My first stop was the Gyeongju National Museum, which displays about 3,000 of its 100,000 artifacts from prehistoric times through the end of the Silla dynasty. It was an excellent museum, smaller but better than the national museum in Seoul in my opinion. I visited the achaeology hall and art hall and then walked around to see the things on display on the museum grounds. It turns out that I missed a whole building on the museum campus, so I'll have to visit that on my next trip.
The most interesting thing outside was the Emille Bell, which was cast in 771 CE. According to the legend, the bell failed to ring when it was first struck. It was recast and struck again, but that time, it cracked. After several failed attempts to cast and ring the bell, a spirit told a priest in dream that the fire spirit dragon needed to be appeased in order for the bell to ring. Do do this, a young girl born at the exact time as the dragon needed to be found and thrown into the molten metal. This was done, and the new bell rang with a mournful sound "emille"--the cry of a child for her mother in the ancient Silla language. I hope it's just a story.
They had a lot of outdoor activities and demonstrations because of the holidays, including traditional Korean games and music.
After visiting the museum, I walked past the Anapji ponds to Gyerim, "Chicken Forest." According to legend, one night in 65 CE, King Talhae heard a rooster crowing from this grove of old Chinese elm trees. He sent his prime minister to check it out. The prime minster found a gold box hanging from a tree and brought it back to the palace. They opened the box and found a baby boy. King Tallhae didn't have a son, so he adopted the boy and named him Alchi, which meant "young child" in the Silla language. Alchi was never king, but his descendants ruled continuously from 356 to 912 CE.
From Gyerim, I walked past more burial mounds, with the spiritually significant Namsan in the background.
From there I visted Cheomseongdae. Built during the reign of Queen Seondeok (632-647 CE), it is one of the oldest structures in Korea. Historians believe it's a star observation tower, and the number and position of the stones are believed to represent seasons, zodiac figures, and positions of certain stars.
In the park adjacent to Cheomseongdae, the Silla Culture Experience Center was sponsoring a kite festival. I stood around and watched for a while and then saw the table where people from the center were writing kids' names in Chinese calligraphy on paper kites that had a rubbing of the Chinese zodiac character for their birth year on them. I decided to buy a kite as a souvenir to take home. I told them I needed a monkey kite, but the old man doing the calligraphy couldn't understand my name and walked away. At first, the other people working at the table wanted me to write my name on my kite, but I told them no, so another volunteer wrote it in Korean and English for me. I intended just to take it home with me, but as I soon as I held it, with the ink from my name still wet, the wind caught it, and I couldn't resist. I spent the next hour flying kites in the park with about 50 other people. It was one of my very best Korean experiences.
By the end of the day, I was very tired and very cold. I think I'm still a little sick from a couple weeks ago. There was still a lot more I wanted to see in Gyeongju, but I just didn't feel that I had enough energy for another day. I went to the bus terminal at 6:00 and was able to change my ticket to a bus that was leaving for Seoul immediately. Sitting on the bus, I was a little worried that I would be disappointed by my decision to go home early, but now that I'm home, ready to sleep in my own bed tonight, with absolutely no plans for the next two days, I'm very happy. I feel like I'll need a couple days of rest before I'll be ready to deal with kids again.
No comments:
Post a Comment