Gyeongju Day 2

After a wonderfully quiet night, the second day in Gyeongju began with a delicious breakfast that my hostess had lovingly prepared: bread, homemade strawberry jam (almost as good as mom's 😉), apples, salad, fried zucchini, mashed sweet potato, ham, eggs, yogurt, orange juice and cereal tea. (Of course I didn't manage to eat everything, it was way too much for someone who never eats breakfast.)

With a view of the lovingly tended garden, I munched as much as I could and drank all the tea. My host asked me about my plans for the day, gave me tips and was curious about my hometown. (Are there any specialties in Bielefeld? I couldn't think of anything. Here in Korea, people always want to know what culinary specialty your city has. That's really the thing here, every city has its "signature dish". In Gyeongju, it's a kind of pastry, if I saw it correctly.)

I could tell that it was the weekend in the city, because there were already a lot of people out and about in the morning. I sat down on a bench in the shade with a view of the poppies and the observatory to finish uploading the blog post from the previous day. The evening before, my eyes had been closing all the time...

Then we went on to the 석빙고 (Sock-bing-go) - an ancient icebox, if you will! These stone storage rooms were used to store blocks of ice that were taken from frozen rivers in winter. Stone walls, water drains and air holes for ventilation ensured that the rich had ice available even in summer. Is this where the Korean preference for drinking all drinks, including coffee, with ice cubes comes from? (A preference that I share, by the way.)

I had iced 식혜 (Schick-je) — a sweet drink made from fermented rice and malt, very refreshing and delicious!

And as I was sitting there, looking around, I suddenly saw a parade in traditional costumes running through the entire area!

I then went on to the Wolji pond complex, which used to be part of a huge palace. When I saw the announcement of “Palace and Pond”, I had imagined that you would actually be able to see a palace, and not just walk around the area where one used to stand! 😄 But since the entrance fee was the equivalent of around €1.50, I was OK with just taking a few nice photos of the three pavilions by the pond.

After a small snack from the street food stand, I found a shady spot in a café and, over a (naturally ice cold) matcha latte, I caught up on various entries in my travel diary from Sokcho up to now. (You see, it wasn't just the blog that was slow.) The café simply played the same song on repeat for the entire hour I was sitting there. (Day6 - 예뻤어). I'll probably never get rid of this catchy tune.

Then I followed the steady stream of people and came out at another site where there were several huge burial mounds (and endless queues to take selfies at the two best photo spots, of course equipped in typical Korean fashion with selfie sticks and tripods. I'm starting to understand why our companions were so baffled that Anni and I weren't particularly keen on having our photos taken... 😅)

The short history tour ended in a museum that explained how the burial mounds were constructed and how the Japanese, during the occupation, carried out unprofessional excavations under the pretext of “cultural tourism” and appropriated many of the treasures from the burial chambers.

After that, my thirst for knowledge was quenched and it was my stomach's turn. Long queues in front of the restaurants made the decision easy for me (just like in the cafeteria): I'll eat wherever there's free food. And in this case, that was Donkatsu.

On the way home I saw two cats, one at the neighbors' house and one "in our" garden. Then I took a refreshing shower, and then sat down at the table with my journal and wrote down today's events.

The hostel manager came in and we chatted a bit (“Well, where were you today? Oh, wasn’t it too hot walking around all the time? Did you eat anything? But you weren’t in the sun the whole time, were you?”), and shortly afterwards the hostel manager came home and wanted to know what I had done with his tips (spoiler: nothing! 😬), and what stickers I had on the table.

My suitcase is now neatly packed again and I am ready to travel on to the south coast tomorrow morning: Busan, here I come!