Gyeongju

 After finishing Seoul, I insisted we go to another city--Gyeongju, which is south along the Korean peninsula. 

Back in Korean history, from 57 BC-668 AD, there used to be three kingdoms on the Korean peninsula--Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla. (For context, this was from the middle of the Han Dynasty to about the beginning of the Tang Dynasty in China; or, in Europe, about the time of Julius Caesar to sometime after Muhammed's death.) If you look at the map here, you will see that Guguryeo is the largest kingdom by land (it even controlled Shenyang); however, the strongest of these kingdoms was Silla (my Korean students told me it's because they were protected by mountains on their landward border, but had access to Japan, so they could make alliances, by sea. Thank you, Austin and Aiden!). Gyeongju was the capital city of Silla, and it was where the nobles of Silla were buried. 

The reason I insisted on visiting Gyeongju is that I learned all about that when I was in sixth grade and we had to do a country report. I did my report on South Korea, and I vividly remember learning about Silla, Baekje, and Goguryeo. (I still can't say Goguryeo, but I learned about it!) What I especially remembered was learning about Queen Sondok, a queen of Silla who loved stargazing. So I was naturally eager to see this place in real life!

My friend and I had a private tour guide who would take us south along the coast towards Gyeongju, and we would see many things along the way. I'm going to create separate posts for all of those, and try my best not to go too overboard with all the beautiful scenery pictures. Stay tuned! 

The Meerkat Cafe!

 I cannot for the life of me remember what order everything in Seoul happened in. I think this came shortly after the trip up N Tower, but I don't remember for sure.

Anyway, my dear friend Adrienne loves small, furry critters. While we have petting zoos in America, in Asia, they have animal cafes, and Adrienne really wanted to go to one of them. (Not that I minded, either.) The one in Seoul we went to--a meerkat cafe!

For those of you who've never been, an animal cafe is similar to a petting zoo, but it's all inside, much more comfortable for you, and full of animals that petting zoos probably wouldn't let you hold. I've read that some of them are called animal cruelty, but for this one, I'm pretty sure the animals couldn't possibly survive in the wild (you'll see the raccoon, for example). I don't recall any of these animals being especially friendly unless you had food, but they were adorable and not afraid of people. 

Now, I'd never seen a meerkat up close before, but I have to say--as cute as they can be...

...they can also be rather vicious! 

And then be cute again. 

Now, this particular place had more than just meerkats. It had a tailless raccoon, rock hyrax (which I had never heard of before) and a wallaby, among other adorable animals. 

That's my hand. 

I have completely forgotten what the mini-cheetah-thing is.

He liked to bounce up and down. Here, I think he's begging me for a treat. 

This animal on my knee is the rock hyrax. 

This next picture is very blurry, but it makes sense if you know the backstory. I had run out of treats, so the rock hyrax apparently decided to find someone else. As you can see in that last picture, he prepared to hop off my knee. Then, the wallaby hopped by and stopped right in front of me. The hyrax decided that his best course of action was to hop from my knee onto the wallaby's back! 

As you can see, the wallaby was a little startled. 

My friend was definitely the animals' favorite--she got them onto her lap without any treats in her hand. But it's a sweet way to spend an afternoon, so if you're ever in South Korea or Japan, definitely check the area and see if there's anything like this near you. 

Seoul, Day 2 - N Seoul Tower and Street Food

 Otherwise known as Namsan Seoul Tower, this is a communications and viewing tower atop a massive hill from which you can see most of the city. It is definitely an iconic Seoul landmark. 

Pictures:

Here's the tower

This is the view from the base of the tower. you can see the Love Locks from there.

Looking over the city, away from the Love Locks. It's beautiful!

We could have ridden the cable car down, but we decided to walk down the paths instead. 

I loved all the mountains. Shenyang, as I think I've mentioned in the past, is really quite flat, so I was soaking in all the mountains.