Kyeongju

I've spent the last two days in "open-air museum" that is Kyeongju, Korea.  It's an interesting place and I have to say that the pace of the city appeals to me.  The 'quickly quickly' mantra of Seoul weighs down on me pretty heavily, and if nothing else, slowing down back home seems nice.

Most of what I've seen are temples and tombs that date back to the early days of Korea.  A couple of the temples I've seen today have been dubbed "world heritage" sights by UNESCO, which is a pretty cool title if you ask me.  Just going there makes me feel like a bit of a diplomat.

Also in the town there are scattered tombs that look like perfectly formed hills throughout the city.  One (and maybe all of them, i don't know) was excavated to discover artifacts that date back to 400 (+/-) AD.  Thats pretty old.  To give perspective, these tombs are about 47m in diameter.  Pretty big.  I'll post pictures when I get them developed.

As this place is not Seoul, there are not as many foreigners here, even though it is quite touristed.  I was sitting under a tree trying to cool down (it's really really hot) a kid walks by with his dad.  He stares at me and tugs on his dad's shorts and says in Korean either "He's really American." or "He's really American?"  I'm not quite sure which.  His mom encouraged him to say hello, so he came up to me and asked "hi are you," to which I replied "i'm fine, thank you. and you?" (this is the common responce to 'how are you' here).  He proceded to ask me a list of things that he wanted to know, all of which concerned what I liked.  The first being, "Do you like chicken?" This went on for a while, but i'm traveling alone, so I welcomed the company.

Comments

[Jon Allen]

We've been planning to go there. it sounds great.
Good luck now you are 'back home' it sounds like you don't feel it :(
Just found your blog from korean blog list.

[Nik]

I'm heading there tomorrow and was slightly nervous about it but your post made me laugh and smile. A very welcome break. Thanks!