GYEONGYU: TALES FROM OUR FEET
Gyeongyu, a Unesco World Cultural Heritage City, is located in the North Gyeongsang Province of South Korea.
About 370 kilometers southeast of Seoul, we took a five-hour bus ride to get there straight from Incheon Airport.
Relatively unknown to foreigners, compared to the more popular destinations in the country, it is a local tourist destination, as it once was the capital of the Ancient Kingdom of Silla between the 7th and 9th centuries. Many of the historical treasures of that prosperous era remain intact until now. This is why Gyeongyu is often referred to as a Museum without Walls.
We decided to try out an Airbnb experience for this trip and found a perfect host, Jinny, who spoke English, was very gracious, and even enlisted her father as our private guide for sites much further than the central district. By the time she met us at the bus station, we were off to an exciting start.
The afternoon we arrived, we set out on foot armed with a map and instructions from Jinny to turn the corner and walk straight ahead. The first thing I noticed from a distance was the presence of mounds of earth peeking out over the low-rise structures that dotted the busy street. Everywhere one looked, there were these little hills that the city seemed to build itself carefully around. One of the photos you will find in this article is a page from a guidebook so you can visualize what we saw. For most of us familiar with the Chocolate Hills in Bohol, theirs were quite similar. While not contained in one area, they were spread over a vast expanse of land, sharing space with modern structures, and yet, it worked out just fine. There was harmony between the old and the new.