I love Gyeongju (경주). It’s a beaaaaautiful city to spend the day in. You walk through history, it’s all around you from across the street through every bend on the road. And it’s only an hour away from Daegu! This was the second time I really did the touristy stuff here, as many of your recall it was a sacrifice going to the grotto again simply from the massive motion sickness I experienced last time when the cab driver drove us up the winding road to the top of the mountain. But Jenn and Anna were here, so I threw care to the wind and fell in love with the city again. 

Gyeongju is a relic….it was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Silla (57 BC – 935 AD) which ruled most of the Korean Peninsula between the 7th and 9th centuries. AKA mad old, so if you want a good ole’ dose of pure Korean traditional culture, head to Gyeongju. 

The cuisine of Gyeongju is generally typical of the cuisine elsewhere in Gyeongsang province: spicy and salty. However, it has distinctive tastes according to region and several local specialties known nationwide. The most famous of these is “Gyeongju bread” or “Hwangnam bread”, a red-bean pastry first baked in 1939 and now sold throughout the country. It’s the last pic in the slide show (it’s not mine – we were so dead tired that I forgot to function by the end of the night when we bought it).