I'm so excited! I just can't hide it! You know, you know Gyeongju! (Part two)

After resting in Seoul for a day, we headed down to Gyeongju. Yes, we finally made it! We found ourselves a cheap love motel for the night, and headed out to explore the city center. The city is built around grassy burial mounds. One is on display to the public.

We then wound our way to the famous observatory. In promotional photos this tower looks quite tall. Imagine our dismay when it turns out to be only a few meters tall and the cost to go stand in front of the tower is about $2.50/person. Instead we snapped our photos from afar and enjoyed the free beauty of the sunset, trees, large fields of lowers, and large ponds full of blooming lotus flowers.

Tombs. 

We followed the map to another famous photo spot, Anapji Pond. We arrived at dark, the peek tourist time to take photos of the pagodas on the water. Exhausted by our several hours' walk, we caught a cab to our motel and feasted on water, soda crackers, and bananas.

Field of flowers and sunset.

The next morning we packed our bags and headed for Bulguksa, an old temple. It looked much like all of the other temples in Korea. And it is arguable if it is worth the four dollars per person to see it. And no photos are allowed of Buddha. Some what disappointed and very hot, we decided to skip the hike to the Seokguram Grotto and took the bus up the winding mountain road. Unfortunately it started raining so the legendary view of the ocean was blocked. But we hiked our way up to the Grotto, to a Buddha that looked like any other Buddha and again, no photos. But plenty of overpriced and badly taken photos were for sale at the stall below the grotto. It is funny how commercialism creeps it's way even to the most humble religions.

Back in Gyeongju, we grabbed ourselves a coffee and decided to catch the next bus out of town, which turned out to be the bus to Busan. We easily found a cheap-ish love motel near Haeundae Beach (One of the most famous mainland beaches in Korea). And I mean, cheaper than regular family hotels and cleaner than either family or love motels we've seen in Korea. It was the perfect love motel with dim red lights, a round bed, a condom next to the bed, lotions, oils, a large computer, and a large TV set to the Japanese porn channel.



We decided to buck the traditional love motel activities and instead walked around Haeundae Beach and watched a large crowd gathered in front of a stage that had a movie screen and a few speakers. The speakers played K-pop and the screen played beer commercials while everybody just watched, didn't dance. Very surreal.

Yonggunsa

We left the zombie crowd and found the 90s rap crowd (Korean rap is still a baby, hence the 90s refernce), the non-descript flute solo, some drums, and a few other performances that were actually quite impressive, considering this kind of thing rarely happens in Seoul.

The next day we packed up, ate breakfast on the beach, and then headed up to Haedong Yonggunsa, a temple built next to the ocean. Again, it is just another Korean temple. But this one is free and has better views of the ocean, plus some slightly difference Buddhist idols to take photos of.

We were rained off the beach and so caught the bus back to Seoul. We spent the next day hiding from more rain and dreaming of the beaches of Jeju and the forest and flower fields of Gyeongju.