A Tour of Gyeongju

We spent last weekend in Korea’s previous capitol city: Gyeonju. Thursday and Friday we had teacher training with our Korean co-teachers. I learned that when Koreans boss you around, they are not trying to be rude; they just speak English in a very direct manner. When we first arrived in Korea, I always wondered why Koreans were so bossy. They often use phrases like, “You’d better . . .” and “You will . . .” when giving suggestions. It was a relief to learn that they aren’t trying to be mean!

During the training, we slept in a Korean-style room, which meant that there was no bed or couch. We stacked mats on the floor for cushioning. Because the hotel only provided us with floor padding and pillows stuffed with something that felt a lot like rice, we went down to the front desk to ask for a blanket. We knew they had blankets in the hotel because half of the rooms are Western-style rooms. After getting a Korean to translate for us, we went up to our room to wait. When we finally heard a knock on our door, we were presented with more floor mats, no blankets. We gave up and decided that it was worth the hassle of going down again to try to find someone who could understand that we wanted blankets not floor mats. The training was okay, but it seemed quite repetitive. I have to admit that the best part about it was the good food and free time to wander around Gyeongju.

After our training was completed, we spent the rest of the weekend touring the town mostly with our friend Cathy from Virginia. We saw a Buddhist temple, numerous tombs of famous kings, beautiful ponds and parks, and went to dinner with our other EPIK teacher friends. The city of Gyeongju places restrictions on building in order to keep the city a nice tourist destination. We didn’t see any high-rise apartment complexes!

Seth’s co-teacher, Mr. Choi, graciously took us to many of the most famous tourist sights in Gyeongju. He was hilarious. He is generally a very quite mannered guy, but while sight-seeing, he was very bossy and direct. He took charge as we ran after him and followed his every command. He would say things like, “Seth and Anna, read this.” “Give me your camera.” “Go look at the tombs.” Then he would very promptly tell us, “We are done. Now we will go.” He drove us everywhere and even paid for our admission into all of the sights.

On Saturday, we spent a few hours at the Bulgoksa Temple. The temple is not only a tourist destination, but it is also used for Buddhist worship. There are multiple different buildings for worship. Each room is elaborately painted with many bright colors and different Buddhist symbols. Outside the entrance is a wooden box for giving donations. We saw many people putting casually tossing coins in the box. Before entering, worshippers took off their shoes and proceeded to a mat on the wooden floor. This mat is placed in front of an alter that has a golden idol of Buddha with Buddhist paintings behind it, candles lit around it, and written prayers hung from brightly colored lanterns. The worshippers bowed down to the statue. There was also typically a Buddhist monk in the building dressed in simple flowing clothes. I found Bulgoksa Temple to be the most interesting sight we saw because it taught me so much about Korean history and culture.