South Korea 6: A rainy day at the museum followed by a hike between two temples

The day after my last blog post, it drizzled all day and was pretty windy.  We decided to go to the Gyeongju National Museum.  Gyeongju is known for the Silla Kingdom, of the three kingdoms that ruled Korea at the time.  There were crowns, jewelry, pottery, bronze knives, etc.  Here were my three favorite items from the museum.



The drizzling began to fade as we exited the museum, so we walked to a restaurant and then back to the hotel.  The next day was partly cloudy, but with no rain.  While walking to the bus stop, I turned to my left and saw a computer game advertisement on the wall.  I've never seen anything quite like it.  I asked down in the lobby for a translation and they said that it was advertising that that motel has a computer with those specifications, I guess so you could use it to play that game.



We took a long bus ride to the Bulguksa Temple, which everyone seems to recommend going to.  Well, being that it was Saturday, everyone else in the world seemed to have read the same recommendations.  Not only were there loads of people, but it seemed like every kid had a water whistle and was blowing into it at full force.  The only thing of note were some beautiful flowers and an odd shaped egg construction.



There was a very nice hike between this temple and Seokguram, our next destination.  We found tons of insects.  Unfortunately, it was very shady and I didn't choose my camera settings wisely, so I only have one decent picture to show for all of the cool insects.  We also saw quite a few chipmunks, which Miles was thrilled to see.



Once at the temple, we had to pay a fee again, walk a few minutes down a path, and then wait in a thirty minute line to see what was on the site.  I figured since we had gone so far, we might as well see it.  There was a sign saying no pictures, but there was no way that I was going to accept paying the fee and waiting in such a line without taking a picture of what was the singular attraction.



We took bus rides back into town, ate, and returned to the hotel.  I wanted to go back to the flower field and nearby lilly pad garden, where I had seen many birds on the first night.  I underestimated how long the walk was, and then encountered hordes of people.   There were nearly two dozen kites being flown nearby and the crowds were massive.  I took a few snapshots and then moved on to the birds.



Unfortunately, by the time I reached the birds, it was rather dark and cloudy in the direction that the birds were flying.  Here are two dark, subpar pictures of what I saw!



Usually on trips, I try to go to smaller towns to get away from crowds and enjoy more of an authentic experience, rather than touristy one.  When looking up places to Korea, I encountered a few problems.  1.  Google maps does not work properly in the country, which meant investigating possible places proved difficult.  It also deterred me from renting a car, though I will have to do that at our final locations.  2.  Trains only reach a fraction of the country.  3.  Finding ideas for places to visit was simply more difficult than even Taiwan. 

Today we take a long bus and then a long subway ride to our hotel in Busan, another major city in South Korea.