Rick's in Korea: tourist

Well, it's taken me a week to get this posted but last weekend a few of us went to Gyeung-Ju to visit some of the historical sites there. Gyeung-ju was the capitol of the Silla dynasty for centuries and as a result the city is known as "a museum without walls". Everywhere you look, there's the royal tomb of one king or another. There are also several of the oldest Buddhist temples in Korea, including Bulguk-sa Temple, which contains 7 of the national treasures of Korea and Seoguram Grotto, the only cave temple in Korea. The carvings and paintings are beautiful.

Bulguk-sa Temple:

Seoguram Grotto:

The National Museum in Gyeung-ju is located at on a lake at the former site of the royal palace. Apparently, the lake was drained for some reason 30 or so years ago and it was discovered that it had been used for centuries as a "royal landfill". About 10,000 artifacts were recovered and many are now on display in the museum.

I only pasted a few of the picture thumbnails here, but there are about 300 pictures from the trip over on photobucket, so feel free to check them out there.

Well, I finally got a chance to do some sightseeing this weekend. I love to see different historical/cultural sites and have been wanting to see some of them here. This weekend one of my korean friends agreed to take me around one of the palaces up in Seoul. We went to Gyeongbok Palace, the palace that served as the location for state affairs for the longest period of time in Korean history. I got lots of great pics. I'll only copy a few here, but the others are all over on photobucket.

I was able to see a few other things in the area... there's an entire "cultural area" that has some of the various historic aspects mixed into the city. It's kind of odd to see a traditional hanook home next door to a modern apartment building.

On the way home, there was a group of dancers from a church in the subway. I couldn't understand the music, but the dancing was rather pretty.