{"id":472,"date":"2024-11-24T11:17:19","date_gmt":"2024-11-24T11:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/margaretisacson.com\/?p=472"},"modified":"2024-11-24T13:30:34","modified_gmt":"2024-11-24T13:30:34","slug":"historic-korean-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/margaretisacson.com\/?p=472","title":{"rendered":"\u2013 historic korean cities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 gyeongju<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We left Seoul super early on Friday morning, which was rough but ultimately it worked out well because it forced us to get an early start on the day. Getting to Gyeongju station in the morning was really pretty, too, because the valley was full of morning fog and it was a stunning welcome to the city! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We took a bus into the city from there, and then had brunch at a small brunch cafe near some of the parks full of tombs. The cafe owner had this cute dog, which definitely made it worth visiting!<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Anyways, the parks were absolutely stunning to walk through in the fall! The tombs in Gyeongju from the Silla dynasty were royal or high-ranking offical tombs with a mound structure, and the mounds and tombs themselves are quite well-preserved. As tourists, we couldn’t walk on them or look inside, but the parks themselves were really cool to walk through. There were just so many, all scattered throughout the middle of the city! One of the prettiest ones was Cheonmacheong, which is one of the biggest tombs, and has a small lake in front of it. We walked through the Noseo-dong tomb cluster and into the Daereungwon tomb complex, which was a much more built-up park where some of the more well-known and preserved tombs were, including the Cheonmacheong tomb. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves!<\/p>\n\n\n\n