Day 2 Japan - tatami mat 1 - James 0

24 August
Day 2 Japan

The tatami broke me.  Apparently tatami floor + futon is harder than the Mongolian ground.  I woke up in agony this morning!  I did something to my right hip and it was incredibly bruised or something.  I can only assume my fat ass slept on that side a lot last night and caused a problem.

Oh well.  Onto the tourist trail!

I limped down to the nearest tram stop (10 min walk - 20 min limp) and got the tram to the train station.  Grabbed some breakfast from the one of the stores at the train station and headed to my platform.

The takeaway options in convenience stores are fantastic here.  So much better than Australia.  So much choice and it all looks really fresh and well presented.  I'm going to enjoy this country!

I had to change trains at some point to get to Nagasaki and that went without a hitch.  On my new train I was in the very front carriage in the same compartment as the train driver.  The train was older and the carriage was not as nice but it was pretty cool being up front and seeing the tracks in front of me.

After arriving in Nagasaki I went straight for the ABomb museum and peace park.  The tourist counter at the train station was very helpful with providing a map and information about public transport.  Nagasaki was the site of the second bomb that was dropped.  I think it was the day after Hiroshima.

It was quite a good museum for its size I thought.  It was not huge but they had some interesting exhibits and I thought they told the story of the blast well.  It was a sombre experience ... not the sort of museum you run around taking selfies in ... but I quite enjoyed it.  There were not a huge amount of people there as I gather it's far less well known than Hiroshima.  I will be interested to see how this compares with the Hiroshima memorial as I'll be there in a few days.

I did take some photos but I have lost them somewhere in my Google Drive account.  I'll have to update later.

After I had limped around the museum for an hour or so (huge for me given its size!) I went and wandered around through the peace park across the road.  It's a small park with a few sculptures and memorials dedicated to peace.  Some were quite nice.  They also had a sculpture there that was the hyper centre of the bomb blast.  Interesting walking through that area.

I've heard people say they are quite emotional about this topic when they go to these museums.  I don't know if I'm emotionally crippled or what but I didn't feel anything other than "huh; Interesting" to anything there.  Regardless - I'm glad I went and I think that if you're visiting Japan it's important to visit at least one of the memorials just so people don't forget.

After the museum I jumped back on the tram in the opposite direction and headed toward a restored trading town.  The Danish were the first big traders the Japanese had in this area and they all used to live in a particular part of town.  The town had been restored and all the old buildings rebuilt.  Again - interesting - but nothing particularly exciting.

It was kind of annoying having to take shoes off and put them back on all the time.  Half the buildings required shoes off to go upstairs and half of them didn't.  I wore my hiking boots so it's not like I can just slip those bad boys on and off.  I think at the end I got to the point where I didn't enter any of the buildings where I had to do shoes off.  They had a couple of dudes wandering around in old-timey outfits acting as tour guides and photo opportunities if people wanted them but this place wasn't very busy.  Too damn hot outside to be doing this.

After I was done there I took a selfie in front of a Lawson convenience store and got a drink.  I think that was the first Lawson store I noticed in Japan.  Only interesting if you're an Ingress player.  I did not get a power cube from the portal :(

I wandered down to the harbour that was nearby after that and had a little walk around.  I contemplated lunch but I was still pretty full from the ramen last night and bento for breakfast so decided against it.  I had thought about going to the local art gallery which was around the corner but ultimately I decided I just didn't care about contemporary Japanese art so decided not to.  I think airconditioning was my main driver for visiting there.

A lesson: I had pre-booked my train ticket back to Kumamoto but I was actually ready to go about an hour before that.  Next time I will just go reserve a ticket when I'm ready to go.

I got on my first train without a problem.  However - when I transferred I got on the wrong damn train because I wasn't paying attention to my ticket.  I ended up back in Fukuoka.  Whoops!  So I jumped off and found a ticket counter then jumped on a train back to Kumamoto.  Idiot.  I didn't get back until about 9.30 and there was nothing around my hostel for food so I just went to bed.

Day 8 Korea / Day 1 Japan - land of the rising sun

23 August
Day 8 Korea / Day 1 Japan

Today I make for the land of the rising sun.  Woo!

Up NICE AND EARLY to check out of the hostel.  I was not as quiet as I could have been just to try and wake up the latecomers.  #dickmove

I decided early on that I was going to try to get as few planes as possible through the trip where timeframes are realistic.  So today I'm getting the ferry from Busan (Korean) to Fukuoka (Japan).  The ferry is a hydrofoil (google it) and it takes about 3.5 hours to cross.  To me this seems like a much better idea than having to go to the airport.

The ferry terminal was easy to find and the check-in process was painless although the Japanese lady did need to see evidence that I was planning to actually leave Japan.  I was a little worried for a second and thought that maybe I did need to get a Visa.  All good though.

I decided to buy a seasick tablet from the pharmacist at the ferry station just in case but I needn't have worried.  There was no wind so the ride was extremely smooth the whole way.

The ferry itself was pretty good.  Clean, plenty of room, comfortable seats.

Busan was quite a nice port to leave.  It was a nice day and the port is very scenic.  A nice bridge, mountains and forest and nice clean water.

Some thoughts on Korea since I'm leaving.

Like China I only really went to Korea because I had some time to kill before one of the major stops on my trip.  I didn't really have any idea what to expect or anything I particularly wanted to do.

It's a really nice country but honestly it could be anywhere in Asia as far as I'm concerned.  From a history and sightseeing perspective they have a lot of interesting stuff to see but it's not really that different to China or Thailand.

Seoul was a fun city but it was just a major city.  It could be Bangkok, Tokyo or Shanghai and I'm not sure I would be able to tell the difference.

Busan was just a small beach city.  It could be the Gold Coast or Honolulu.

Scenery - beautiful.  After the vast vast expanses in Mongolia the tropical forests and mountain ranges of Korea were absolutely gorgeous.  The shades of green in Korea were a lot deeper and darker than the grassland in Mongolia and it was pretty stunning.

Food - amazing.  I've always enjoyed Korean food but staying here for a week has just cemented that for me.  The flavours, the variety, the presentation were all just excellent.

People - really friendly.  All the Koreans I met were really friendly.  I have to say though ... the Koreans are the most vain people I've ever seen.  I think everyone under 30 would take a selfie or check their camera every few minutes to make sure their hair was still perfect or their makeup still done.

Weather - don't come in summer unless you love HOT and HUMID.  It was so uncomfortable the whole time I was here.  You do really appreciate air conditioning though.


KONICHIWA!
Welcome to Japan mofo!
I've always wanted to visit Japan.  The perception I have of this country is a reserved / non-demonstrative people but with a real depth of feeling, an orderly polite society, really interesting history, ultra-modern and amazing food.

Let's see how it goes!

So I arrived in Fukuoka and went through the customs stuff.  Quick and easy.

Changed some money, got a map, hit a vending machine and then off to the train station.

I tried to get a SIM card here but the ferry station only sold 7 day SIMs which clearly wasn't enough.  I'll try elsewhere.

My first stop in Japan was going to be in Kumamoto on the southern island of Kyushu.  I really wanted to see the Kumamoto castle and the volcano at Mount Aso.  So I disembarked at Fukuoka and got the bus to the train station.

As I was walking in I got ambushed by a local television crew for a TV interview!  I had a quick chat to the Producer and basically this local TV station has a segment where they go interview a tourist then follow the around Fukuoka for a while no doubt trying to find some hilarious tourist shit to show the locals.

So I start to do the interview and they were quite amused when they found out I had only been in Japan for about 30 minutes but they were a bit disappointed when I told them I was only commuting through Fukuoka to somewhere else and didn't really have anything I had planned to do here.  At that point they stop rolling and the 2 interviewers start to have a chat while I talk to the Producer.  After about 10 minutes they are still talking to each other and nobody seems to know what's going on so I said goodbye and went to figure out how to catch a train.  They seemed surprised I was leaving but whatever.

In hindsight given the bust Kumamoto would turn out to be I wish I had hung around and got them to suggest something for me to do.  If anyone ever sees me on YouTube sing out and I'll see how bad a job I did.

In the station I found the place to cash in my JR Pass voucher for my 21 days of unlimited train travel.  I'm not exactly sure which pass I ended up with (there are different train companies apparently) so I hope it doesn't cause me any problems later.  The pass was a tedious process as I had to stand in queue for about 30 minutes to get it and get my first ticket to Kumamoto.

The station itself is almost exactly what I expected of a big Japanese station.  Huge, modern, clean and very very organised.  There are signs everywhere in English and it's going to be very easy to get around.

I got my very first Japanese bullet train!  The carriages are very comfortable but I'm extremely surprised there is no wifi or USB ports on the train.  They do have power outlets so you can charge your device if you remember to bring your charger but given the distances people travel on trains here I would have thought at least every Shinkansen train would definitely have wifi.  This could prove annoying as I had planned to do a lot of my bookings, blog updates and travel research while on the train.

I arrived at Kumamoto without incident.  The scenery we want past is a lot like Korea.  Tropical forest and plenty of mountains with civilisation everywhere.  There is not a lot of unused land here.

The Kumamoto station is pretty small and the tourist desk tells me I can't get a SIM card at the station so the lady points me to a place in town where she thinks I can get one.  I find it eventually but the SIM plans are pretty bad there.  I end up with a 15 day plan where I get 250mb of data per day.  It's probably enough but we'll see how I go.  Hopefully I can find a better one for the remaining 2 weeks when this runs out.

I had some time before I could check into my hostel and conveniently there was a nice beer hall nearby so I stopped in and had a couple of local Kumamoto craft beers.  Wheat beer and a pale ale I think.  They were OK but certainly not memorable.

Now one of the reasons I went to Kumamoto first was because I wanted to see the Kumamoto Castle.  I'd been reading a bit about it and it was supposedly better and less touristy than the other major castles in Japan.  However - the TV producer in Fukuoka mentioned that the castle was closed due to an earthquake in 2016.  They were still rebuilding or repairing it and guest weren't allowed in.

So after my beers I went past the castle fence and there was the top of the castle above the trees covered in scaffolding.  Shit.

Got to the hostel and checked in.  I thought I had booked a bed in a dorm room but it turns out I have a Japanese style room to myself.  Cool!  Good job James!

So it's got the sliding wooden doors / windows with paper over the slats, a wall with a nice mural on it, tatami mats on the floor and a futon folded up in the corner.  And an air-conditioner ... they're not savages after all.  I wasn't worried about the tatami ... I'd been camping in Mongolia and basically been sleeping on the ground (my sleeping mat had a leak so it wouldn't stay inflated) and there was a futon here!

The Japanese guy who checked me in spoke good English.  Apparently he'd spent a few years working in Australia before he had to come home for family reasons.  The hostel is pretty quiet and about a 15 minute walk from anything interesting but that's fine.

So now that I've got wifi again I looked up the castle.  It seems I didn't check the actual website of the castle among all the other reading I was doing.  It was indeed closed and all you could access were some of the grounds.  Not what I had in mind.  At least I wasn't the only one.  Met 2 other people in the hostel that night with the same issue.  I also checked the volcano and they were not allowing visitors to the crater for Mount Aso due to seismic activity.  Both of these things had been closed for months.   #planningfail

Since my careful planning (...) had been ruined I spent a bit of time trying to figure out what to do the following day.  I decided on a trip to Nagasake to look at the Atomic Bomb stuff there and do some other touristy stuff.  Not the cheeriest start to the trip but something I was interested in.

After that I had a bit of a chat with a Korean guy in the hostel.  Turns out I was staying around the corner from where he lives in Busan.  He's got 5 days planned in Kumamoto.  Without the 2 major attractions I couldn't even find enough to interest me for a whole day so I don't know how he's going to go.

Dinner was a ramen place called Red Team Ramen.  Pokemon reference?  Apparently Kumamoto ramen is a big thing so I had to try it.  It was really delicious.  The depth and richness of the pork bone soup was just amazing and the rest of it was great too.  I do think the chashu pork was better at Tuno in Adelaide though. As Droz said I need to learn to say "a Chinese dude in Australia makes better ramen than you".

Back to the hostel to setup my futon and get some sleep.

Day 7 Korea - not as templed out as I thought!

22 August
Day 6 Korea

Today is my last full day in Korea.  My goal today was to visit one more temple and hope it wasn't boring.  I'm a bit templed out but still on the temple bandwagon from the really nice one in Gyeongju.  This one was supposed to be a bit different though in that it is one of the few Buddhist temples that is built on the ocean.  Thinking about it the only ones I've ever been to have either been in cities or in the mountains.  So surely this one will be amazing and different right?  Please FSM make it amazing and different.

And you know what?  It was actually pretty nice.  It was a different enough setting that I'm glad I went and saw it.

It was about a 30 minute bus ride then a 15 minute walk to get there.  It started to absolutely piss down rain while I was on the bus and it did not let up for quite a while so my walk down to the temple was pretty soggy.  The sun was out when I left so I didn't take my umbrella with me.

Oh well.  The vendors out front were making a killing with umbrella sales.

I grabbed one of those seeded donuts for a sneaky breakfast on the way down to the temple.  It was as tasty as the first one I had though it was a fair bit soggier.

In an unusual turn of events for temples you actually start out at the top for this one.  You have to work down a beautiful twisting stone staircase to get to the cove the temple is built in.  There are some speakers playing some monks chanting though I'm not sure if it was a soundtrack or if they were just playing the chanting that was actually happening in the temple at the time.

At the bottom of the stairs you walk over a nice little bridge and up a small flight of stairs to the temple buildings.  It's quite a beautiful place with the rocks, the sounds of the waves and the wind.  When I finally got to the bottom it stopped raining so I'd clearly made it into Buddha's protective bubble.  Clearly he saw my purity of soul and decided to reward me with a free lunch!

I'm not sure why but they were giving out free lunches to everyone who wanted one.  The Buddhist spirit of generosity?  Perhaps.  I suspect there's a financial incentive.  Maybe they needed a tax break so they bought some food and started giving it away.

Anyway.  The food was simple but hearty and nice.  Letting the ingredients speak for themselves.  It was a vegetable soup and a basic vegetarian bibimbap.

There was a service of some variety happening while I was there.  This is actually a practicing temple rather than a tourist exhibit so all these people were there to actually do whatever it is Buddhists do.  Lots of chanting by the sounds of it.

After wandering around for a while I found a track out the back of the temple that led to some sort of fisheries museum.  So I followed the track and checked out the museum.  It was sort of a cross between and aquarium and a museum.  It wasn't a great museum but they had some interesting exhibits from what I could tell.  There was only sporadic English throughout the place so a lot of stuff I couldn't really tell what they were saying.

I'd say the highlight for me was the sardine projection.  You could stand in the centre of this box and the thing would project a school of sardines around you and you could move around and influence where the fish would go.  Childish but fun.  Reminds me of Amy dancing with Baby Groot at the Marvel exhibit at the Brisbane Gallery of Modern Art just because I started my trip.

There was also a big ship out the back they used as an exhibition hall that had a video game on the bridge (is that what you call it on a ship?).  You had to steer a ship out of port without crashing it.  Looked like fun but these bastard kids were hogging it.  Little shits.  Give the adults a turn!  I would have been far better at it than them.

After that I went back to the hostel, bought a couple of local beers from the 7-11, did some laundry and tried to plan out my first couple of days in Japan and catch up on some blogging.

When I went out for my dinner wander I headed in the direction of some craft beer.  I stumbled across a Brewdog pub in the back alleys of the eating area and stopped in for (accidentally) a very expensive beer.  It was an imperial stout and it was really tasty but I didn't really mean to spend that much.  Woops.

On the way back I ended up at a place that looked like it only served bibimbap.  One of those cheap places you expect to see in Asia that look a bit dodgy but actually serve really nice food.

Early start in the morning so early to sleep.  Or not.  2 chicks joined our dorm room at about 11pm and were annoyingly noisy for a while.  I don't think I got more than 3 or 4 hours sleep.  The downside of hostels.

Day 6 Korea - follow your nose

21 August
Day 6 Korea

Slept in til 10am!  Lazy piece of shit!  I haven't been sleeping very well in the dorm rooms so I guess I needed it.  I feel like the older I get the worse I sleep.  Treacherous body.

I spent a little while this morning planing out what I was going to do for the next couple of days.  One of the downsides to this travelling flexibly thing is that I do have to keep on top of this planning.  It's hard (and boring) to plan 6 months worth of activities so I'm just planning as I go.  I just find it a tedious activity.

So today's plan is:
 1. Start at BIFF Square to have a look around.
 2. Go to the Jagalchi fish market (biggest one in Korea)
 3. Check out some big department store
 4. Go to a national park and look at a lighthouse

And off I went.

BIFF square was basically just an area they setup to host the Busan International Film Festival a few years ago.  There really wasn't much there that was any different to anywhere else.  A few sculptures and other artworks celebrating filmmaking but otherwise just a shopping district.

While I was here I did try a small bit of street food that is apparently specific to this region.  It was basically a donut that they slice open and fill with a honey and seed mix.  There were a couple of street vendors selling them but one had a line of people and the others had nobody.  So obviously I went for the line.

Despite the lack of order almost anywhere else Asian cultures seem to like queuing for food.  All these stores selling the same thing will be doing nothing but as soon as 1 person goes to one a queue starts to form and so everyone goes there.  Nobody really knows what is good so they queue up in case they are missing THE BEST THING.  Similar to home I guess ... not many people seem to want to be the first people sitting down at a restaurant.

Anyway.  The donut thing was really delicious.  Hot, bready and sweet with a nice crunchy texture.  Definitely recommend.

Conveniently the fish market was across the road.  The place was pretty big!  It'll be interesting to see how it is compared to the fish market in Tokyo when I get there.

Basically there was a combination of fixed buildings and market stalls that make up the fish market.  In the big buildings there are a bunch of tanks with live seafood waiting for punters to come by and buy it.  Seemed to be split up into sections based on type of seafood or service offered.

If you want you can buy the stuff and then someone will come by to grab your bucket and they will cook the food for you upstairs right away.  Can't get fresher than that!

I had intended to do this but I've been eating so much since I got to Korea I just couldn't fit a whole meal in.  Maybe I should take up an eating disorder ... only while I'm travelling of course!  Well a different one.  I'm pretty sure you could classify my chronic overeating as a disorder :)  I found out afterwards that two of the guys in my hostel dorm room had done this very thing the day before I went and taken a video of the whole process.  I regret not doing it now (fresh abalone!) but I'm hoping I'll be able to do this in Japan.

The other part of the market was the outside stalls.  This was mostly the dead fish area.  Everyone had their best fish out on their baskets or benches and we're constantly dousing them with seawater to keep them fresh.  It did not smell anywhere near as bad as I was expecting.  There were a bunch of restaurants along here as well trying to get people to come in and eat.  There were some pretty interesting and/or beautiful looking fish here that tempted me to gorge myself again but I just couldn't do it.

Fun place to wander around if you ever go to Busan.  Looks like I forgot to take photos.  Google it if you care.

So then I wandered down the road to the Lotte Department Store which was supposed to be quite large and impressive.  Turns out it's closed on Mondays which was annoying.  #planningfail

Instead I jumped on a bus across the road that would take me out to the Tae-something national park.  I like riding public transport when I'm being a tourist.  Makes me feel like I'm living in the area and you often get a chance to see small but cool stuff along the way.

Bus ride was about 40 minutes and I got to the park.

Again it was a god damn hill.  So I steeled myself and prepared to hike around and sweat my balls off in the humidity.

At the bottom of the hill there's a nice memorial to medical units from Scandinavia who assisted in the Korean War.

I started tramping up the hill with a few other Korean tourists when suddenly a wild tourist loop bus appears!

For the bargain price of 3000 Korean Won ($2 maybe?) I was able to ride this bus as much as I wanted to check the place out AND not have to walk up the hill.  Woo!

I was really only interested in the lighthouse but I got off at a couple of the stops to have a look around.  Mostly scenic viewpoints though there was a Buddhist temple that I decided to skip.

The lighthouse itself was pretty cool.  Couldn't go inside it as it's still in active service but it was a nice basic lighthouse with some nice artworks and sculptures surrounding it and a good view of a couple of small islands and container ships around the place.

Finished up my touristing, caught the bus back to civilisation and ducked into a supermarket to get some toiletries.  I didn't get exactly what I wanted (struggling to find spray deodorant and small bottles of liquid soap for travel purposes) but I found something that will do.

Back to the hostel to freshen up and I got chatting with some of the other guys in the dorm.  An Englishman and 2 Frenchmen.  Nice guys though I never did get any of their names.  A bit like fight club ... Single Service Friends or whatever the quote is.

We chatted for a while and I didn't end up going out to do any more sightseeing that night.  I did head out later for some food though I confess I wasn't really hungry.  I mostly just wanted to eat some more amazing Korean food.  Ended up at some small restaurant where I had mackerel stew with what felt like a million side dishes.  The stew was in a metal container and it was placed on a burner on my table to cook away while I was eating.  I was so full but when I had eaten all I cared to of the stew the lady came out with some dry noodles, turned the burner back on and indicated I should now cook the noodles in the leftover soup and eat those.

It tasted amazing.  So I forced myself to gorge myself one last time (yeah right).  It would be rude not to at least have a go at it right?  And the great Flying Spaghetti Monster knows I'm never rude to anybody if I can at all help it.



Time to sleep off all this food.  That works right?

Day 5 Korea - a train to Busan

20 August
Day 5 Korea

This morning I did a quick tour of a temple about an hour's bus ride away from Gyeongju.  It was one of the most enjoyable temples I've been to.  A temple is not just a temple I guess.  The Buddhists who built this one sure do know how to pick a good location.

I was supposed to go to a nearby grotto after that but it took a bit longer than expected to get to the temple so I ran out of time.

Back to Gyeongju to check out of the hostel, collect my bag and head to the KTX station to go to Busan for a couple of days.  I had a great bibimbap at the KTX station for lunch.

20 minutes on the KTX then a quick subway ride to the hostel.  This is the biggest hostel I've ever been in.  It's a complete apartment building they've turned into a hostel.  8 floors of dorm rooms. It has good ratings too so they must be making a killing.  Not sure I'd want to deal with the drama of all those backpackers and staff personally but hey - good on them.  I got a ridiculously cheap couple of nights in a decent facility.

I did fear it was going to be a bit of a party hostel but it really wasn't.  Was pretty quiet actually.  They didn't really have a good common room so people pretty much just hung out in their rooms when they weren't out and about.

I arrived mid afternoon and didn't really have a plan.  One of the staff came in and recommended the beach for the afternoon.  Given how hot it was I decided that was a pretty good idea.  It was one of the places I had intended to visit anyway so today seemed like as good a time as any.

So I jumped on the subway and went down to Haeundae Beach.  Busan's version of Waikiki basically.  I hadn't really intended to but I ended up having a swim.  Compared to what we get in Australia it's not much of a beach.  There's plenty of sand but almost no waves so it's pretty much a big bathtub.

And get this - the beach has opening hours!  It officially closes at 6pm and if you're still in there they chase you out with jet skis.  The also only let you go about 25 metres out into the water.  The rest of it is reserved for jet skis and boats.  Boring.  Although with no waves there's not really any point going much further out.

Since I hadn't intended to swim I hadn't worn my board shorts so I headed back to the hostel to change before going out for food.

The hostel is about a 15 minute walk from a big food district which is cool.  I walked around and checked it out for a while then ended up at a Chicken & Beer restaurant that looked pretty good.  The menu was completely in Korean so I just pointed at something and said "beer".  The waiter looked at me and said "no chicken" ... I'd obviously tried to order a vegetarian dish at a chicken restaurant.  Silly white person.  So I asked him for whatever was best and he nodded and went away.

I ended up with a giant plate of chicken which I presume was cooked in beer.  It was delicious.  Ate as much as I could (all of it) and then headed back to the hostel to sleep.

Day 4 Korea - Seeya Seoul - greetings Gyeongju

19 August

Day 4 Korea

Up early to get the KTX (bullet train!) from Seoul to Gyeongju for tonight.  The KTX is great.  Really nice modern train that goes FAST!  The station is so easy to navigate as well.  Everything in English and Korean.

I got blood sausage noodle for breakfast.  Not quite what I was expecting but was tasty.  I was kind of expecting stir fried noodles with vegetables and some blood sausage mixed in.  No.  It's an actual blood sausage where glass noodles are part of the sausage itself.  Delicious but a strange texture with the noodles in there.

Anyway.  Got on the train and enjoyed my 2 hour trip.  Arrived at Simgeyongju station then got bus to downtown Gyeongju and tracked down my hostel.

The hostel was nice.  Coolzaam Hostel.  Run by a Korean lady who spent 6 months in Brisbane after she left school before coming home to get married and whatnot.  Nice lady and I recommend the place if hostels are your thing.  Beds were good, air conditioning good, modern bathroom and good shower.

Gyeongju is supposed to be a nice little town with a lot of Korean history to look at so I was sure it was going to be interesting.

I started by heading for some tombs in a park not far from the hostel.  On the way I ran across this nice big bell in a pagoda thing. This was the Silla Big Bell which is a reproduction of National Treasure #29 - the The Sacred Bell of Great King Seongdeok.  The locals liked the cut of the Great King's jib so they voted to get this reproduction made.  Alas I was not allowed to hit the bell :(

The park was across the road from the bell.  It's a very nice park and there were lots of people there.  A bunch of Koreans in costumes walking around doing photo shoots with all the nice flowering trees.  How they can stand walking around in those polyester outfits I have no idea.  The tombs themselves were giant mounds in the park.  There's a burial chamber at or just below ground level then they piled dirt on top to make a burial mound.  Interesting for a couple of minutes but then time to go.

Next up was the Cheomseongdae observatory that is billed as the oldest astronomical observatory in east Asia.  This should be interesting!

At first I thought it might be a miniature model but the observatory was a brick building that looked like a milk dud and was 9 metres high.  Nobody was allowed in it of course. I'd be interested to know what they found the extra 9 metres gave them when looking at things hundreds of millions of light years away.  Probably just looking down at good looking women walking past.

The observatory seemed to be in a big botanical garden of some sort so I wandered through there on the way to my next stop.  Lots of people walking around, taking photos with flowers and riding electric scooters they hired from the entrance of the park.

The Museum was next on my agenda.  It was a pretty small museum but they had a some interesting stuff.  Some of the exhibits were in Korean only so it was difficult to tell what was going on.  I'm not much of a museum go-er anyway so it wasn't a big deal.  I just like to walk through and see some interesting looking things.

I must say though that after visiting London last year and seeing the museums they have most of the others I've seen have sort of paled in comparison.  Nothing like thousands of years of conquering and stealing the rest of world's shit to land you with a good collection.

Got soaked by some rain on the way back to the hostel.  It was a nice change from being soaked by sweat due to the humidity.

I had a quick walk through the market across the road from the hostel.  Was fantastic seeing all the fruit and veg available after struggling to get much in Mongolia.  They had a bunch of restaurants setup in the market which were a buffet.  A bunch of stuff in bowls and you'd sit at the bench and help yourself.  I would have liked to have tried it but there was _nobody_ sitting at any of them so I wasn't too confident in the freshness of the food.

By the time I got back to the hostel the dorm room I was staying in had filled up.  There was a Korean, a Canadian (Korean heritage) and Spanish guy.  The spaniard stank of sweat and BO but seemed quite happy to sit there in his own filth stinking out the room.  I dunno how he did it.  I hate smelling bad.  I try to be very conscious of that and shower regularly when I'm doing this touristy stuff.

There wasn't a lot happening in town when I went out for dinner later.  Gyeongju is not a big place.  Eventually I found somewhere I liked the look of and wandered in.  It seemed to be of great amusement to the staff that a while feller walked in and tried to order dinner.  The teenagers behind the counter just cracked up.  Eventually the only girl there took pity on me and took my order.

Korean menu so I had no idea what anything was.  Just pointed at the picture.  I got cold noodles with a red sauce and some fruit slices through it.  Not what I was expecting but it was really tasty.  A little spicy, a little sweet.  And I got some dumplings which were really excellent.

After dinner I headed down to some museum that got a lot of good reviews.  The hostel lady assured me it was best to visit at night.  And I can see why.

It's basically 3 pagodas on a small man-made lake with a bunch of lights in the surrounding area so the pagodas are all lit up.  There was a small walkway around the lake as well with a bunch of trees and park benches in there for canoodling.

I finally got there on a bus that took forever to arrive and I think I was there with 90% of Gyeongju!  It was a steady procession of people buying tickets, taking photos and walking around the park.  It was still raining but it was pleasant enough.  Calling it a museum was extremely generous though.  There was a small exhibit in the central pagoda that talked a bit about the site but that was only about 5 or 10 minutes worth of stuff.  Grand plans for the future I guess.

Back to the hostel after that.  The bed was long enough for me to stretch out (praise jebus) and it had a privacy curtain which is always nice so I ended up having a pretty good night's sleep.