Korean Road Trip Day 8: Hosan to Gyeongju

At the hotel we managed to have a proper breakfast this morning: eggs, bacon, toast, orange juice and coffee. The coffee is not good though, it is called an “Americano” and for me it is coffee flavoured water.
We had a long way to travel today, in total about 200km and we still wanted to try and see things on the way. I saw a small, old building while we were driving around the night before, and it was only a couple hundred metres from the hotel so I wanted to go there first. We walked along the beach, which was a pebble beach that did not make walking easy. When we arrived at the hill with the building, the structure was locked and not very impressive from the outside, so we walked back to the car and headed on down the coast.
Just a few kilometres away was a lookout, marking the change in provinces, we wanted to stop and have a look, but there were three busses of Korean Tourists at the stop having a snack break. We decided to stop anyway, but we thought it was best to go to the lookout one at a time without taking Brandon. This is because when Korean ladies see Brandon, they always want to touch him and pick him up. They do this without asking, and will just go and take him away from you. It is because in Korean culture it is accepted and a child is seen to belong to the community, everyone means well, and there are no bad intentions but sometimes it is a bit annoying. I waited while Carla went to the lookout, while waiting some people from the tour group came over and offered us Kimchi mandu (fermented cabbage in a dumpling) and some bottled water. I was a bit sceptical about the mandu, but an hour later decided to eat it as I was getting really hungry, turns out it was really good and probably the best mandu I have had while being in Korea. We didn’t succeed in keeping Brandon away from the Korean ladies because when I went to see the lookout, Carla opened the car door to stand next to Brandon while he stayed in his car seat – Korean ladies descended on her and one even wanted to pick him up but luckily he was strapped in and she couldn’t work out how to unbuckle him. Another took out her cell phone and was comparing her grandchild to Brandon, the cell phone had a close up of her grandchild and she was putting it next to Brandon and the ladies were having a chat about the different looks of the babies.

We continued along the coast, and I took as many of the small coastal roads as possible. These roads really hug the coast line and sometimes the water only stops by hitting the road supporting wall. These roads are really beautiful and keep on going through small coastal towns and fishing villages. I cannot mention all the towns we went through, but a few of the larger ones are: Uljin, Seongnyugul, Gusan, Pyeonghae, Hupo, Yeongdeok, we passed by Pohang but did not go in. We also went through the hometown of the current Korean president, Lee, Myung-Bak. Finally I needed to leave the coast and make the last little stretch fairly quickly to get us into Gyeongju.

We actually needed a lot more time around here, probably another two nights before we reached Gyeongju would have been about right.
Gyeongju is also known as “the museum without walls”, having numerous tombs, temples, pagodas, castles and burial mounds. This area was the capital in the Shilla Dynasty, around 57BC and remained as the capital for the next thousand years.

After driving around a bit and getting a little lost in the mountains, we settled on a small hotel called Valentine Hotel, nothing special but fairly cheap at only KRW40 000 for the night. We went for a walk around Lake Bomun, close to the hotel. We walked around a bit and Brandon was sleeping until he needed his dinner at 6pm. He woke up, fed and then did not want to sleep again. His routine is supposed to be the other way round, wake up, have some activity, eat then sleep, not tonight… We walked around the lake and saw Bomun Tower, which is a type of pagoda. There was a market area but most places were closed.
Again we struggled to find a restaurant that appealed to us, and also realised we didn’t have Brandon’s dummies (pacifiers) which could have meant a crying baby in the restaurant. We walked back to hotel and then out again to try to find a restaurant. We settled for a Korean place and had Galbi-tang (meat based soup) and Son-dubu (spicy tofu and bean paste soup). It was nice, but about an hour later we were both hungry again. We really need a good burger and chips!!