Korean Travel Online - Touring Gyeongju with the Smart Tour Guide App

The free shuttle bus to Gyeongju ran during the VisitKorea 2010-2012 year. Too bad it is no longer offered in 2013. But what I spent on transportation expense, I made up for by gaining a brand new appreciation for this city. And that's thanks to the smart tour guide app.

For this trip, I downloaded the Silla History Tour App which contains major historic sites in Gyeongju, and the Gyeongju National Museum app.The great thing about this app that it shows you a map of the location with markers where the specific item can be found. Click on it and it will give you an explanation
 

Another awesome thing about the app is that it isn't boring. It incorporates dialogues and some sound effects. The best thing is that it actually addresses what most people are probably thinking.

So it is just a bunch of tombs. It doesn't sound like there's much to see.

That's exactly what I thought the last time I came to Daereungwon (대릉원). I came, I took pictures, and I left without taking away anything from the trip. But with the app explaining the significance of this place, I realized there's quite a lot to be learned.

Below is a picture of the Great Hwangam Tomb. If you take a closer look at it, you'll see that it is not a single tomb but is actually two linked mounds. Tombs consisting of two linked grave mounds like this one is considered to be a tomb of a married couple. Info like this, I never would have learned it without the app.

From Daereungwon, you could walk towards Cheomseongdae (첨성대). Just like the student in the dialogue, I didn't understand why it is a famous cultural heritage. It's neither gorgeous nor tall and not what I thought an observatory would look like. But the app will tell you what makes it impressive.

Next, I took the app with me to the Gyeongju National Museum. With Korean museums, I've noticed that although they have English descriptions of the items on display, the explanation would be in Korean. The smart tour guide app provides detailed explanations of the major items on display. Another benefit of carrying this around is you don't have to bend or squint to read anything and you can simply listen to the app while appreciating the items.

In the evening, we headed out to Anapji Pond (안압지). Too bad the app didn't have this. Oh well... Anapji is worth checking out during the day, but when the sun goes down, it's absolutely glorious! The place is open til 10pm so it makes for a great walk at night. The views of the pavilions across the water are absolutely worth the trip.

If you're going to Bulguksa (불국사), here are some additional things that are not on the app but I learned on the trip anyway.

The delicate colors and and traditional patterns on the temples are called dancheong (단청). These Korean-style decorative colorful patterns on wooden buildings and other wooden items are used to convey beauty and dignity, using five basic colors: red, blue, yellow, black and white.

As I was trying to be a diligent tourist, I was intent on learning as much historical and cultural info at Bulguksa. The smart tour guide app was telling me to take a look at the pagoda next to the one
I was looking at but I couldn’t find it. I thought the app was wrong, but later found out it was there
all along, just covered up with a protective barrier. The reason for this is that the Three-story Stone Pagoda of Bulguksa Temple (National Treasure no. 21), a major representative of Silla Dynasty’s history and culture, is undergoing an overall repair and the repair is expected to be completed on December 2014.

You'll also come across the courtyard filled with stacked rocks. It's quite enchanting to see so many of them. Basically, the practice of stacking rocks is for wishes and good luck. If you can add a stone to the top of a stack without toppling it, your wish comes true.

According to this sign, it was documented that during the Silla Dynasty, one can find these many-tiered towers everywhere in Seorabeol (a name which originally referred to Gyeongju), standing closely together just like a flock of geese. In the Beophwagyeong (Lotus Sutra), even if the kids are stacking sand towers just for fun, they get unlimited blessing and can become Buddha. Hence, from those days, the practice of using stones to make little pagodas came to being. For this reason, a lot of visitors, in the hopes of making their wishes come true, naturally stack one, two, or three stones in the shape of a little pagoda at Bulguksa's Nahanjeon Hall.

Well that's it for Gyeongju. Also, if you're interested in taking the Gyeongju City Tour Bus, Cheonma Gwangwang is the company that operates this tour. Prices are at 15,000 won (adults), 13,000 won (teens), and 12,000 won (children). They offer four different day courses and one night course. You can find out more about the individual courses at http://cmtour.co.kr/en/.

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