Happy Chuseok!

Today is Chuseok (추석) in Korea, the day Koreans traditionally celebrate the good harvest season gathering all the family together and eating traditional Korean food. For this reason, Chuseok is also know as “Korean Thanksgiving Day”.

Chuseok day, the day before, and the day after are national holidays in Korea, bus this year, as Chuseok is on a Sunday, workers can only actually take one day off, monday. So this year it has been a very short Chuseok vacation.

As it is celebrated according to the lunar calendar, Chuseok day is also the day with the brightest full moon of the year, so it’s also a tradition, specially for Korean young couples, to go and see the full moon at night.

Here is a nice postcard that I received from Tandberg Korea, where you can see a typical Korean family dressed with the Hanbok (한복, the traditional Korean dress) gathering a good harvest 🙂

chuseok
HAPPY CHUSEOK!

Trip to Gyeongju

Some days ago we went to Gyeongju (경주), the old capital of the Silla Kingdom. We went on a minivan that we rented between 8 people and travelled for three days and two nights.

On the way to Gyeongju, we drove by Pohang (포항)… where is all this? Right here:

gyeongju

In Pohang, we went to the Bogyeong Temple (보경사, Bogyeongsa) and spent the first night at a resort called Ocean Views at the Wolpo Beach.

IMG_2672
Woman praying to Buddha at the Bogyeong Temple.

DSC_0662
Coincidentally there was a Buddhist funeral going on at that moment. I was surprised to see a black hanbok as they are usually very bright and colorful.

DSC_0679
From left to right, Jairo, Alex, Ciro, and Itzíar.

DSC_0685
Jairo, Alex, and Ciro at the river. There were also some waterfalls, but they were a little far, and it was getting dark:(

After visiting this temple, we went to eat raw fish. Being Pohang a coastal city, it is popular for its cheap and fresh raw fish. Next day, we left for Gyeongju:

DSC_0857
In the island in this picture, Munmu King is buried. He was the first king of Korean Unified Silla period.

DSC_0855
Korean Countryman at work (what you can see on the background are rice fields).

DSC_0860
At the beach you can buy fresh and cheap seaweed…

DSC_0861
…and also dried squid (those things hanging).

DSC_0845
These ayummas were having fun drinking soju and makgeolli.

DSC_0830
Under these tumulus there are some old Korean kings (their corpses actually).

DSC_0762
We also went to the Bulguk Temple (불국사, Bulguksa). These stone piles are supposed to be made by monks when they pray (I think they put one stone every time they pray). But being this such a tourist temple, tourists were the ones who put the stones.

DSC_0798
After four kilometers climbing on foot from the Bulguksa, we arrived at the Seokguram. This is the view from the top.

DSC_0796
Seokguram Buddha, one of the most popular buddhas in South Korea.

DSC_0853
An this is where we stayed in Gyeongju, a mini-ville in the middle of nothing (this is their website).