Gyeongme? No! Gyeongju!
Spring is in the air...

Ok, I've hit the point where I have so much to update it's paralyzing. I hate that. Ok, one step at a time...

Do you want the good news or bad news first? I think most people usually want the good news first. So that's what I'll do even though it then won't be in chronological order. I also don't feel like typing the bad news because it just wears me out thinking about it. But I will give you a teaser: It has to do with my school and my vice-principal being a moron. Go figure.

Ok, so I took a vacation this weekend to Gyeongju with Jac and Charlie. Contrary to how it sounds, I went with 2 girls, not 2 guys. :) Gyeongju is in SE SoKo...not far from Ulsan or Busan. If any of you guys know where they are. Here, I'll include a map because I'm that helpful. You'll find Gyeongju near the East Sea label. For more reference, Pyeongtaek (which is not labeled on this map) is located about where the 'o' in Folk (as in Korean Folk Village) is...which is below Seoul. We took a train there and it was a 4 hour trip (one way). The train was very comfortable, however. Much more comfortable than the trains in Thailand. :D

Here is a brief history of Gyeongju:

The city of Gyeongju is more than 2,000 years old and contains most of the historic remains of Korea's 5,000 year history. For about a thousand years between 57 B.C. and 935 A.D. it was the capital of the Shilla dynasty, the greatest to flourish among the Three Kingdoms of the Korean peninsula at that time.

After the unification of the Korean peninsula in the mid-7th century, Gyeongju became the center of Korean political and cultural life. The city was home to the Shilla Dynasty court, and the great majority of the kingdom's elite. Its prosperity became legendary, renowned as far away as Egypt. During its peak, the population probably exceeded one million. But then it was sacked and taken over by another kingdom and fell into disrepute.

It's also famous for it's cherry blossoms because there are a crap-load of cherry trees there. So we tried to plan our trip around the blossoming of the cherry trees, but we weren't entirely successful. It was a little too early as many of the trees were still in bud, but there were more than a few that had blossomed, so it could have been worse.

Charlie knows a Korean who knows a Korean who has a condo in Gyeongju. It's some sort of time share condo/resort...we couldn't quite figure out how it worked. But it was really nice and we were able to stay in it for pretty cheap. The part we stayed in opened only one week prior, so it was really new. It had a couple bedrooms, a living room, a kitchenette area, and a nice normal bathroom. There was only one bed (which I got, haha!), but they had nice bed-mat things to sleep on. I forget the name of them right now, but they are very popular in Korea.

So I left Friday right after school and we got to the condo around 11pm. The next morning we walked around a nearby lake. Because Gyeongju is more south, it was warmer. I didn't bring a coat with me. It was a bit chilly at times because of the wind, but otherwise nice. After lunch, however, it started to rain. So we headed back to the condo and hung out there the rest of the day talking and whatnot. And we ordered Dominos for dinner.

Sunday turned out really nice. It was a bit drearly early in the morning, but it cleared up by 10 or so. That morning we went to Bulguksa, which is a Korean temple. More specifically, Bulguksa is a Buddhist temple in the Gyeongsang province in South Korea. It is home to seven National treasures of Korea, including Dabotap and Seokgatap stone pagodas (one of which is on the 10 won coin), Cheongun-gyo (Blue Cloud Bridge), and two golden statutes of Buddha. While there, a Korean guy had to get his picture taken with Jac and I because we were white. We later spotted him taking pictures of us from afar. Creepy.

We then went into the town and rented bikes to ride around on. There are big burial mounds throughout the city. It was quite nice. We then got the train back home at 6 and I got to my apartment a little after 10:30pm. I was really tired today. So, anyway, enjoy the piccies.