Beautiful beach day

I finally made my way out to Najeong Beach, in Gampo. It always blows my mind how easy it is to get to this lovely spot, just 1 hour by city bus from downtown Gyeongju! It was a beautiful day of swimming and relaxing, and of course people watching. It seems many Koreans aren't very comfortable in the water, so everyone had a ton of clothes and floating devices. This kid, as you can see, even had a bathing cap to prevent his hair from clogging up the drains of the oceans. When I would swim, sans floaties, out to the buoys, apparently people would watch in shock. It's quite funny. Either way, beautiful relaxing day, and a nice break from the heat.

Also, in a moment of connecting with my roots, I found both falafels and an Istanbul booth in Gyeongju! The falafels were delicious, in a little stall by the Express Bus Station. The woman said her husband is from Israel, and thats how she knows to make falafel and hummus. Sadly, one of mine fell onto the floor while I was eating!! But from what I tasted, it was super delicious. 

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!

Easter Sunday

While I may or may not have forgotten about Easter prior to a chocolate filled package from my mom, I had a lovely brunch with some friends to celebrate. Today was even more gorgeous and sunny than yesterday, so we went down to Cheomseomdae to frolic in the blooming canola flowers. Yet another beautiful day in Beautiful Gyeongju!

Easter Brunch:

Lindt Bunnies supplied by my lovely mommy,
and the rest of this gorgeous spread by my generous
friend!

I was extremely amused by the pattern of her
floor. It is made to look like a balcony with
plants growing in the cracks. It's very confusing.

Cheomseomdae!

Very pollen filled flower.

I have so many pictures of this observatory it's getting
ridiculous. This is Cheomseomdae itself.

There were a TON of people enjoying the sun and taking
a billion photos in the yellow flowers.

Gorgeous! Who knew canola oil came form
such a pretty flower.

The March Road of King Shinmun

After a few rainy weekends, we finally had one that was lovely and rain free. Two friends and I decided to check out a new hiking trail in Gyeongju and headed for "The March Road of King Sinmun." None of our friends had heard of this trail, and compared to most mountains around the trail was almost empty! We found it one this super handy blog, Gyeongju Love. While not an actual mountain, the trail was still beautiful. It goes pretty flat for a while, then downhill to a gorgeous waterfall. We searched for a bus stop at the other end, but sadly had to make our way back uphill to our starting point to get home. While it was a long day, it was very beautiful and the waterfalls were lovely. Hiking on a fairly isolated trail was a particular treat compared to the overcrowded main routes.

When we got off the bus, we were fairly certain we were in the wrong spot. It was pretty desolate except for these stores selling mysterious things.

We wandered up a road (to the left of the tunnel, for any future hikers) and saw these stone piles, and some Buddha's. We figured this must be the way.

Statue of what I guess to be a boddhisatva
holding some babies.

At the base of the statue were creepy
baby scultures.

Creeeeepy

Next we wandered across an incredibly surprising
house. It looked so Western we wondered if we'd
somehow teleported elsewhere.

We soon came across a beautiful resort called JY Pension. The owners were lovely and let us use their washroom and get some water. We also saw some very happy frogs.

 We finally found the trail. We later saw a sign that said the trail was 2km from the bus stop. We were glad to find it!

Oooh nature.

Sadly, I didn't see any of these guys. It's so interested
to see how similar yet different the animals all are.

Koreans are renown for wearing very high tech gear for
even the most leisurely of hikes. These friendly hikers
provided a good example.

Traditional Korean hiking fare: kimbap, pictured below. While it may bear a resemblance to sushi, kimbap is a fast food that doesn't involve raw fish. This is tuna kimbap, my favourite. It includes tuna salad, egg, spam (yuck), and veggies like sesame leaf, pickle daikon, carrots, and some brown thing that's yummy. Two years ago, I would never have thought in a million years to eat such a concoction. Now I adore. I even think it surpasses a sandwich for hiking fair because it can be squished without being ruined, and you can easily speak between bites!

Chamchi kimbap!

We almost missed the waterfall! We had to climb over
a fence and down some rocks to get this lovely view.

Clear spring water

As on all Korean hikes, we spotted some of
these piled stones. Apparently you pile them
and make a wish.

Sadly we saw a ton of squished froggies along the path.
This lady was still hoppin' though.

Here is the sign at the end of the trail.
It led us to believe there would be a bus at this end as well..
But there wasn't. So we headed back!

There are some words carved into this stone.

The final leg of our journey: the last bite of road
from the trail down to the bus stop.