Before I start writing about what a great/exhausting weekend we had, I want to say Happy Black Day to all my single friends! In Korea, Black Day is April 14th. After two holidays for couples (White Day and Valentine's Day), Korea decided that single people should have a day. It's kind of sad that Korea sees being single as something so sad/bad that they named the holiday "Black Day." In any case, single people are supposed to eat black noodles (짜장면) to celebrate the holiday. Happy Black Day to all!
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| The bike gang: colette, Thomas, Maria, Gianni, Me, Sian, Matthew |
Now, let's talk about the weekend. On Saturday, Gianni and I and 5 of our friends headed out to Gyeongju, which is only about 45 minutes outside of Daegu on the train. We stopped at the tourist info booth outside of the station first to get maps and a stamp book for all the tourist destinations in the city. Then, we rented bikes for $10 for the day. All of us agree that the bikes were probably the best part of the day, despite the fact that there were lots of people around the city. Gyeongju is actually a very important city to the history of Korea. During the Silla Dynasty, Gyeongju was the capital. They were also having their annual cherry blossom festival there over the weekend, but it was last weekend we should have gone. The cherry
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| Gianni at the giant tomb mound |
blossoms were basically gone, unfortunately. Oh well! There's always next year. We quickly find out that Gyeongju has a slogan like some of the other cities in Korea. Daegu is Colorful Daegu, Seoul is High Seoul, Busan is Dynamic Busan, and Gyeongju is Beautiful Gyeongju. Cute that they try to name cities. We rode our bikes around and stopped at a few of the main locations in Gyeongju. There are some other important tourist sites that we weren't able to see because they were so far away, but we plan on going back again soon because it was so nice. First, we stopped at a tomb park. It's not
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| Inside one of the tombs |
a cemetery like you might normally think of. A long time ago, if an important person died, he or she would be placed in a casket. A wooden frame is build around the casket and rocks are piled on top of it. Then girl and grass are
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| Cheomseongdae Observatory |
placed on top of the frame and stones. It's kind of the opposite of burying someone, and it makes all these man-made hills. We were able to walk on top of them, but you can walk inside one of the excavated ones and see the casket and the intricate jewelry and things they have found in the tombs over time. It was really cool to see. We got back on our bikes and headed to the Cheomseongdae Observatory. It's the oldest surviving observatory in East Asia, and it dates back to the 7th century. It's not as tall as you'd think an observatory should be, but it's still amazing that it's standing after all this time. We took our pictures and then headed out to try the famous Gyeongju and Barley breads. Gyeongju bread is a kind of pastry stuffed with red bean paste. There's actually a bit too much red bean for my tastes, but it was ok. Barley bread is delicious though! It's two pancakes made from barley with just a touch of red bean paste in the middle to stick them both together. Yum! We went to a traditional Korean place for lunch and Sian, Colette, and I shared an order of the most delicious bulgogi ever. They cooked it on the table next to us with mushrooms and other veggies.
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| Anapji Pond |
Afterwards, we walked through a field of flowers marked as "rape flowers" on our maps, and rode the bikes down into an old, hanok village with traditional Korean buildings. We rode the bikes over to anapji, which is a man-made pond where a massive Silla castle used to
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| National Museum |
be. They've rebuilt some of the buildings, but they have a model of the castle as it was before, and it was really big. I got stamps at all of these spots, and it was kind of fun to collect them. Our last stop for the day was the National Museum where you can see some of the artifacts of the Silla Dynasty. It was pretty nice. There are still more places we need to visit, but we were running out of time, so we headed back to the train station and dropped the bikes off. On the way home, we played charades on Maria's phone, and we were all really happy to get back. It was a tiring but fun day. I filmed the first of my videos for a lesson I'm making about accents. Luckily, I have friends from all over the world now, and they are my accent examples.
I recently got a stamp book that marks all kinds of places to see around Daegu. It's actually pretty handy. There's an English book that only has about 15 places in it, and there's a Korean book with probably double
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| The cherry blossoms are still there! |
that. I have both, but on Sunday, Gianni, Maria, Matthew and I just went to the places listed in the English book that are in the area of Palgongsan. We found out later that it would have been better for us to have done a city tour than to take the bus 5 times like we did, but whatever. Our first stop was the temple near the base of Palgongsan, Donghwasa Temple. We had been there before, but we didn't see the large standing Buddha that they have there, and I had to get my first stamp. There was actually a cherry blossom festival
happening there as well, and there were even still some blossoms on the trees up there, so it was really beautiful to see. The standing Buddha was quite impressive, although it was only built in 1992, so Gianni thought it was a bit less impressive. The temple was built into the mountain, and it was beautiful to see all the mountains behind the Buddha. After the temple, we ate a PBJ picnic lunch and headed down to check out the festival area. There was an adorable, fluffy jindo puppy that we all just had to pet. We grabbed the bus back toward the train station, but we stopped a few times on the way back to see the other two locations in the English stamp book. The first stop was the bangjae
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| some brass bells |
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Here's that penis statue you
know you want in your yard. |
yugi museum, the brassware museum in Daegu. While we walked there, we walked past a place where the man must specialize in carving penis statues out of rocks...it was...special. At the museum, we watched a quick video about the importance of the brass trade in Korea as well as how brass is molded. We walked around to look at all the brass items, both old and new. There bells, gongs, and utensils and bowls for eating. The coolest part was a photography exhibit of pictures of one of the markets in Daegu, Seomun market, during the 1800's. It was amazing how different things are today. We stopped at the Brass gift shop on the way out, and I got a set of
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| Seomun Market many years ago |
brass chopsticks and spoon and a brass duck that they can be placed on when you're eating. We got back on the bus for a few more stops and the last stop of the day was Bullo-dong tomb park. It was kind of similar to yesterday's tomb park, but the mounds were smaller here, and you could actually walk up on them. We went up the tallest one in the park to see a stunning view of Daegu and the mountains. Because they are smaller, you can also take pictures with more than one tomb in the
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| Us at Bullo-dong Tomb Park |
pictures. It was a really beautiful spot. I got all 3 of the Palgongsan stamps in our little adventure, and it was a really great day. Before we got back to the train station to catch the subway home, I filmed Maria and Matthew as my USA accent examples. Gianni headed home, but I headed out to visit Serena. We went down to this street by her house that is dedicated to a Korean singer, Kim Kwang Suk, who committed suicide some time ago. We listened to his music
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| Kim Kwang Suk |
later, and it was beautiful. The entire left side of the street has murals of him that are really gorgeous. It's kind of an art and music street. It was one of the locations from my Korean stamp book, so I got a stamp in there too. There's also a covered restaurant street that branches off of the music one. I want to go back and eat there. After out dinner at Maya, an Indian restaurant, we headed back to Serena's house for a bit, and I met her adorable new dog, Gizmo. It was a really fun day, but I was ready for some sleep that night.
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