Friday, 9 August 2013
We didn’t know what else can we do in Daegu. It is a nice city but except shopping and medical treatments, it doesn’t seem to be much things to see there.
So we decided to go to Gyeongju for a day trip.
First thing in the morning, we went to a car rental place to rent a car there. The car rental place is located opposite dongdaegu station exit 4.
The requirements to rent the car were:
1. Passport
2. Driving License
3. International driving license
4. Korean phone number (I guess if you don’t have any mobile number, you can give them the hotel number).
It was an interesting experience because the car rental staff couldn’t speak any English at all ! We had to use calculator in the iPhone to explain about drop off time and use google translate to explain what we want. They had to use their mobile phone version of translation device as well. It made me realise how important it is to learn foreign language. Especially if you want to enjoy your trip better or live in a particular country.
We rented the car from 9 AM to 7 PM and the cost was 90,000 Won (around A$ 90). It was a Kia K5. We need to return the car with 4 bars worth of petrol, as much as we got it when we took it. At the end we returned it with 8 bars worth because we had trouble to explained it to the petrol station staff and he filled the car full tank.
The journey to Gyeongju took around 1 hour drive.
Our first stop was to the tombs.
This was one of the tombs:
Some photos from Gyeongju:
Tickets vending machine with no English at all. Lucky they had staff stationed there to help us.
For lunch we went to a Korean traditional food restaurant.
After lunch we went to Seokguram Grotto. It was a longer walk than I expected and when we arrived there we were not allowed to take photo of the Buddha statue. It was a very beautiful statue so it was worth the effort.
In the evening, my Korean girlfriend from Sydney who were in Daegu at the same time a us, took us to a really nice seafood BBQ restaurant. It was a lovely catch up to end another day in Korea.
Shinta Benilda 