Sunday, December 29, 2019

Gyeongju is the capital of Silla (57 BC-935 BC), the country with the longest reign in Korean history, representing more than 900 years of history. History of the Silla Kingdom. The teacher who takes the class also highly recommends it. It takes exactly an hour by train from Daejeon. It’s rare to travel alone, so I’d better write a travelogue.

I set off from home at 7:30 in the morning. I hailed a taxi on the roadside and took me to the station. It cost me less than 20 yuan to get to the train station. Thinking about the German classmates who went to Busan last weekend and insisted on walking 50 minutes to the train station at minus 5 degrees Celsius at 5 a.m., I still want to curse them. I can’t figure out why these people come all the way to Korea to party every night, and I can’t figure out why people who spend thousands a night can save a few dollars on taxi fares. Let’s leave it aside for now.

I made some mistakes in my travel arrangements. I discovered this problem when I bought the ticket. The train station from Daejeon to Singyeongju Station is just two cities away from the scenic spot I wanted to go to. The ticket sales at the train station were in English and sign language and I couldn’t figure it out, so I bought the ticket directly. Then I checked that there is a direct bus from Singyeongju Station to Bulguksa Temple. It takes nearly 2 hours, which gives me a headache. I came back to read people's guide to going from Seoul to Gyeongju. It seems that there are direct long-distance buses, the fare is cheaper, and the overall time is about the same.

I have often told Brother Cong in the past two days that if you do not make careful arrangements in advance, you must leave yourself some time and budget buffer. Well, it still makes sense.

I wandered around in a daze on the train and arrived in a while. It's so cold in the morning. I admire all the Korean children with their ankles exposed.

Turn left when you exit the train station and easily find the No. 700 bus you want to take. The bus driver drove all the way and arrived at Bulguksa Temple in less than an hour and a half. When we arrived at the stop, I was still meeting Duke Zhou in a daze when I heard a few foreign girls next to me saying in English, yes, this is the last stop. , everyone got off the bus. . . I am like a carp, haha.

I visited Haedong Yonggungsa Temple in Busan last week. The most impressive thing is that visiting the historical sites in Korea does not feel like visiting a foreign country. Even the language barrier is basically gone, because the stone monuments are all in Chinese. The overall atmosphere of Bulguksa Temple is very familiar. The upturned eaves structure, the color matching of the carved beams and painted columns, and the images of devils and bodhisattvas are basically the same as those we are familiar with. Let’s take a look at a set of photos.

There are always many people praying devoutly. I stood in front of the Buddha for a while, but I didn't know what wish I wanted to make. I have so many wishes that I feel embarrassed to open my mouth to the Buddha, lest he make fun of me, an ignorant human being, for being so greedy. Then I thought that what I was asking for might not be what I wanted at all.

Next time, when I know what I want.

I met Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva Jin Qiaojue by chance in the back hall. It is written in Chinese at the bottom that it belongs to the royal family of Silla. In the Tang Dynasty, they crossed the sea and came to Jiuhua Mountain in Anhui Province. They worked hard to cultivate Buddhism and finally achieved great success. I greeted Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva properly and felt like meeting an old friend in a foreign land.

The entire Buddhist temple is filled with prayer lanterns. I was suddenly touched by the wishes of so many people. I don’t know if the Buddha heard the sound of the wind blowing the lanterns, and when the praying people wrote down their wishes, the sadness or joy in my heart seemed to travel through time and space, gently passing through my body.

After searching, most of them are in Korean, and I also saw English and Japanese. No Chinese characters were seen. In my impression, Chinese people have always worshiped gods and temples when meeting them. Or maybe many people are just like me and want a lot. After thinking about it carefully, forget it and try your best to see for yourself so that you don’t bother the busy gods. Buddha.

Seeing a family bring their children to the Buddhist temple, I was inexplicably touched and moved. I think Buddhist temples are such a strange place. Over the past few hundred years, I have seen so many sorrows and joys, and heard so many confessions and prayers. I don’t know whether the Buddha responded, but people still kept coming. Here is the greatest desire and love for life, as well as the strongest lack of control and helplessness over destiny. Almost shed tears several times. But I had long suspected that there might be something wrong with my hormones. Ha ha.

Is this also a "religious" custom in Korea that I don't understand much yet? A group of people took small ladles to drink water. I guess it's a spring that brings peace and good luck? I also saw something similar at Donghai Longgong Temple. I have been mentally refining myself several times, but I really can’t accept the fact that thousands of people drink from these few gourds of water a day.

I was already hungry after visiting Bulguksa Temple, so I bought a stick to eat at Bangzi Country.

After eating the sticks, prepare to continue hiking to Seokguram Grotto. I saw that the road in the distance was basically a 45-degree slope, and I couldn't see anyone passing by. After all, I have accumulated some life experience over the years, and I feel that there must be a scam here. I found a Korean girl, maybe a little girl, to ask for directions, and the answer was, it would take an hour to walk slowly. . . Fortunately, with her help, we found the bus going up the mountain. When I got in the car, the old driver insisted that I fasten my seat belt, but I didn't have time. Before I could put my wallet away, the driver directly helped me fasten my seat belt. Put the gear in, throttle, and go. What followed was a fierce operation, and finally I understood why he insisted on the seat belt. All the way up the winding mountain road, turning at a constant speed of 40 mph without braking, one-handed steering wheel, perfect cornering angle! I couldn’t help but give the master a video. Unfortunately I can’t share it here.

Seokguram itself is lackluster. The highlight should be that when Buddhist grottoes were introduced to Korea, they encountered a problem of regional differences and a problem of integration of globalization and localization. Originally, digging grottoes and building Buddha statues was a cost-cutting project, which was much simpler than building temples and pagodas. After being introduced to Korea, the Koreans found that their own stones were extremely hard and difficult to cut because they were all made of hard granite. I had no choice but to build a grotto with stones, which was equivalent to building a grotto manually. After a lot of trouble, time and effort, the cost was reduced and it turned into the first (or only?) artificial grotto in the world.

Taking pictures is not allowed on site. Everyone who queues up to get in will have a 10-second glimpse. Find a picture online and take a look. After all, I am a person who has been to Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang, so I will not express my opinion.

Seokguram Grotto and Bulguksa Temple are built on Toham Mountain, and the mountains look like rolling hills in the distance. In the summer, if you add mountain climbing and hiking, the scenery should be pretty good. It's winter now, so it's a bit bleak after all.

The sunshine was really good on this day, but it was really cold and I was frozen to the core. My photographer didn't come with me, and I didn't have any photos of my long legs, which was a pity.

I got off the mountain just in time to catch the bus to the next stop. When I got on the bus to buy a ticket, I found that I only had a ticket worth 10,000 won, and the ticket was 1,700 won. The driver said to me in less than standard Chinese, "Wait a minute." After everyone got on the bus, they signaled me to throw money away, then smiled at me and said, "I'm sorry." I haven't reacted yet. He started pressing buttons for change. I was given 8,300 in 500 won coins. Ha ha.

Donggung and Wolho are the former sites of the Silla Royal Palace, and many cultural relics of the Silla Kingdom have been unearthed here. The photos on the Internet look like this:

I didn’t even take photos of what I actually saw. The water in the pond is almost dry. A few pavilions were built on a large open space. . . I understand that it is an ancient capital in history, but then what. . .

I comforted myself, going to the museum first, my opening method must be wrong. I heard that the night view is beautiful, so I will come back when the lights are turned on.

The museum is free to visit and basically displays the unearthed cultural relics of the Silla Kingdom. Koreans preserve collections in an extremely careful and meticulous way. This meticulousness can be felt from the restoration and placement of exhibits. I can’t help but think of the random piles of stone tablets and pillars in the Egyptian Museum, like a construction site materials factory. The mummies of pharaohs and royal dignitaries in ancient Egypt were placed casually on wooden shelves on the wall without even a glass cover. I was really afraid that they would be angry. Civilizations from thousands of years ago, please give me some snacks, please.

The museum is not big, and it was already getting dark after visiting.

When I came out, I wanted to visit the school village while it was still dark. At this time, my road-crazy nature came out again. I didn’t find the school village, but I saw Gyeongcheomseongdae, one of Gyeongju’s famous sites. Said to have been built by Queen Seondeok of Silla in the 7th century, it is currently the oldest observatory in Asia.

But, Queen Seondeok, are you serious? Come all the way and show me this

The foreign language translations of scenic spots in various places are also very interesting. "Don't touch. Please see with your own eyes." Haha.

Looking back to see Donggong Yue Lake, it was indeed crowded at this time. It was really too cold, so I reluctantly walked around with the crowd, and the best photo I can take is:

It feels like a lot of effort was put into this scenic spot. All kinds of lights, and some ancient music played on the small speakers along the way, tried hard to create an artistic conception of the palace's high-walled inner courtyard and the desolation and loneliness of the royal family. But to be honest, unless I travel back in time, I really can’t get into the show.

After jogging all the way around, I went out to catch the bus to Singyeongju Station. I was lucky. It's really cold. The return train departed from Busan, exactly like the one in the movie Train to Busan. Another burst of imagination.

So, that’s it. It’s not easy to write a travelogue. Encourage yourself to write more in the future. My goldfish memory, there are so many beautiful things and it’s a pity that I have forgotten them.