Gyeongju in the Cold: Day One

We wanted to do something for the New Year weekend, so we decided to revisit Gyeongju. First off, it was cold. Next, it was really cold! But we were still able to enjoy a few attractions, and because of the cold, they were free of crowds.

After choosing a hotel, the Hyundai Hotel in the resort area of Bomun Lake, we went to the Shilla Millennium Park. It is designed to display the history of the Shilla kingdom that was centered in Gyeongju in the 8th century. It was still cold.

Notice the ice build up; there was even more when we left about 2 hours later.

It's a large park and I'll list most of the things we saw.

A replica of housing for royal families:

a commoner's view, peeping over the wall

Replicas of gangseung, village protectors, some of which are mechanized and talk or wiggle their tongues at you:

this one had a moving tongue

There was a reenactment of a battle on land and water called "Secret of Heavenly Chest". There's a special story behind this battle, as there seems to be with all things Shilla kingdom related, but I didn't understand what. It has to do with the heavenly treasures; what they are I don't know.

The stage is across the water from the seating, and it is raised, so it was a little difficult to see.

We also watched a display of the "Art of Hwarang". You can click on the link for a more detailed description of what hwarang were, but they are equated to knights. They shot arrows and sword fought while riding, did some displays of sword and pole wielding, and there was some 'trick' riding as well. One guy ran along side the horse, which was pretty impressive. (There is a short video at the bottom of this post you can watch.)

nice view, eh?

There were several other scenic areas around the park and little artisan workshops (glass art, painting, etc), all of which were closed, but had displays to view their work.

Next on the itinerary was dinner. My husband chose a Korean traditional restaurant, which was a little surprising to me. We went in and were seated on the nicely heated floor in our own room by a waitress dressed in hanbok, the traditional attire. The menu was all in Hangul and no one spoke any English, so we just pointed and nodded and smiled when she kept asking us questions we didn't understand. So they started bringing out the dishes. If you know anything about traditional Korean dining, you know you end up with about 30 dishes covering the table.

The first few dishes were some bean sprouts, kimchi, typical stuff. Then came some meat. From my prior perusal of Korean cookbooks, I knew what it was: seasoned raw beef.

Now I am willing to try many things, but eating raw beef goes against everything any American is taught their entire life, and I could not bring myself to do it. They brought out cooked meat as well, and many more dishes that I couldn't identify, and I did try most of those. Like the suspicious looking "fish nuts",

which we later found out via internet translation on the waitress' phone were tiny raw oysters. They also brought us what I would call normal size raw oysters and I ate one of those also. I ingested several other things still unknown, but overall the dinner was good.

Short Hwarang Display