With breakfast we had the use of the internet, free of charge, so I managed to make a hotel reservation online at the Dai Ichi Inn in Tokyo for the coming week. We checked out of the hotel and took the subway during rush hour to Seoul station where we bought second class tickets on the 09:30 train to Gyeongju in Southern South Korea. We waited for 15 minutes before patiently letting the mad Korean people charge and bustle to rush their way onto the platform to find their allotted seats on the train. We found ours in no time at all and were surprised by the luxury we found. Obviously our surprise and disbelief was written across our faces as we had attracted the attention of a Korean man who confirmed that we were in the right place. Our luggage stowed nicely behind our seats which were the first two seats on the carriage. We had received a five per cent discount for the inconvenience associated with the seats. I hope we are inconvenienced again on our return journey!
Our train departed at 09:32 and 4 hours 19 minutes later we arrived in Gyeongju at 13:51. The journey was very smooth and comfortable but the scenery along the way wasn't very inspiring. The skies were overcast and grey throughout the journey and winter in South Korea has only just left to give way to spring which means that the trees are bare of leaves, the rice fields are bare following the harvest in October. I saw a few herons by the waters though. For the first 30 minutes of the journey there was a female passenger sat across the aisle who continuously hacked. It's surprising and distracting to hear.
From the station we walked 1 kilometre towards two tourist hotels we had identified from our tourist map but on the way to both we stumbled across a new looking hotel which was worthy of an enquiry. The welcoming staff offered us a room for SKW 49,000, almost half the cost of our accommodation in Seoul, and we accepted the room. Having admired the door and fixtures as we ascended the stairs to our floor, we hadn't even made it through the door of our room when we both reached for our cameras while we were still packed with our backpacks. We took it in turn to shuffle out of each other's way so we could photograph the lovely room that we had just chosen to occupy for the next 24 hours. It's really lovely. We have light wooden flooring, a comfy bed raised on a platform, a dark wooden headboard and free standing furniture. The lights are touch sensitive and controlled by remote control and the bedroom door leads to a small lobby which leads to the bathroom, wardrobe and main door. It's like a small flat! On perusing the literature we find that the hotel, Inns Tourist Hotel, only opened six months ago, the same day that our adventure commenced, 1 October 2002.
We walked out along the mainstreets of Downtown Gyeongju, where we are staying, and ate lunch at 15:30 in The Terrace, which was also very tastefully decorated. We sat besides the window which had a view over one of the tombs of the rulers of ancient Silla. Naturally we were loaded with cameras and straight after lunch we went exploring the grounds and photographed the tombs that we saw. It had a very English feel to it as it was so damn cold and the grass was brown and the trees were bare revealing the nests of birds. The wind was blowing cold air on us too!
In Tumuli Park we were allowed to take a peek inside a replica tomb which gave you an impression of the scale of the tombs and their inner construction. The wooden coffin of a King or other leader of ancient Silla was laid next to a wooden case of his belongings. Both were then enclosed in a wooden casket. The wooden casket was then covered with hundreds of big stones mounded on top and a thick layer of clay was laid over the mound to waterproof the tomb. The tombs were then covered with earth and grass was allowed to grow. Over time trees would take root.
We carried on walking through Downtown Gyeongju to Cheomseongdae observatory, seeing some beautiful blossom trees on the way. The observatory is the oldest astrological observatory in East Asia and still stands strong today.
It was so cold and the wind was biting at us so we retreated back to the city streets and warmed our, now numb, hands on hot coffee cups. We have noticed that a lot of Korean cafes and restaurants tease you in with an English translated name or menu heading but once you are inside there is no trace of English at all and we are left guessing what is on the menu. In the Coffee Shop we chose this afternoon the menu said 'coffees and tea' but the entire list was in Korean! We made a successful communication and got something not too dissimilar to what we asked for. And they were hot drinks! I was disappointed, though, when I used the facilities and was faced with something I didn't expect to see again on this trip. An Asian style toilet. Only this time I managed to urinate without splashing myself!
We tried six or seven banks on the detoured walk back to the hotel but only found success in one. Gyeongju isn't really set up for foreign visitors. But that's nice. We have only seen a handful of Caucasians in South Korea. Tourists, us, get unexpected looks from the locals as if they are a novelty, a new industry to South Korea. We feel that South Korea has been the most non-touristy destination of our entire trip to date, especially Seoul, and that was quite unexpected, especially considering they co-hosted the World Cup last year. It's good to see that English doesn't prevail in every country.
After seeking a bit of warmth in the hotel, and watching on television some small documentaries about American styles, we went back out again, walked around for nearly an hour, achieving nothing, getting colder, unsuccessful in finding a menu translated into English, getting lost in the Downtown streets, we settled for a pizza shop which had a picture menu and names of pizzas in English. It wasn't much good but it was food and by the time we had finished eating we had discovered where we were and which way we needed to go to return to the hotel.
While we wrote our journals we watched the birthday statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled from the pedestal in the square in front of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, as we tried to ignore the deep bass beat from the nearby nightclub, until gone 01:00...
I decided that South Korea would suit my Mum. Not because she's so used to being cold but because everything is small. The doorways are short, the toilet bowls are low, the basins are low and my Mum is very short. Ian has to duck each time he passes through doorways and he is looked upon as being a tall man by the South Koreans.
Copyright 2003 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.