Checking out at 8.30am to leave Busan (Korea’s 2nd largest city & #1 seaport) on the Southern coast for our journey north to Seoul (near the North Korea border) with an overall total of 400klms the trip is broken into 2 parts, hence 2or 3 blogs considering the number of photos included in each blog (trying to cut down the size & length of these blogs with the appreciation of you guys reading them). Hope you enjoy the photos & understand a few are through the bus window at 100+klms/hr.
Our bus heads towards Gyeongju as our first stop & looking out the bus we see every available valley & flat land into farming, hot houses & rice paddocks as far as you can see. The infrastructure continues as we are on Hwy 25 for most of our trip & there is a 3lane south & 3lanes north & that includes tunnels too & we are motoring along at speed. Coming out of a tunnel & out of the blue when we get to a mini city (unknown) you can see about 20-30 massive 20storey apartment buildings both sides of the hwy. Just too many to count & remembering 65% of Koreans now live in apartment units.
The road infrastructure is amazing & lots more tunnels. We come across some cities with hideous wind turbines on top of mountain ridges. These are vile in so many ways & my hatred of them is boiling over. Heading further north the winter colours of trees are not as vivid now due to winter being well on the way with daily temps 0°C – 8°C.
The bus stops just 75klms out of Busan to reach Gyeongju Bulguksa Temple constructed in the 1st stage by Prime Minister Gim-Dae-Seong in 751AD & completed in 774AD. This temple was a religious sanctuary for protection from foreign invaders. This entire temple was burnt down by Japanese invaders in 1593. Some buildings were rebuilt after & until 1969-73 when full restoration was completed. The rock walls, stone stairs (2) & the stone pegodas (Seokgatap & Dabotap), 2 x bridges & gate are of the original construction. In 1995 the temple was registered under World Cultural Heritage by UNESCO. We do not have the time to venture the entire temple estate, and some areas are cordoned off as well.
Again, the entrance is guarded by the 4 fierce warriors. I was able to get some great photos and to take in the amazing construction techniques, remembering the stone stairs & rock walls were constructed before the Angkor Wat Temple in Cambodia (900AD). The photos show more than my words can described so I hope you like them.
From this site we go over to the other side of Gyeongju town to Daereungwon (known as Tumuli Park) which has more than 20 large & small ground mounds (tombs) from the Silla Period.
There is a double mound (tomb) of a King & Queen (King dying a short while before the Queen) & it was listed as the major one to be excavated for confirmed history but first, the powers to be, settled on doing a trial excavation so they chose the smaller one close by of King Michu 262-284AD (13th ruler) which took a thousand workers & many hundreds of trucks to take away the soil & rocks that covered the timber tomb & to reconstruct it in its present museum & media mound. The trial decision was made, based upon not knowing the construction details of these mounds.
In this tomb they found an enormous collection of gold artifacts resembling the Egyptian mummies to a degree. Some of these artifacts are beyond comprehension, for they are intricate & the sheer volume of gold and of many centuries ago. In addition, this mound construction process was an amazing series of engineering as shown by the media section of this tomb just inside the entrance remembering these mounds are about 20m in diameter & some 6m high to fully encapsulate the timber tomb with all sizes of rock & place soil on top accordingly.
Jade, our guide, gave instructions to do a quick walk around the crowded side streets of cafes & pop-up stalls for a ‘rushed’ lunch to head off to Jeonju (255klms). The same scenery continues with more mini cities of huge apartment blocks, agriculture & massive road networks. On the way we have another pitstop of course for 15mins then back on to complete our journey to our hotel at dark & a limited time to get dinner before restaurants start to close.
With a quick evacuation of our bus, finding our rooms & evacuating again, a small group of us (5) found a beef bbq restaurant with mini gas stoves on each table. Thankfully we had a passenger that is Korean & she sorted everything out for us. The food was awesome & very filling, where you place the cooked food onto a lettuce leaf & a larger leaf vegetable (unknown, like Kale), fold it up with some salad & try & place the whole lot into your mouth. That really takes some doing. Lol! The meal only cost us $12AUD ea & well worth it & very timely in getting a proper meal.
Today I took 10,940 steps or 8.14klms so it was a quick shower (room ensuite), bleary eyed & finished my journal & then off to bed asap for a 9am start continuing towards Seoul.
Stay happy, healthy & safe for my next blog & thank you immensely for reading & hope you like the photos. I trust the stories and photos will get better.
BH Life Travels 