South Korea 4: The end of Seoul and down to Gyeongju

On the night of my last blog post, we went to a Japanese restaurant.  You ordered food via a machine.  Unfortunately, it was only in Korean.  I started using the Google Translator app when a worker noticed our struggle and came over.  He translated a bit and then when I went to order ramen, he stopped me and told me that westerners don't end up liking the ramen.  I asked why and he either didn't know or couldn't put it into English words.  I ordered the ramen anyway, and aside from being bland and kind of tasteless, there was nothing exotic about it. 

The last day in Seoul was kind of a bust and ended up being another semi rest day.  We first went to the Namsan Botanical Garden.  I believe "Namsan" simply means south mountain, as there is also a Namsan here in the next town of Gyeongju.  Unlike most botanical gardens, you did not have to buy a ticket and it wasn't really organized.  It was mostly just a few wildflowers and a few potted plants.  It was a disappointment.



A short bus ride away, I brought Miles to a unique cafe named the Banana Tree, that had small desserts decorated as potted plants, with shovel shaped spoons.  It was a banana, chocolate, and whipped cream like cupcake.  Miles avoided the bananas for some reason.



The next day we left for the Seoul train station.  Our first train was KTX, which is the high speed rail of Korea.  Our train was absolutely last to have its track announced.  I didn't get a picture with the display in English, but that last line is time delayed.  As you can see, we were the 12:50 train, number 411.



We transferred to a very slow train once we reached Dongdaegu, for the last leg of our journey.  I struck up a conversation with a Frenchman on this half, and told him about our trip through southern France. 

Once we were settled in Gyeongju, we walked to get dinner and started exploring the nearby area.  The southern part of town is positively littered with burial mounds of all sizes, but mostly toward the massive size.



We walked past Cheomseongdae, the oldest astronomical observatory in southeast Asia, which was created in the early 600s.  We proceeded towards the Donggung Palace and Wolji Pond complex, stopping first to get ice cream.  I got the blueberry yogurt flavor, which I fell in love with the other day.  Once in the complex, I was really hoping to see birds, but the birds were mostly in a neighboring lilly pad field due to the crowds near the palaces.  As we were leaving, more and more people were still coming in and camping out.  I surmised that the place would be lit up at night, but we were exhausted, so we left for the hotel.  I looked it up online and it does indeed light up at night.



On the way back, we saw a few quirky hotels. 



Our room here is massive, but what makes it stand out is what I guess to be a sauna in the room, in the form of a box with a bench inside.  The bathtub is also gargantuan.