Yangdong Folk Village, Gyeongju (Day 4)

After two whole days of sightseeing in the urban city of Busan, we’re moving on to a day of culture with our immersive tour to Gyeongju. Gyeongju can be easily done as a day trip from Busan – by KTX, it is only less than 30 minutes away!

What attracted us to the city of Gyeongju was its reputation as a "museum without walls." Gyeongju has a rich and important history, having served as the capital of the Silla Dynasty (57 BC – 935 AD) which ruled about two-thirds of the Korean Peninsula between the 7th and 9th centuries. Till today, a large number of archaeological sites and cultural properties from this period remain in the city. These ancient relics are such an integral part of the landscape that the whole city has been designated a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site (known collectively as the "Gyeongju Historic Area"). 

Most of Gyeongju's attractions are only accessible by taxi or if you have your own car. Thankfully, we found out about the guided city bus tours that the local tourism office were running which would take visitors to most of the area's top attractions. There are five different courses to choose from (Silla History Course, East Sea Course, World Heritage Course, Yangdong Folk Village Course as well as a Night Course), with a different course being offered each day. (For more information about the schedules of the Gyeongju City Tours, do visit the Korea Tourism Organisation and the Gyeongju City Tour official website). Here's a scan of the brochure that I picked up at the tourism office.

As we had already visited many temples in Busan, we figured that we should take a tour that would bring us to see things that we have not seen before. That’s how we decided to opt for the Yangdong Folk Village course.

It is advisable to make reservations for your desired tour at least one day in advance but as the entire reservation website was in Korean, I had some trouble doing so. At a loss at what to do, I made a phone call to the Gyeongju City Tour office for help. Luckily, the lady on the phone was very fluent in English and she helped me to secure my reservation effortlessly!

After we booked our tour, we hopped on the KTX train from Busan to Singyeongju KTX station (only 2 stops, about 30 minutes, 11,000KRW).

Entrance of Singyeongju Station. It's very modern as its one of the newest stations on the KTX line. It opened in 2010.

If you need further information about the various tour courses or need help reserving your tours, don't hesitate to approach the Gyeongju Tourist Information at Singyeongju station. The two ladies there speak excellent English! I suspect one of them was the lady who answered my phone call!

Photo Credit: Korea Tourism Organisation Website

We arrived much earlier than the bus pick-up timing, so we had time to explore the station. It’s a fairly small one, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. 

Surroundings of the train station. It's all very rural!

As far as I can see, it was rural agriculture and mountains everywhere! The air is really fresh and clean too! The quietness and stillness of Singyeongju is a sharp contrast from bustling Busan. If you haven’t had breakfast, you should grab some food at the station. There is a CU convenience store and a few food places including Lotteria. There is little chance to grab breakfast later during the tour, so it would be best to eat before you go.

Outside of the station, there is a public bus stop that goes to Gyeongju City. The bus stop for the tour courses is on the left hand side, so don’t get these two mixed up! There are many signages at the Gyeongju tour bus stop, so you can’t miss it.

Our tour bus for the day

Our tour route - do note that the Yangdong course is only available on weekends!

When the bus pulled into the bus stop, it was almost 80% full already, having picked up many passengers from the stops before us. Most of the participants seem to be locals. A tour coordinator alighted from the bus and did a roll-call to check that everyone who registered for the tour was present. Happily, our names were already on her list, having registered earlier that morning.

People on the bus - its mandatory to put your seatbelt on as the roads can sometimes be bumpy

On the bus, we paid the tour coordinator 25,000KRW each. 20,000KRW was for the cost of the tour, and 5,000KRW was for the admission fees for some of the attractions that we were going to visit.

Our first stop of the day was the highly anticipated Yangdong Folk Village which is Korea's oldest traditional clan village. The huge compound consists of over 160 traditional houses, including 54 houses that are over 200 years old!

Time to start hiking! 

Before we entered the village itself, we had 15 minutes to tour a small museum which had lots of dioramas and information panels about the history of the village. Some of the panels are in English and I'm sure the history buffs will find it fascinating.

Diorama showing scenes of the daily life in the village

Yangdong Village as we see today was formed when Son So settled here with his wife's family after marriage in the late 15th century. The Yeogang Yi clan established a presence in Yangdong Village when Yi Beon married a daughter of Son So. At that time it was common for a newly married husband to move to the wife's hometown. The two families have produced many outstanding figures and Yangdong eventually became a clan village of the Son clan and the Yi clan as their descendants flourished.

In Yangdong, you can see different types of houses: ones with tile-roofed and smaller ones with thatched roofs. It is said that the rich families stayed in the tiled-roof houses while their servants and slaves stayed in the thatched-roof houses next to it. Where the houses are located in this valley also signifies the different classes of society (the houses at the top of the hill are for nobles while the commoners lived at the bottom).

During the late period of the Japanese occupation, Yangdong suffered greatly as a result of forced mobilisation. Many conflicts also occured between landlords and servants after liberation. In the late 1960s to late 1970s, the population of Yangdong fell rapidly as much of the rural population nationwide migrated from farming villages to the cities.

Fortunately, someone recognised the heritage potential of this place, and work started in the 80s to restore the scenery and character of the village. Parking facilities and an information office were established, and private homes were renovated and improved.

In 2010, Yangdong was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site along with the Hahoe Folk Village in Andong.

cute little houses with thatched roofs

The tour we were on was entirely conducted in Korean, but while we did not understand our guide’s explanations, we followed the group closely as they hiked their way up and down the village because we didn’t want to get lost.

It’s a pity that there were no English signages explaining the significance of each place we visited, otherwise we would have gained a deeper appreciation of their cultural heritage.

Besides houses, there were also shrines and schools among the buildings. The entire village is very well maintained, offering a rare opportunity to see how people in the Joseon Dynasty lived. It must be quite an experience to stay here overnight too, and I read somewhere that there are even businesses that offer traditional homestays here! 

There are some modern facilities here, don't worry! ;)

After our tour around the folk village, the tour bus dropped us off at Seongdong Market, a traditional market near Gyeongju station for lunch.

The entrance of the market is where you can find many fruit sellers.

As meals are not provided in the tour package, the tour guide simply pointed out a few restaurants in the vicinity that we could eat at. Most of us congregated at the same restaurant at the market because it was the biggest and offered the widest choices (and it had an English menu)! Lunch was quite tasty, we had bibimbap (because you can never go wrong with that) and soup! The cognac jelly that came with the rest of the banchan was very tasty too.

let's dig in!

english menu!! hurray!

After a quick lunch, we still had some spare time before we had to board the bus, so we took a quick spin around the market. The layout is very similar to other traditional markets in Korea. Shops are typically segregated into different zones, for example, the fresh produce zone selling all kinds of poultry, seafood, vegetables, fruits as well as other zones selling household goods, hardware and gardening tools, textiles, clothes etc. Unlike the bustling markets that we always see in Seoul, Seongdong Market was rather quiet, with only a handful of people shopping in the market. We didn’t linger for long as there was nothing much to buy and more importantly, we were scared that the bus would leave without us!