South Korea, day five (Monday, Dec. 31)

One of the buildings on the Bulguksa site

I passed the last day of 2012 back in Gyeongju, South Korea's cultural cradle. In the afternoon, Anthony and I headed back on the bus from Pohang for an afternoon of sightseeing.

During "round two," we visited the Bulguk(sa) temple, which is classified as a "World Heritage Site" by UNESCO. There are many different temples and rooms, in fact, and several pagodas and statues of note. I, of course, loved reading the plaques with all the historical background and informative descriptive pamphlets. The painting and detailed decorations were stunning as well. PLEASE take a look at additional photos on Facebook to admire the intricacies!

This pagoda has one lion remaining and is very influential in "guarding" the temples...
which were later conquered and used as military camps during various Japanese occupations.

Fierce guardians.

Intricate decorations on the temple architecture.

We also stopped by the Gyeongju cultural museum, but, as it was New Year's Eve, the museum had closed. That didn't stop us from admiring the artifacts on display outside, however.

Headless-torso statues that we decided to give life to.

That night, we headed to the ruins of Banwolseong (Half-moon Palace/Fortress) palace grounds where modern-day covered structures stand in representational place of the large buildings of ancient ages past. While Anthony took long-shutter speed exposure snapshots of the site in all its glorious night light, I tried to stay warm, hopping between ice-covered pathways and shivering. Did I mention there was still snow on the ground, and it was well-below freezing? I think my already-low body temp (96.7ºF) decreased to an even lower degree that night. The two of us tried to take some night shots in the lights around some of the frozen ponds and still, clear-watered brooks, but none of them were turning out on Anthony's camera settings. They did make for some entertaining photos, however:

Anthony's a ghost

Anthony's head is cut off

Anthony's slightly blurry, probably because he rushed to get into the shot in time for the self-timer.
(I thought he would DIE trying to get hurriedly get across the icy stream bed!)

Finally, after trying to take self-photos with some strange eye-recognition setting on Anthony's camera, we gave up and asked a passerby to take a photo of the two of us. The ONLY good shot of the two of us together during that visit, after what seemed like an eternity of photo-taking.

Dumb eye-recognition made us laugh, but produced goofy results

At the ruins of Banwolseong (Half-moon Palace/Fortress)

After waiting at the bus stop in the frigid night-cold for what seemed like an eternity, we went back home to Pohang to layer up and prepare for a long New Year's Eve night ahead of us...


Look through the album of photos from my Korea trip, with more details and images of the day's sights and doings. Follow this link. (also see link on the photo menu to the right)