And straight on til morning...

We survived the pigskin fiasco (of course, the cocktails helped. Side note, that beer I drank out of the mustache glass was crafted from Cass, i.e. cheap Asian beer, mixed with flavored syrup, i.e. the kind Starbucks calls for in a raspberry white chocolate mocha. It was very sweet and unique, but all the girls had them and so must I! I would actually order it again!), and felt refreshed and only slightly scarred as we said goodbye to Busan and boarded our bus to Gyeongju.

As many know, I am partial to city life. The noise? A constant hum that puts me right to sleep. Bright lights? Like a comforting night-light. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if we end up in the country, on a plot of land where Will can have farm animals named after all of our friends. Why do I predict this? Because I'll likely be bribed with a giant garden filled with veggies and herbs, enough apple trees to suit even two-to-six apples-a-day me, and a craft room so large we'll call it “The West Wing.” If my fantasy comes true, this plot of prime real estate large enough for cows and goats will also be in a giant metropolis…

I’ll never give up hope!

Gyeongju is not a big city. It’s is a small coastal town on the southeast corner of South Korea that, according to Wikipedia, boasts 264,000ish people. I suppose it really shouldn’t be defined as “small” at all, but I have to assume all 200+ thousand folks are super spread out, because it felt pretty quiet and calm to me. No noise to hum me to sleep. No bright light night-lights. No metropolis. Just farm animals (well, stray cats and dogs I tried to adopt) and old dirt roads.

We hopped of the bus and moseyed through dirty back alleys (as in filled with dust and dirt, not garbage) to our hostel, which was a shared dorm with only our full size bed booked, and headed out to explore all Gyeongju has to offer…

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Oh sorry, I had to grab Will and ask for the hundredth time, “what DID we do in Gyeongju?”

Per recommendation of the very kind and chipper hostel owner, we had lunch at the local market a few blocks away; a tasty fried egg pancake with green onions, a skewered fish cake, and red soybean-paste sauce over gummy, thick noodles. It all felt very local and cool to be eating in a grimy little street market.

Our lunch neighbor (seen above!) in this small little corner spot with only a few seats called the cook/cashier/server/dishwasher/bus boy over and stated something we assume was “listen lady! Are you for real?! Do you see how much food you served me?!” Together they laughed, and she jollily grabbed his bowl, scooped out a ladle-full, and sloshed it right back into the stock pot she was cooking in. Then she repeated that a few times; scoop a ladle out of the soup bowl, slosh it back into the stock pot. Scoop and slosh. Scoop and slosh. As this patron-neighbor of ours had already eaten some of his lunch out of the very soup bowl ladel-fulls were being scooped from, we cringed and felt grateful we did not order the soup, and coaxed ourselves into finishing our own lunch, praying someone before us hadn’t sent their gummy noodles back.

Full of food, we wandered through the old historic sites Gyeongju is ‘known’ for, most notably the burial mound tombs of old kings, and Cheomseongdae, an ancient astronomy observatory from the 7th century. We napped under a flowering tree, Will flirted with a super cute little toddler who loved batting her lashes at him, and walked around the sprawling grounds connecting the few sites Gyeongju claims. It was a lazy and laidback afternoon.

We eventually made it to Yangdong Folk Villiage and experienced a commercialized and touristy ‘preserved’ historic village, which was lackluster, and decided to call it a day. The highlight? Stopping by a little street-side bakery for some ‘local bread’ filled with sweet red bean paste. Don’t worry, we could see the entire production of ‘local bread’ in the making, and felt decent about their food safety practices and routines.

Dinner was eaten in; a traditional gimbap roll for me (think sushi but without the raw fish and add what I later learned was some sort of processed meat product) and ramen for Will. The hostel also served complimentary tea and coffee, but was out of coffee, so I passed on the beverages and Will had some green tea with his meal. So Korean of him!

That night was, shall I say, rough. I’ll leave it at this: poor Will lucked out with the water source, which was advertised as sanitary, that made his ramen and tea. We can only assume that did the trick, as I missed the boat. The stars as seen by the Cheomseongdae observatory must have aligned though, since we were lucky for the privacy of an en-suite dorm room with no other occupants. Neither of us slept much that night, but poor Will had it WAY worse.

The following morning, groggy and gross feeling, we checked out of our hostel, bought a giant water, and headed to the main attraction in the area, the Bulguksa Temple. Lunch for me was more gimbap from the grocery store, and Will, feeling like a train ran him over and left him with a hangover, craved the comforts of home; McDonald’s. Luckily, Gyeongju has a newly built model (that also delivers via moped), and he housed a big mac, fries, a soda, AND a McFlurry. Magically, he felt better.

I love this shot Will captured at the temple!

That powerade helped perk him up, too!

Back to the bus station, we hopped on an oversold bus north to Andong, another smaller city in South Korea. After a complete conundrum of bus-boarding and seat-shuffling (not by choice, we were victims of some serious yelling and bounced around from seat to seat), an extremely generous young man offered up his seat so Will and I could sit next to each other. This isn’t like offering your seat to a cute little old man on the bus to the West Suburbs; this guy sat on the floor of the bus. On a paper bag. For 2.5 hours. Thank you, wherever you are. That was unnecessary, generous, and very selfless. Good karma and my spiritual hugs are coming your way!!

We got off the bus and hopped on another city bus as the sun was setting, and by chance we happened to find our hostel in the dark without issue at all. This is pretty rare, and especially lucky in smaller towns, as English signage is unheard of, bus stops are not announced in English, and very few people can speak English. And, as Will and I never did get around to buying Rosetta Stone’s for every language we will encounter, we aren’t great at communicating our needs or asking questions. We totally lucked out!!

We climbed the stairs to our home, the Peter Pan Hostel, and walked into Barbie’s Dreamhouse! The entire place was bright and pink. Even the refrigerator and deep freeze had pink flowers all over. It was clean, pink, bright, pink, and very, very pink. Every Skipper’s dream!! We snuggled into our bunk beds (I call top bunk!), chatted with a nice girl from Austria touring the world on her own and on her way to Japan, and slept well. Peter Pan himself offered breakfast (toast and jam) and free coffee (YES!). Andong was off to a great start!

Like Gyeongju, I don’t really remember what we did.

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OHHH yes!!! Andong is home to Hahoe Folk Village, a very well preserved traditional Korean village. We spent the morning wandering through tiny little streets and alleys adorned with unique and customarily built homes, and once again, spent the afternoon on a bus. This time, we were heading further north, back to the hustle and bustle of city life, to South Korea’s capital, Seoul. I was ready to leave these small towns behind, which so far, was a rare occurrence on the trip.

Candidly, I would not recommend a traveler stop in either Gyeongju or Andong. Not that they weren’t unique in their own way, and I am sure many people enjoy both towns, but of all the things in the world to see and explore, this would not make my list were I able to do it over. Unfortunately for Will, he would not do Gyeongju over either, but for very different reasons. He would say Andong is worth a stop, but only if you have ample time to explore the rest of the country. In fact, many of the travelers we later met hadn’t even heard of either city through their research of South Korea.

I told them not to look into it…

From where were we again?, with love,

Sara + Will

#southkorea #travelrecap