🇰🇷 Gyeongju - Hanoks, Ancient Culture, and PC Banging
The first white boys in a Korean gaming cafe?
Edon and Isaac flew out from London to join me in South Korea for 2 weeks. After 4 months of solo travelling, I was pretty excited for this and very grateful for them to have made the trip. I found myself getting a bit too used to my own company, and meeting new people every day, admittedly, was getting tiring. I also found that I’ve got the first few conversations with people down to a T, to the point that it’s almost a reflex. I recall that on the second day of travelling with Isaac and Edon, I felt like my brain was working differently. I could finally talk about things out loud that only my interior monologue could entertain for the last few months.
We started our travels in Seoul, which I’ll write a post about later, as I ended up spending some more time there after Isaac’s and Edon’s departure. Our second destination was Gyeongju. It’s a quiet city known for its rich Korean heritage, often dubbed the “museum without walls”. In the same spirit, we opted for staying in a hanok - a traditional Korean house.
The amenities were basic, and we slept on the floor. It felt like a sleepover, except we’d all wake up checking in with each other as to how messed up our backs are feeling. I’d recommend staying in one; they also happen to be very economical.
Exploring Gyeongju
Most of the attractions in Gyeongju are in a large park in the centre of the City. This includes palaces, traditional bridges, parks, and ponds. In that regard, it didn’t take us very long to see most of the things that the city had to offer.
A highlight for us all was the Gyeongju Solgeo Art Gallery, located in this strange expo-park-turned-tourist-attraction. It showcased many well-curated exhibitions by Korean artists. We preferred it to many of the galleries that we went to in Seoul. I particularly liked a few pieces that were made painted using calligraphy techniques.
The park otherwise had a whole lot of nothing. We left our mark, though, after an octopus stew we had for lunch decided to clear out all of our digestive systems. It was the first time as an adult that I involuntarily went beyond touching cloth, resulting in me completely blocking one of the toilets and causing it to overflow. That, combined with another faux pas I don’t want to own up to publicly, left us with a desire to leave Gyeongju. What happens in Gyeongju stays in Gyeongju.
PC Bang
PC Bangs are internet cafes where people go to play video games. I was curious about PC Bangs for a long time, having traded a lot of my teenage years for getting my arse whooped by Koreans playing against me in League of Legends out of them.
We initially went to one in Seoul, and managed to set ourselves up to launch Overwatch in English in an embarrassing hour and a half. We all used to play video games, and spending some time in a PC Bang brought out a lot of these dormant feelings in me that not much else could get out (positive and negative). After having completed Gyeongju and seeking retreat from our sins, the shiny PC Bang signs lured us in with their promises of RTX 5070s and 600Hz screens.
After a little over two hours in, we all got bored and haven’t wanted to go back to a PC Bang since. Saying this, I could see PC Bangs being perfect for when that yearly desire to have a two-week Minecraft phase kicks in. Otherwise, I’m glad to have remembered why I traded playing video games for going outside.
Food
Gyeongju had a few local desserts we tried too:
Gyeongju bread - pastry filled with red bean paste. Tastes exactly like it sounds. We weren’t convinced initially as the taste was sort of bland, but it got moreish.
10 won bread - pancake pastry filled with mozzarella. This sounds gross, but the difference in textures worked well.
Gyeongju was a fun time, it really offers about a day’s worth of attractions. We’ve definitely gained something here.
