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!