Daereungwon Tomb Complex
Today we would be leaving Gyeongju and heading to Andong in the afternoon.
After checking out of the accommodation, we went and visited the Daereungwon Tomb Complex. One of the tombs has been excavated and you can go inside to can see how it is constructed, as well as some of the treasures that had been buried in it
Gyeongju
We spent the rest of the morning wandering around the Hwangnidan-gil area we had been staying in. It’s full of traditional Hanok buildings that have been renovated and are now cafes, shops, restaurants and hotels.
Cheongsu-dang Gyeongju
As part of our exploring, we visited a couple of pretty cafes. First was Cheongsu-dang, which has an extremely popular and busy branch in Seoul, but here was lovely and quiet
Iced vanilla lattes and their light and fluffy strawberry cake to share
Silladang Gyeongju
A little later on we stopped at Silladang, another cafe in a converted Hanok
Another iced vanilla latte and more cakes to share! The white chocolate face is based on a famous archeological find from the area, and was filled with light cherry mouse and cake. The ball was a wild raspberry juak – a traditional fried chewy mochi donut like sweet soaked in sticky raspberry syrup
After a bit more shopping and exploring, it was time to get the train to out next destination. The KTX station in Gyeongju is outside of the town, so we tried using the local Taxi app to get there – turns out this was very easy to do and something we wished we’d tired earlier (particularly to save our feet a bit in Busan!)
From Gyeongju it was a 45min train ride to Andong, and from there we got another taxi to go 25mins to where we were staying at Hahoe village
Rakkojae Hahoe Hanok Hotel
Our hotel for the next night was Rakkojae Hahoe Hanok Hotel, a complex of royal style hanok buildings. Our “room” was one half of one of these hanoks, with a traditional living/bedroom area, a modern shower room and a very pretty bath area.
In the evening a “Suunjapbang Heritage Dining” multi-course dinner inspired by Korea’s oldest cookbook was served at the hotel’s restaurant.
The courses included…
A selection of Pajeon (vegetable pancakes)
Octopus salad
Japchae (glass noodles and vegetables)
Jjimdak (braised chicken and vegetables)
Cucumber kimchi
Beef
Yogurt and fruit
And soup and rice, which I forgot to take a photo off!
Other than the octopus (that we still ate to be polite, but I do find is just tasteless rubber) everything was really nice, with lots of nice sweet and savory flavours
After dinner we went for a walk around the hotel complex as all the buildings were nicely illuminated.
