Gyeongju

Earlier this week Jeff and I took a trip up to Gyeongju, which is about 45 minutes north of Ulsan. It's a really cool city with a lot of really interesting and unique history. Here's an overview of the place from Wikipedia:

The early history of Gyeongju is closely tied to that of the Silla kingdom, of which it was the capital. Gyeongju first enters non-Korean records as Saro-guk, during the Samhan period in the early Common Era. Korean records, probably based on the dynastic chronicles of Silla, record that Saro-guk was established in 57 BCE, when six small villages in the Gyeongju area united under Bak Hyeokgeose. As the kingdom expanded, it changed its name to Silla. After the unification of the peninsula in the mid-7th century, Gyeongju became the center of Korean political and cultural life. The city was home to the Silla court, and the great majority of the kingdom's elite. Its prosperity became legendary, and was reported as far away as Egypt. The population probably exceeded one million. Many of Gyeongju's most famous sites date from this Unified Silla period, which ended in the late ninth century. Under the subsequent Goryeo (935-1392) and Joseon (1392-1910) dynasties, Gyeongju was no longer of national importance. However, it remained a regional center. The city was made the seat of Yeongnam Province in the 10th century. It had jurisdiction over a wide area, including much of east-central Yeongnam, although this area was greatly reduced in the 13th century. In 1601, the city ceased to be the provincial capital. Over these centuries, the city's relics suffered numerous assaults. In the 13th century, Mongol forces destroyed a nine-story wooden pagoda at Hwangnyongsa. During the Seven Year War, Japanese forces burned the wooden structures at Bulguska. Not all damage was due to invasions, however. In the early Joseon period, a great deal of damage was done to Buddhist sculptures on Namsan by Neo-Confucian radicals, who hacked arms and heads off of statuary. In the 20th century the city has remained relatively small, no longer ranking among the major cities of Korea. In the early 20th century many archaeological excavations took place, mostly on the many tombs which survived the centuries fairly well. A museum, the forerunner of the present-day Gyeongju National Museum, was set up in 1915 to exhibit the finds. Gyeongju emerged as a railroad junction in the later years of the Japanese Occupation, as the Donghae Nambu Line and Jungang Line were established. Thanks to these improved connections, the town began to emerge as a center of tourism. In the 1970s, Korea saw substantial industrial development, much of it centered in the Yeongnam region of which Gyeongju is a part. The POSCO steel mill in neighboring Pohang commenced operations in 1973, and the chemical manufacturing complex in Ulsan emerged in the same year. These developments helped to support the emergence of Gyeongju's manufacturing sector.

Gyeongju is a major tourist destination for South Koreans, and also for visitors from abroad. A great deal of this is due to the city's status as a center of Silla heritage. In addition, the city government has successfully parlayed its historic status into a basis for other tourism-related developments such as conferences, festivals, and resorts. Many Silla sites are included in Gyeongju National Park. These include a number of profoundly symbolic sites, including the Royal Tomb Complex, the Chemseongdae observatory, the Anapji pond, and the Gyerim forest. In addition, the Gyeongju National Museum hosts many artifacts from the Silla kingdom which have been excavated from sites within the city and surrounding areas, including several royal crowns and other national treasures. Some of Gyeongju's most famous sites relate to the Silla government's patronage of Buddhism. The grotto of Seokguram and the temple of Bulguska were the first Korean sites to be included on the UNESCO World Heritage List, in 1995. In addition, the ruins of the old Hwangnyongsa temple, said to have been Korean's largest, are preserved on the slopes of Toham Mountain. Various Silla-era stone carvings of Buddhas and bodhisattvas are found on mountainsides throughout the city, particularly on Namsan. A significant portion of Gyeongju's tourist traffic is due to the city's successful promotion of itself as a site for various festivals, conferences, and competitions. Every year since 1962 a Silla cultural festival has been held in October to celebrate and honour the dynasty's history and culture. It is one of the major festivals of Korea. It features athletic events, folk games, music, dance, literary contests and Buddhist religious ceremonies. Other festivals include the Cherry Blossom Marathon in April, the Korean Traditional Liquor and Cake festival in March, and memorial ceremonies for the founders of the Silla Dynasty and General Kim Yu-sin.

The greatest part about the city is that everything is so close. You can just park along the road and walk to all of these historical sites. We posted a whole bunch of pictures on our yahoo photo site, but I thought I would share a few here. The thing you see most in this area is burial mounds of ancient kings. They look something like this:

Some of them have their own gates and are sort of separated from the rest of the city while others are just in the middle of fields off the side of the road. I guess the deal was that instead of building pyramids like the Egyptians, when a king would die, they would build a wooden chamber around him with all of his royal items, and then they would cover it with layers of rock and dirt and form the mound. The idea was that it was harder to rob the grave because if you went from the side or the bottom the rocks would collapse on you and if you wend from the top you would be seen.

The other really fun place we visited was Bulguska Temple. It was this huge area at the top of a hill and it had the most incredible views of the city! The leaves are still changing here, so the colors just added to the beauty of the place. There were small Buddhist temples spread out throughout the grounds. We obviously weren't allowed to take pictures in them (and there were people in each one to make sure you didn't), but they were very extravagant, with huge golden statutes and murals. There was a Buddhist guy (I have no idea what significance he had, but he was clearly important) in one of the temples who was conducting a prayer ceremony. We got to watch, which was really cool to see the way that another religion prays.

The other cool thing about the area is all of the shopping. There are tons of souvenier
shops, and we definitely picked up some unique things to bring home (like painted scrolls and native masks). The most popular thing you see there is Amethyst. Apparently there are a lot of Amethyst mines in the area, so literally every store carries at least something, and it is really reasonably priced. Of course I had to stop in a jewelry store and pick up a little something :)