DAY 191 TUESDAY OCTOBER 2 GYEONGJU

We picked a really bad time to be in Busan, but of course have to catch our ship here.  Not only are all Korean people moving around the country this week to be with their families to celebrate Chuseok, but tomorrow, October 3 is Foundation Day, another public holiday.  October 4 is the start of the Busan International Film Festival, so hotels are mostly booked out.  We needed 5 more days accommodation before October 9 and we decided to look upmarket but because we could not book on the internet (NAB cancelled our credit card)  we went to the Information Office at the Station and a helpful lady found us a room at the Busan Tourist Hotel fo $115 per night.  Quite expensive for Busan but not much  alternative.
We only had two days left on our Korail Pass so we went to the ticket office and booked seats on the 12.30 KTX to Singyeongju, returning on the 16.40.  Pretty good for a day when most trains are booked out.
We filled in time walking north of the station to explore the main street.  If you own an expensive car you may be able to park it in this building.

 An elevator shoots it up to an empty space. We saw yet another statue of ancient warriors.

The trip to Gyeongju was only 30 minutes at high speed and very comfortable.  Nobody checks tickets when you get on and off and the guard simply looks at where you are sitting to note that the seats booked on her seat plan correspond.  Very unobtrusive system.  First up when we got there was a visit to the Station toilets.  So much better than Europe where you search for them and pay one euro for a pee in dirty, croded toilets.  Here there are usually two sets in different places in the station, there are never any queues, they are new and they are free.  These are the men's wash basins:

We had to catch a taxi into the town as the KTX station was more than 5 kilometers from the sightseeing area.  There was a big park area with numerous grassy mounds which housed the tombs of early kings.  This was a World Heritage site.

We found our way to the Anopji ponds where pavilions from the 7th century had been reconstructed.
This was the first of three.

And there was (conveniently) a model under glass of the original buildings.

We also passed the first astronomy observatory in Asia from the same period.

The place was crowded with families flying kites and having picnics.  The traffic was terrible but the horse and carriage managed to get people through it, but the coachman was not happy with the tour buses encroaching on his parking space.

We were told at the information office at the station to catch a number 70 bus to return, so we found the bus stop and got on board at 15.30.  The driver was reluctant to agree that we could go to the station but it was on the front of his bus.  He drove the bus at breakneck speed through half the backstreets of the town and by 16.25 we were only just heading onto the freeway out of town.  Even though he was hitting 90kmh on the freeway we arrived at our destination at 16.38, with just two minutes to catch our train. Naturally the train arrived and left right on time and we climbed onto the platform 30 seconds after it started moving.  Well, we had a genuine Cook's Tour of the City anyway and along the freeway we saw large paddocks of rice growing.  We went back down to the ticket counter and asked whether we could get on the next train at 17.00. He fed our pass into the machine and printed out two new tickets (no cost).  We were back on the platform at 16.50 and presumably the guard on the train had our new booking on her seat plan when we boarded.  That is efficiency.  If Korea can do that, any other railway should be able to.  At Busan Station we found a little restaurant that served us a Korean meal for $5 each and included the usual side dishes.  Lyn enjoys the kimchi and Malcolm eats the pickled radish.