It’s been over a month since I last posted, and it’s been pretty busy (and not all that interesting to write about) because it was midterms week at Yonsei at the end of October. Those weeks were just a lot of studying and taking exams, which I’m glad to be done with now at least. And right after that, my mom came to visit me for a week! I figured I’d update on my coolest trips to some historical Korean cities over the past few weeks post-midterms, especially since I have more travel plans this weekend that I want to dedicate a separate blog post to…
– gyeongju
One of my biggest bucket list trips this semester ever since learning about it in my Korean art history course was Gyeongju, a city about a 30 minute bullet train trip north from the southeast coastal city of Busan. Gyeongju (known as Seorabeol back then) was the historical capital of the Silla kingdom, one of the 3 kingdoms that ruled over the peninsula from around the 1st century BCE to the 7th century CE (a stretch literally called the “Three Kingdoms” period), until Silla took over parts of the other two and ruled as ‘unified Silla’ for another 250 years. Silla is best known for its gold artifacts that have been discovered from tombs, which are scattered in parks around the middle of the city, giving the city a reputation for being a ‘museum without walls’.
