Goodbye Korea, hello Japan!

Gyeongju, a small city in South-South-Korea, gave us a real sense of rural Korean life. We (Jojann, Temilja, Victor and me) ended up staying here for 3 nights, to see the countryside and Gyeongju’s famous historical sites. The city was once the capital of the kingdom of Silla (500-1500 AD), one of the three ancient kingdoms of the Korean peninsula. Scattered around the area are ancient pagoda’s, tombs, burial mounds and temples, of which the most impressive might be the Bulguksa temple complex, whih is on the UNESCO world heritage list. We rented some bikes to go there, and it was truly impressive. The temples used tob e seen as gates to the land of Buddha, a gateway to one of the 33 heavens. Some Korean still come to pray here. There were beautiful Buddha statues and temples, all surrounded by bamboo forest, ponds, streams and fountains. The road we took back was an experience by itself: on our bikes, we rode through mountains, woods, and rice fields. It was amazing.
We’re not only seeing attractions here, we are being attractions too! We didn’t see many foreigners in Seoul, here there are virtually none. We get stared at, people try to talk to us (although they generally speak very little English), school kids wave and shout “Hello, nice to meet you!” at us, and Victor just told me that the girl sitting in front of us in the bus we’re in was taking pictures of herself with me, asleep, in the background. Sometimes, these contacts result in very funny situations. When we went to the underwater tomb of king Munmu (which is quite dull in itself: you can’t see the tomb, as it is, obviousy, under water), we were invited by some middle-aged men to drink with them on the beach. We said yes (we kinda like the attention we’re getting, we feel like celebrities!) , and before we knew it, we were dancing the “Gangnam Style” dance with one of them. After we left them, we still had a great time at the beach where we climbed the rocks and saw huge dead squids washed ashore.
Gyeongju itself is quite uneventful, although we did get exiting food at one of the bars: they served us a bowl full of bugs. We tasted some, but they were as disgusting as they looked. Yuck! Back in Seoul, we’ll spend our last night at Victor’s karaoke birthday party, probably singing ‘No Scrubs’. TTYL!