95 days to go!
My countdown calender
My room
Trip to Gyeongju....
Disaster!!! Bad accommodations, bad food, lousy host..... bad bad bad...... Kinda wasted my S$100 on a 2 days 1 night trip..... i think i actually paid to torture myself..... haiz.... some photos from the trip
Started the day with a 3hour bus ride from KAIST to Gyeongju.
Gyeongju lies in the far southeastern corner of North Gyeongsang Province, on the coast of the Korean East Sea (Sea of Japan). It was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Silla which happened to the first dynasty that unified the once divided Korean peninsula.
The first stop in Gyeongju was "lunch".... i would actually call that appetizer, nope, let's call tat "food sampling".....
Menu for 4 people: lotsa n lotsa Leaves, 2 small fish, 4 small slices of omelette, ikan bilis, preserved chilli, kimchi, some preserved vegetable tat smelt like garbage(i'm not kidding), bean sprouts...... and a small plate of stir-fried beef (exactly 3 even smaller slices of beef per person)..... Tadah! Lunch is served!! Probably the worst lunch ever in my Korean adventure. Thanks a lot ISO president!!
2nd stop was Gyeongju World Culture Expo where we learnt Korean traditional martial arts, Sunmudo and had tea...
Next, we mounted a tower that's 84m high and had an image of a pagoda carved out of its centre... the view up there was ok...
3rd stop was Gyeongju Folk Craft Village.... not a bad place actually.....
Look at the pathetic lodging arrangements.....
ok la, it's not bad a place..... it's actually a good place to sleep, for 4 PEOPLE!!!! There are only 4 beds in the entire apartment.... And ISO (thanks again hor!!) squeezed 30 guys into that apartment..... not that i'm complaining, where is my S$100 spent? In the end, we had to sleep on the cold hard floor.... resulting in body ache for the next day....
The 2nd day was spent visiting Seokulam Grotto and Bulguksa Temple.
Seokulam Grotto, one of UNESCO Cultural Heritage & national treasure, was made in 751AD and exemplifies one of the best Buddhist sculptures in the world.
Bulguksa Temple
One of UNESCO Cultural Heritage & No.1 Historic and Scenic Site appointed by the government.
This is the largest, and the most famous temple in Korea, built in 751AD.
Dinner was Samgyetang 삼계탕, which literally translates to Ginseng Chicken soup....
It is basically a whole young chicken stuffed with glutinous rice and boiled in a broth of Korean ginseng, Chinese red dates, chestnut and garlic.
And again, i've something to say about the broth.... is it me or is the so-called "broth" merely plain water that looks slightly chalky....
*Arghh, want to kill ISO president*
