South Korea Guide
Gyeongsang
Gyeongju
A green jewel in Korea's tourist crown, GYEONGJU is a city that deserves a little more fame. Here you can walk among kings from a dynasty long expired and view the treasures accumulated during a millennium of imperial rule, while strolling around a city infinitely more traditional in nature than any other in the country. If this sounds a little similar to Kyoto, you'd be half-right – like the Japanese city, it's a former capital with some achingly beautiful quarters, but while many visitors to Kyoto feel cheated after seeing that its bulk is traffic-filled and busy, Gyeongju as a whole impresses guests with its lack of bustle. Strangely, much of Gyeongju's present beauty is all down to a bit of good, old-fashioned dictatorship: in the 1970s and 1980s, authoritarian President Park Chung-hee managed to ensure that Korea's most traditional city stayed that way at a time when rapid economic progress was turning the country upside-down. He introduced height restrictions on structures built anywhere near historical remains – in other words, pretty much all of the centre – and passed a bill requiring almost everything static to have a traditional Korean-style roof. While it's a little strange to see petrol stations and post boxes under such ornamental coverings, it's a welcome change.
Chief among Gyeongju's sights are the dead kings' tombs, rounded grassy hills that you'll see all over town; it's even possible to enter one for a peek at the ornate way in which royalty were once buried.
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