The land of the Morning Calm

They used to call Korea the 'Land of the Morning Calm', a nickname modern-day visitors to Seoul tend to scoff at.
However...scoffers beware. If Seoul is a jungle of concrete and business suits, then getting off the train in Kyongju - a four hour ride away - is akin to stumbling upon a clearing...into sunshine and birdsong...forested mountainsides dotted with shrines and statues...and people with time to stop and chat. It's as if you're suddenly able to breathe again; the best opportunity you're likely to get to experience what's left of that fabled and maligned 'Morning Calm' for yourself.
If you ask a Korean about Kyongju, the words 'culture' and 'history' inevitably elbow their way into the conversation. From about 50 BC to the 10th century AD, Kyongju was the capital of the Shilla dynasty and, for about a third of that time, capital of the whole peninsula. You get the feeling that nothing much has happened since then.
In contrast to bustling modern Korean cities such as Seoul, Pusan or Taegu, Kyongju is small and relaxed - seemingly content to live off its millennium-old reputation. A pretty good state of affairs for visitors and locals alike...as the town and its surrounds exist as a kind of tomb, temple, palace, pleasure garden, statue, castle, even astronomical observatory-filled open-air museum.
My pal, Dan, and I picked up a map as we left the station, and walked to the Hanjin-jang Yogwan. We'd stayed in a few yogwans (cheap family-run hotels...often doubling as brothels) on our travels, and this one definitely wasn't typical in that it openly catered to foreign tourists. The owner, a bronzed old man, somehow managed to check us in and give advice on places to visit and local bus times, without interrupting his t'ai chi routine. I think perhaps we undervalued his advice - only later discovering there's so much to see in Kyongju, it's necessary to spend a while deliberating over exactly what to do.
The town is small enough to get to know in an afternoon. It's surrounded by a series of interconnected historical sites, accessible by foot. We started by strolling round the tombs of the Shilla kings and their families, collected together in Tumili Park and Noso-dong.
These tombs take the form of landscaped grassy knolls, the bigger the mound, the more important the occupant. Looking at these tombs, I was struck by the clean sweeping lines and the absence of any monument other than the hill itself. Here is where the reoccurring motif of Kyongju began insinuating itself into our minds...that of humankind residing among, instead of in conflict with, the natural world.
After a couple of beers in an alfresco bar (none of those in Seoul either), Dan suggested following the yogwan owner's advice and walking over to Anapji Pond, a pleasure garden built on the orders of King Munmu in 672 AD. The original palace no longer exists - for which the locals blame the Japanese...to be honest, there isn't much the Japanese don't get blamed for.
Thankfully, the lily-covered pond and its tree-lined grounds, made navigable by a footpath, maintain much of their past splendour...quietly whispering (for those with ears to hear) the reason the pleasure garden was built in the first place.
Venturing a little further, the next morning we caught a local bus to Namsan, a diminutive mountain a few miles south of Kyongju. You can spend the day hiking up and down and all round Namsan and still see only a fraction of the recommended sights (and sites). Among those we came across were two pagodas (Buddhist shrines) with their rock statues, intricately-painted lattice-work and smouldering incense sticks. There was also an old nunnery nestling amid some tall conifers, and a temple complex with some striking relief carvings. Eventually, bewildered by choice, Dan and I put away our map and simply followed our noses.
Clambering haphazardly over the mountainsides sums up, for me, the whole point of Kyongju...the same motif as before, but more pronounced this time...of comfortable coexistence with nature. It's impossible to walk in any direction on Namsan for more than a few minutes without coming across chunks of rock carved with flowing Buddhist images (no straight lines, only easy curves). The forested pathways are filled with minor curiosities and photo opportunities...a pebble with a Buddha's head carved on it...bunches of dry flowers left as offerings beside free-standing boulders...a water-filled teapot on the floor of a forest glade (now that I think of it, very curious indeed).
I could keep on writing of Chomsongdae - a seventh century astronomical observatory, the 'Triple Buddha' statues (not Shilla this time...origin unknown), the Punhwangsa Pagoda, the glass-encased Sakyamuni Buddha, the bearded old monk who lives at the top of Namsan, the authentically-preserved and still inhabited Yangdong folk village... But I'm running out of space, just as Dan and I ran out of time.
The point is, of course, you don't need to see all of Kyongju...just enough to begin to appreciate the truth behind 'The Land of the Morning Calm'.

My Something

As I gaze into the wild, impartial skies

All the day and some of the night,

I see a void where nothing lies

Full of naught, yet awfully bright.

Then, before my resourceful eyes,

A world begins to materialize.

I think some beings into the fray

And now my thoughts are on their way.

Peace hold out for quite some time,

But war eventually grabs my mind!

And lo and behold my world no more,

My thoughts are nothing but clutted gore!

I shake my head and close my eyes,

I blow my nose and slowly rise,

I look ahead, beyond the sky,

And think of thoughts that gradually die.

I wipe a tear and heave a sigh,

And lay back down and wonder why...

The void once seen is out of sight,

Formally nothing and endlessly bright.