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Before going to the National Museum, there were souvenir shops and snack carts and toy carts just outside Tumuli Park’s entrance.  The souvenir shop boasts a lot of different stuffs, from the simple to the more expensive.  A far cry from the usual souvenir  stands in the Philippine’s tourist spots which usually involves cheap t-shirts.  There’s the  little Korean couple figurines, Buddha beads, handcrafted artworks.  The food carts have big round rice crackers, and a different looking popcorn.

We ride the tourbus.  We can see from a distance, the Cheomseongdae Observatory.  The observatory looks like a big bishop chess piece.  One of the artifacts of interest in or around the museum is the Bell of King Seongdeok.  Irene tells of a legend regarding the bell.  It’s a very sad story wherein a baby has to be smelted into the ironworks making of the bell.  The mom didn’t want to, but sacrificed her baby anyway.  The story sounds awfully familiar.  It’s like there’s a Chinese version of this story, but I can’t recall the details.  When the bell is rung, it emits a sound that as if it’s crying "Emille".  Which is Silla word for mom.   

It’s not too long and we are at the entrance of the National Museum.  By this time, the temperature is dropping and is getting colder.  The first artifact Irene leads us to is the Bell since it’s right outside.  It sure is a very big bell, with Chinese characters inscribed all over it.  We go to one of the museum buildings.  Since our arrival coincided with students on field trips, there’s so many people and it can be pretty noisy.  Irene suggests splitting if you want to see the museum on your own little group or follow her where she can explain the artifacts and history.  So, it’s fortunate that Ryneth, Auntie Ruby (Ryneth’s mom), James and I got to follow her.  This one museum alone is divided into at least 3 sections.  One is a section of Korean artifacts before its proper founding.  Another section houses Silla’s designs of everyday objects and royal jewelry.  This section contains a miniature of a tumulus showing how it looks like inside.  One artifact that is stamped in my memory is the Silla king’s crown.  It’s big and must be heavy and it’s got antler type thingies.  Next section is a very ultra-cool room which is a multimedia presentation and miniatures of pottery making and how the Bell of King Seongdeok was made.  There’s a lightshow on the floor and ceiling.  And a sample pinging sound of the bell crying "Emille".

The last section is the Buddhist-influenced works, artifacts, architecture of Silla.  You can also see the miniature general city layout of old Gyeongju.  There are buttons in front of the miniature.  Push one and a spotlight will highlight that place.  Lots of Buddhist stuffs here.  For a Catholic, Irene is very knowledgeable of many things about Buddhism.  We are glad we tagged along with her, it makes the next day’s tour to Bulguksa even more appreciable.

Alas, there’s only enough time to tour one building.  There are at least a couple other  museums.  Perhaps next time.  The time is close to 6pm and we are running out of time to visit Bulguksa.  Turns out it closes at
5pm anyway.  So, we go straight to dinner.

Correction on the Cheonmachong.  The Hanja written says "Tien Mah Juong".  And the Daeneungwon gate says "Tah Ling Yuann" which means Great Tombs Cemetary, because the park, after all, is a cemetery for royalty and important officers. 

And saying Chinese Hanja is like saying the word Chinese twice (eg. Chinese Chinese words).  Similarly, calling Bulguksa as Bulguksa Temple is like calling it "Bulguk Temple Temple".  But, I guess still calling it Bulguksa Temple makes it easier for foreigners to know what that place is.

It didn’t take long for us to get to Tumuli Park.  The place is one big open air museum.  Outside of the park, we can already see small hill-like mounds.  Irene explains those are tombs, but if you have to be technical, those ARE tumuli.  I wager that no one among us knew that word at that time or ever.  It’s certainly not a word we use often.  A tumulus (Tooh-Myu-leus) is a mound of earth over a burial site.  Plural of tumulus is tumuli (tooh-myu-lai) according to Merriam-Webster dictionary.  Hence, the park in English is called Tumuli Park.  Irene, our guide, pronounce it as Teu-moo-lee.  Understandable, since we Pinoys would also pronounce it that way too due to Tagalog education.  Heck, there’s plenty of people who pronounce "stimuli" similarly.   The park goes by another name in Korean, Daeneung-won.

I only found out about this after I got back from the trip.  I decided to make some research about the places we traveled.  I would have researched before the trip had I have the itinerary beforehand. 

During the tour of Tumuli Park, one of our members in the group we got to be good friends with, Ryneth, was shocked and surprised at the great divide between North and South Korea.  James and I explained the post-World War 2 history of Korea. Especially me, being a bit of latter 20th century history buff.  Irene overheard us and was excited and pleased we know a bit of Korean history.  Although I did explain I was more familiar with post-WW2 Korean history.  Had I been able to research about the places we will be going to, I would have appreciated the context and significance even more.  Then Irene would have been even more impressed!

The tumuli looks like a more scattered version of Bohol’s Chocolate Hills.  Irene gets that comment a lot from Philippine tourists.

The same time we went inside the park, students from different schools came as part of their field trip.  We entered the Cheonmachong tomb, which had a long queue.  No pictures allowed inside.  Some of the tombs in the park have been excavated.  Cheonmachong have very important Silla artifacts. The tomb is now designed for tours and hollowed in.  Inside, it is a circular chamber with the artifacts on display.  At the end of the room is a replica of the burial chamber.  The original has since been removed and preserved elsewhere.

Hanja is used to identify the gates we enter into.  Below is Tumuli Park gate written in Chinese Hanja (I’ll come back for the pronunciation as my written Chinese is very rusty) but it literally says "Great Tombs Park" hence, Tumuli Park   ;and Cheonmachong in Chinese Hanja written as "Tien Mah Chia".

 

Now that we’ve seen the most important parts of the park, we proceed to the exit and to the National Museum…

After some 5 odd hours, we’ve finally reached Gyeongju.  I think it’s about 1:30-2pm when we’ve reached it.  Since it’s been a long trip, and we haven’t had lunch, we eat first.  Gyeongju’s houses have that tiled Asian touch.  Zoning and building codes require that houses and buildings are only 2 storeys tall, 3 at most.  The only ones that are higher are the hotel and resort complexes beside Bomun Lake.  Gyeongju City is basically one big UNESCO World Heritage site.

Back to the lunch.  Although it is a Chinese restaurant, the dishes have Korean influence as explained by our guide.    The rice tasted great.  There’s no kimchi, but there’s still seaweed soup.  I wish we got a shot of our lunch.  It wasn’t so bad, the food didn’t put a lot of salt.  It’s just perfectly done.  We have tofu, fish, veggies… The tea is barley tea not green tea.  I think it was because green tea costs more in Korea.
The restaurant is a two-storey place, rather small.  Since it was way past 1pm, there’s no diners.  The ground floor is more for public dining.  The second floor have private rooms with at least 2 tables.  Enough to fit the whole tour group.  Our guides and driver have their own table somewhere, though they occasionally check up on us if we need anything.

Now that we’re full and energized, we’re ready for the tour!