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Day
8 (October 2, 2023) Gyeongju
Before
We will arrive at
Gyeongju by train from Busan and spend the rest of the day
visiting the city's highlights.
Our accommodation is in a traditional Korean house, so we
will have a night of experience sleeping on futons and using low
furniture. It is located next to the Royal Tombs Complex and close to
the points of interest to ensure a visit while we're in the city. We
also want to ensure seeing Woljeong Bridge at night to see it
illuminated.
This seems like the best day to try to visit the Bulguksa
temple, which is a bit far from the city.
The spots marked at map are:
0- Namuae lodge
1- Singyeongju train station
2- Bulguksa Temple
3- Woljeong Bridge
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After
We check out at 8 AM, as planned, and we go to have breakfast in
the same cafe than yesterday, next to the Nampo metro stop.
Then we took the subway, two stops, and got off at Busan Station
to follow the same path we saw yesterday to the platforms. The screen
points that the platform of our train is 8 and, as there is nearly an
hour left, we spend time in the shops on that floor.
At 9:30 AM we are on the platform waiting for the train and,
when it arrives, we look for car 14 as it is pointed on our tickets, we
leave our bags at the entrance and go to our seats 5A and 5B.
The ride only lasts 26 minutes, so we get to Seogyeongju station
immediately, where we take a taxi to the hotel at 10:30 AM.
The taxi, however, takes much longer. It is not just that the
driver only speaks Korean, which is quite expected, but that he is not
even able to understand our letters and, therefore, does not know where
to go. I get a map in Korean in my cell phone for him but, once in the
center of Gyeongju, he is not able to get the right place. The
situation is resolved after three calls from the driver to Namuae guest
house.
In Namuae they already give us the keys to our room in this
traditional Korean house despite it being much earlier than their
check-in time.
 
We leave the bags and go out to make some time until lunch by
getting into the nearest park, which is full of those green hills so
typical here that are actually royal tombs, in the style of the
Egyptian pyramids.
The park is very beautiful and has served as an excellent
opening act for the food. We have chosen a Korean barbecue restaurant
that is across street from our guesthouse. Here, with the barbecue
menu, everyone chooses a dish between cold noodles, spicy noodles and
hot pot of bean pasta. I order the latter and Eva the cold noodles. We
end up full and it cost us 50,000 won in total.
With a full stomach we feel like resting a little in the room,
which in the end results in an unexpected nap, as we both fall asleep.
We wake up around 4 PM, so we leave immediately as it leave us
little time for the main visit of the day: Bulguksa temple. We have
decided to leave the visits in the city for tomorrow, which is the last
day of this vacation that is filing every place and go today to a
famous temple in the mountain.
To do this we go to the bus stop and wait for the 711 or 11,
whichever arrives first. It turns out to be the 11 and, after a
45-minute ride, we arrive at the temple complex.
It is 5:10 PM when we are in front of the temple entrance where
we find good and bad news: the good news is that admission is free
today, I suppose because of the holidays, although the explanation is
in Korean, and the bad news is it closes at 5:30 PM instead of 6 PM, as
Google said.
We rushed in and, after a nice little lake, we reached the first
section. Despite how isolated it is and that it is almost closing time,
there are quite a few people visiting it.
We complete our visit to all the sections despite the fact that
it's far past 5:30 PM, encouraged, mainly, by the number of people who
are doing the same thing. The temple is full of beautiful corners, but
the environment, in a forest full of coniferous with the shapes they
have in Japanese drawings, gives it an extra that makes it exceptional.
We take the first bus back to Gyeongju which, once in the city,
takes a route opposite to the area of our lodge. So we leave the bus
and take a taxi to the Woljeong Bridge, which we want to see with its
lights now that it's night.
But what seemed like a short ride becomes extremely slow as it
passes through several areas jammed with cars and people. This is
expected to change tomorrow since, as it is the last day of these local
holidays, and that is the reason why there were no train tickets to
Seoul, people will return home throughout the day.
When we get to the bridge it is also crowded, of course, so we pass quickly thinking about coming back tomorrow.
 
On the way to the lodge we stop at a cafe - because all the
restaurants told us that they are "sold out", and we order one of each
of the two menu options that are not sold out: toast with scrambled
eggs and pork and a shrimp salad. We pay 25,000 won and we finally go
to rest in our traditional room until tomorrow.
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