Day 98 -- Gyeongju Fall Conference

**backdated**

I haven't been posting many pictures lately, so buckle up because this is gonna be almost all pictures. My apologies to those with slow computers.

So the fall F*bright conference was held in Gyeongju, which was once the capitol during the Silla dynasty. It's the location of many historical sites in Korea, but much of the ancient city was destroyed by Japanese colonists. Above is a reconstruction of what the city once looked like, but now almost everything has been destroyed.

I left early on Friday morning from Nonsan. My itinerary was a bit ridiculous--I had to catch a 9:30am train from Daejeon, which meant getting a 8:15am bus from Nonsan. This is the bridge I have to cross every morning on my way to school, and it's a really good representation of Nonsan--rice paddies and mountains with great big open skies.

Gyeongju was beautiful. One night, a few girls and I decided to go take the swan boats out on the lake right before sunset. It was mostly couples and young families, so the three boats filled with loud, giggling American girls really stood out.

After the swan boats, we met up with a bunch of other ETAs and found a place that rented mini RVs and motorcycles. Obviously we couldn't pass that up, even if Cait and I were in skirts. When in Korea, ride swan boats and mini RVs, right?

Saturday night, after a long day of discussion groups and presentations about teaching and daily life in Korea, fate brought three separate groups of ETAs to the same bar. Despite no communication between the groups about where we were, about 40 of us ended up at the same place and basically took it over. The poor barstaff seemed so nervous at first--this was probably the biggest group of Americans they'd ever served--but eventually felt comfortable enough with us to show off their ridiculous b-boying skills.

On Sunday was the big Traditional Korea cultural tour where buses took us to see a handful of the most famous places in Gyeongju. In Korea, buses are Serious Business, and this is a pretty tyical set up.

First stop on the tour was Seokguram Grotto. We were dropped off at a bell tower (pictured) that marks the top of the mountain (Mt Tohamsan) and the beginning of the trail to the Grotto.

We couldn't actually take pictures inside the grotto, but this is it. The mound is the man-made grotto, inside which is a statue of Buddha. I could write all about it, but I'm lazy so if you want to read more, go to this Wikipedia article about Seokguram Grotto.

The next stop was Bulguksa Temple. We were dropped off at the beginning of the gardens and ponds surrounding the temple. It was so incredibly pretty! Both Bulguksa and Seokguram were on my list of things to do in Korea, so I was pretty pumped to see them.

After Bulguksa was a museum on the Shilla dynasty. It was mostly a lot of pots and jewelry, but it was interesting.

After the museum was Anapji Pond, a gorgeous place built for royalty to relax. It was probably my favorite stop of the day and I'm disappointed I didn't get to really enjoy the scenery, since we were a bit rushed to finish up the tour on time.

We left Anapji to go to the Cheomseongdae Observatory, the oldest observatory in East Asia. It was a quick trip, because we still had two more things to see.

One of the things to see were the tombs. In Korea, they don't dig to bury their dead, but they construct burial mounds. The dead are placed in a wooden chamber with a chest of helpful things for the After Life, then the wooden chamber is covered with boulders, then clay is placed on top of the boulders, and finally all of that is covered in soil and grass. The particular tomb we saw was Cheonmachong, another site on my list of things to do in Korea. YES.

Last, we went to Poseokjeong, which is... well, I'm still not entirely sure what it was or why it was on the tour. It was like a small moat? I guess?

So that was the weekend. I didn't really do a good job explaining it, but there's a lot of pictures so that's almost as good I guess?