over in Korea for the weekend on her way to vacationing in Indonesia. She even managed to score tickets to Busan instead of Seoul, making it a lot easier for me to meet up with her.

Caroline arrived Saturday evening. By the time we got to Gyeongju, it was already kind of late, so we stuffed ourselves with samgyupsal and headed to bed. 

Sunday we woke up early. We had delicious mul naeng myeon and mandu for breakfast, then headed to Bulguksa. While I've been to the temple many times, this was the first time I finally did the hike up the mountain to Seokuram Grotto. While we were lucky enough to have cool weather, the air was very humid and we were quite moist after hiking. Nonetheless, the lush forest was a stunning little treck to say hello to the ancient Buddha up top.  Next we hiked down and toured the temple. At Bulguksa there is often a volunteer giving free English tours. To my surprise, I recognized the tour guide! Mr. Park is a co-teacher to my friend Dan, and we met helping Dan move apartments. He gave us an excellent tour, poiting out things I hadn't seen on my previous visits. As if that wasn't amazing enough, the kind man then offered to drive us back into downtown Gyeongju! To top it all off, the other volunteers gave us some cakes and (a weirdly large amount of) milk! It was magical. We then visited Cheomseongdae, Caroline bought some fun Korean socks, and headed home. We were pretty tired, so we ended the day with some yummy dalk galbi. 

Monday was another big day! Caroline joined me at school. Unfortunately, Monday includes my most moody and pubescent grade sixers. Even more unfortunate, they were having a test that day. I hope Caroline wasn't too bored. Luckily, she also got to see my most adorable grade threes, and join me for my middle school conversation class. We played Two Truths, One Lie, and I think we had a pretty fun time.

Next, the principal at the middle school kindly offered to take us out to dinner! She had studied at UoT so she was happy to spend the evening chatting with a Torontonian. Both Caroline and I were blown away by how lovely the evening was. The restaurant was a beautiful serene little house, with cats and rabbits in the hard. Soothing music played and we got beautifully simple bibimbap for dinner. (The menu listing it as "Edible Mountain Bibimbap" at which we all had a chuckled) Served along with it were a few Korean sides, which was perfect for Caroline to sample! The conversation was amazing and the principal proved to be an extremely interested and open minded woman. It was truly a gem of an evening.

Caronline and I finished our day with sweet potato lattes (my favourite), and a gorgeous trip to Anapji. One last snack of Korean fried chicken in a cup before bedtime, and Caroline's trip was over! Sadly, she had to leave Tuesday morning.

Thank you so much for visiting me Caroline! (and for bringing me such amazing treats!!!) I hope Indonesia was as awesome as YOU are!

Hiking up to Seokuram

Very tame chipmunks along the train. I suspect
because of the generous hikers.

Love lanterns.

Mr. Park pointed out that these archways
were referred to as "double rainbow"

Mt. Park also pointed out the interesting stone structure
here which was apparently unique to this
time period. 

Previous tour guides explained that this
Pagoda represented a man's journey through life:
Beginning as a square teenage, and ending up
as a round old man. However, Mr. Park explained
that the square represents Buddhism's four
noble truths, the octagon the eightfold path,
and the cylinder as  nirvana!

Another first: Mr. Park pointed out to us these ancient
remnants of monk toilets! This was the top monk's
private squatter.

Apparently water flowed through beneath
these!

Caroline is awesome!
Thank you so much for coming to Gyeongju!