A relatively gentle day of soup, tea, hiking, temples, pork and beer. This was day one of my four-day trip to Gyeongju.

It was a mad early morning dash through slushy snow with a wheeled suitcase to get my KTX train. My shoes were soaked! The plan was to go to the one area of Korea that wasn’t forecasted to have snow. I was successful in that regard, but the snow still got me on the way! Anyway, I got my SOCAR and drove south from Singyeongju station to Baeyanggolgukbab (배양골국밥), a pork soup restaurant for an early lunch. At that point the rain started coming quite hard, so I found a teahouse to wait it out before starting my hike. It was called Muwisanbang (무위산방) and was a calm place to sit out the rain. The specialty tea on offer was only available to groups of two or more (a lot to set up for one person) so I had one of the solo options! Shame.

I drove a bit north to Poseokjeong Pavilion (포석정) but it turned out not to be what I was expecting. It is the site of where once used to stand a significant pavilion! The garden was nice however!

From here, I started hiking onto Gyeongju’s Namsan. It was a nice forested trail that lead to some nice looking rocky river beds, mostly dry. I walked someway but decided not to go to the summit as it was getting a bit late in the day. I headed back down, then took another route to see some stone-carved Buddhas.

Then I drove a little south to Mangwolsa (망월사) and Sambulsa (삼불사) temples. These were quite small temples that looked beautiful in the evening light with the brightly coloured red and yellow leaves still on the trees. There was a three statue buddha place between the temples.

Then I decided to check in to the motel I’d chosen for the first night only; Romana would be staying with me the following two nights so I’d booked somewhere a bit better from tomorrow. Tonight I’d be staying at the cheap and cheerful Mirim Motel (미림모텔). The owner there was very happy and animated. The room was comfy enough and there was parking. I rested there a bit then wandered into town to get some katsu, my new favourite way to eat pork! The restaurant was called Uchikatsu (우치카츠) and it gets a thumbs up from me! Then back to the hotel to call Romana, watch some Game of Thrones (rewatching).

Places visited this Gwangju trip: