Gyeongju: Hills of Tombs, Mountain of Buddhas

I should have finished this up a while ago- this is my last post on Korea.

J and I grabbed Korea's high speed rail and zoomed our way South of Seoul on Korea's answer to Japan's Shinkansen. We pulled into Gyeongju, the old capital of the country, a place awash in all manner of outdoor historical curios. Many of them looked something like this:



That there is a tomb, an earthen encasement of the bones of someone who used to be rather important. Gyeongju has quite a lot of them, and they were about as interesting as earthen mounds filled with dead people could possibly be. Far better than the hillock-tombs was the highly nifty national park known as Namsan. J and I rented a pair of mountain bikes and spent two days in the place, a rather picturesque hiking are with stuff like this:



And this:



And this:



And this contemplative looking fellow, a rather large Buddha carving that we encountered at top of the mountain on our second day. It's exceedingly satisfying to sweat, huff and puff up an incline, and then find a nifty giant Buddha waiting for you. It's sort of like getting a message that the Powers that Be approve of your healthy, active lifestyle.



And, I'm going to leave it there. I'm sure there's plenty I've left out, but J has also recorded his take on the trip over at his blog. He's kvetched a bit about me scooping him, so I imagine he'll appreciate filling ya'll in on the stuff I've missed.

We now return to your regularly scheduled Japan blog....