Gyeongju (Or "What the hell is a pagoda anyway?")

Today is a sweatpants Sunday. Or a boyfriend's boxer shorts kind of afternoon. A day where I probably won't put on real pants.

But a week ago, it wasn't. And yesterday wasn't. Both those days were spent in Gyeongju, which is increasingly in the running for my favorite place in South Korea.

Last week, Geoff and I had Monday and Tuesday off because of Choosuk, which is essentially Korean Thanksgiving. So we decided (okay, I decided, but Geoff agreed) to go to Gyeongju, which is about an hour from Ulsan and which our idiot guidebook bills as "the museum without walls."

Gyeongju contains what is apparently the best history museum in Korea (and therefore at least one walled museum), as well as the largest temple, and tons of other important pieces of history. Gyeongju also has a National Park that contains hiking and tons of Buddhist relics, such as rock carvings and statues.

Since Geoff's strengths lie strongest in impulse and mine in details, I did the planning for this trip. Geoff had made our Jeju itinerary and I think we both learned a valuable lesson about trip planning because of that. I loosely outlined a day for culture and museums, more bound to the central city of Gyeongju, and then a day of hiking.

On Saturday, Geoff and I took the train to Gyeongju. I love trains. I wish I was a train sometimes. A train is all smooth movement. A train can take on as many people as can fit, and everyone appreciates the train and nobody would ever call a train a loose woman or a harlot. That's a pretty sweet life.

Once in Gyeongju, Geoff and I walked through the covered market place, trying to get our bearings. Markets are always a good place to start an adventure, and this one positively bustled with business and busy. The market probably had everything but by virtue of having everything, it would be tricky to really, actually locate anything. The market ate your focus, killed all concentration.

We walked through, overcome by the tofu, candy, pants, shirts, shoes, lettuce, grapes with the peels you should spit out, Asian pears with the peels that require a chisel, fresh fruit, dried fruit, dried squid, live squid, stockings, street food, all manner of meat, fish and fowl and its accompanying blood and bones, crackers, shoes, chips, socks, soaps, vegetables we didn't recognize and the vegetables we did. And along with everything for sale, we found ourselves caught up by the buyers, by the spectators, by the children, women, mothers, the old men being told off by the old aunts who are always angry about something, the fathers, the flies, the one mad man trying to weave through all of them on his motor bike.

After a street length of this, we emerged on a non market street, breathing maybe harder then necessary. Geoff took a picture of a tree. Then we found the Tumuli.

The Tumuli are something Gyeongju is specifically noted for. These are Korea's answer to the pyramids of Egypt, great mounds of earth, great hills that have been constructed to house the bones, favored possessions and, on occasion a wife, of the Shilla dynasty monarchs. The more important the monarch, the more massive the tumuli.

They are imposing. Imposing in a way that made me want to run up the side of one, to see how far up I could get before the tomb's steepness and gravity's persuasion pulled me down again. But, as this was no way to treat a national monument and perhaps an excellent way to end up in Korean prison, I suppressed this desire.

After viewing the Tumuli and after I had sufficiently mocked the sound of the German language, we went into Wolseong Park, which had Cheomseongdae, the oldest astrological observatory in the East. The observatory wasn't very tall or large and it seemed to me that being in it would block more of one's view of the sky and stars rather than assisting it. But, in fairness to Cheomseongdae, I am not really an astrologist, so my speculation here means very little.

In any case, it was a damn fine looking observatory. Made of stone and rock. Maybe just stone. Not rock. There were little key chain figurines of it, in case the tourists were that blown away by the observatory that they wanted to carry around a representation of it with their keys for the rest of time. I wish I'd bought one.

But at this point, Geoff was hungry for lunch. So we walked around, approached several unsuitable establishment before happening upon a place that served sambap, which is the food Gyeongju is renowned for. It was a fairly long wait and we were both very hungry. Sambap is basically side dishes, vegetables, gimchi, lettuce, fish, rice and soup. You make yourself little lettuce wraps using the side dishes, a lot like the more popular grill foods Galbi and Sankipsal, but without the Galbi or the Sankipsal.

Except this was absolutely awful. I've spoken to a number of Koreans since this penalty of a dinning experience and most of them tell me that Sambap is a pretty basic, inoffensive meal. But what I ate was horrifying. This is so far the only Korean food I've ever had that I didn't like.

The side dishes were strange, stale or overly flavored. The lettuce leaves, rather than being farm fresh and crinkling with flavor, had been unfairly soaked in some kind of brine. The soup's texture was thick in a way that made me think of blood and starch. The taste confirmed this. The fish was alright. Geoff lucked out because the meat they served us was beef and beef is maybe the one thing on earth that I don't eat.

Through the entire meal, I kept getting distinct whiffs of what could only be the reeking sting of poop, crap, fecal matter. It hovered over all I ate and lent the meal a taste of fecal matter that began to make me feel distinctly ill. I could not locate the source of the smell. It was at first under my left nostril and then seemed to be on my hand, on my leaf of pickled lettuce and then possibly on my upper lip. It was terrible. I asked Geoff several times if he smelt it, but he was merrily feasting on beef and could smell little else.

At last, I sort of broke down and asked if we could leave, explaining that I had to get away from the shit smell of this meal. Geoff, in that sort of good natured, lucky way he has about him, immediately picked up a side dish directly under me and said, "It's this one, right?" And it was. Geoff had in 1.62 seconds identified the source of something I hadn't been able to locate in half an hour. And he had only bothered to do this because his time with his beef was being threatened. Geoff is like that.

That was probably the worst dinning experience of my life. I was filled with a sort of soft rage at the restaurant proprietors. How could a person do that to another human being? It seemed so uncouth. So vindictive. How could you give another human being disgusting awful, pickled bits of leaf and grass and a bowl of shit and expect them to make a meal of it? And then charge them for this punishment? This is why the world's in the state it's in. And the America economy. This is exactly why the American economy is plummeting like some kind of rock from space.

I found myself distinctly put off by the thought of any more Korean food and said I wanted something real damn western for dinner, which made Geoff's day because I usually hate to eat anything but Korean food when we eat out. He'd been pushing for Italian food earlier and I'd shut him down on this prospect initially. But after that Korean lunch, I was anxious to eat something that made sense to me and that was pasta.

I ranted about this a bit as we returned to Wolseong Park, which was a very lovely place, a site that was once a fortress, but now is merely a pretty parkland with a whispering stream and subtle, singing trees. It was very nice.

From there we went to Anapji Pond, which was also very wonderful and peaceful. Anapji pond was constructed by King Munmu. It's a pleasure garden with a pond, a path around it and temples. Koreans are very good at doing something intentionally graceful with their gardens. So often I find a sheer beauty I usually only associate with wilderness in the very thoroughly planned and constructed outdoor spaces of Korea. Anapji Pond was such a place.

The pond was most excellent in that it held tons and tons of coy fish. Coy fish are great. They are so large and stately and colorful. And old. They tend to live for absurd amounts of time. I like watching them swim, they have a nice, unhurried pace to them. They look so wise somehow, and when you're a fish, looking wise is not easy.

Luckily, some kids showed up and started throwing crackers and snacks into the water and the wise coy fish stopped looking so superior and started furiously scrambling for the food. Even the most dignified, superior creatures get a little rowdy when food is involved. It was great.

Two nearby Korean ladies gave me and Geoff a couple of crackers to throw. I'd initially experienced some trepidation that coy fish shouldn't eat crackers, but upon finding that I had my own fodder to fling, that uneasiness lifted and I found myself over joyed with what comes with causing chaos by throwing something.

It was great.

We finished our day by going to the History Museum. Which was excellent actually. Plenty of English and very well laid out and ordered. It is never a good idea to go to a museum when you are tired, but we unfortunately did that.

It was at the museum that I realized I have no idea what a Pagoda is. Nor a Stupa. I know they are sort of like statues, but more like structures. But I have no idea what the difference between the two is, nor what their respective functions might be. It began to frustrate me. I wanted to know. And I wanted to figure it out through my own analysis, rather than through the Internet and Wikipedia, the way most people solve issues and figure things out in this day and age.

I wanted to make observations and then I wanted to say things like, "What nice terrace grating that Pagoda has on it" or "Aha. That must be a Stupa because it has two chicken wing awnings rather than a rooster grating, which is what it would have if it were a Pagoda." I yearned to be a self made expert, to come to an understanding through my own diligence.

But there was one obstacle. By virtue of not knowing the difference between the two or in fact what a Stupa or Pagoda is, I was unable to actually locate or identify either of them. I was therefore unable to make any observations. It was stupid. Or, if I may exercise a little rage towards one of the instruments of my wrath, it was Stupa. I called Geoff a Stupa a lot that day.

We finished up at the Museum, a little relieved truth be told, which I think is how people generally leave museums. It had been a long day of travel, walking and general historical absorption and we were ready to eat.

But, after our earlier experiences with traditional Korean food, I wanted something not Korean, something headily western, something with potatoes. Geoff wanted steak, because despite his beef filled lunch, he apparently hadn't killed enough cow for one day. We found an Italian place and I got plain pasta. It was fine. Totally not Korean or shit smelling.

Then we wandered around to find a hotel, eventually locating one. Once we'd done that, we watched Korean television. This is always a high light of traveling in Korea for me. The commercials alone are so inane and abrasive it makes me a little giddy.

However, our hotel had no Korean porn channel. And this sucked. The hotel did have a bath and so we put shampoo in the bath, let it foam up and tried to have a romantic bubble bath. But the bath was Korean person size, so this did not go especially well.

We woke up later than we should have the next morning and threw our belongings together to ready ourselves for the hike. Finding the appropriate food and storage space for one backpack was trying, especially because my nose was running more ferociously than anything else on my person, but we did it and found a bus and made it to the three tumuli that mark the beginning of our hike.

The hike was wonderful. Just exactly what I wanted. It was sort of a hazy day, but the haze added an air of mystery to the mountains and to the forest of pines that cover them, the kind of tress that belong in the kind of paintings that belong in museums.

The path wound pretty steeply up the mountains. The mountainside was littered with relics, every couple of meters or so there would be a sign inviting the curious to take a side path to see a carving or statue of Buddha. Each of these shrines had a small place for candles and incense. If there is anything more wonderful than being in the mountains, it is smelling incense as you hike and hearing monks chanting at the hermitage we eventually reached.

It's strange to realize in the midst of a moment that this is something you are always going to remember, that a single instance is going to be one that stays with you and that you'll draw on later when stressed or loosing it. But walking up wooden steps of a mountain, listening to Buddhist monks chanting can do that do a person. Even a person like me.

After a nice quick lunch at the summit, we headed down. We made the impulsive and instantly regrettable decision to see another Buddha and took a detour that wound us through serious bamboo and down steep steep hill side. I fell pretty badly once and twice realized that this might be the first and last time I ever could get hurt, lost and die on a trail. No one had walked that way for months. It was like Blair Witch, Korean style. But oddly this only added to its charm.

We made it back to a road, got on a bus that took us way the heck (hell) away from where we wanted to be before turning around helpful and taking us directly back to Central Gyeongju. Since we were closer to the bus station, we looked into buying bus tickets back to Ulsan. But two bus tickets to Uslan would have cost us $32 dollars. Which made not sense because we'd paid $5 dollars for the two tickets that brought us here.

So we walked over to the train station. Unfortunately the cheap cheap tickets were all sold out. We had to pay $7 dollars for two tickets, instead of $5. But even so, it was far better and cheaper than taking a bus. Buses are like over priced.....women of the night. Trains are the easier, and much more fun counter parts. I wish I was a train.

The moral here is that I still have no idea what a Pagoda is, nor do I have any better sense of the Stupa. Buses are stupid (or...Stupa) and I want to be a train one day.

But I've already been back to Gyeongju for hiking.