03 May 2024

Hyundai City – Arriving at Ulsan, South Korea

After soaking in the sights of Japan, we arrived at the next country on our expedition, South Korea. The view from the port showed that Ulsan is ‘Hyundai City’ with huge wind turbine blades and thousands of pieces of heavy equipment awaiting export.

We drove through the busy industrial area and past many clusters of high-rise apartment buildings into the forested mountains. Our first stop was at the Bulguksa Temple and Art Gallery. The temple complex is large, with several plazas and pavilions housing statues of the Buddha in various incarnations. Originally built in the 8th century but destroyed, it has been faithfully restored with detailed paintings and decorative motifs recreated throughout. As a special treat, the ground staff were in the process of filling the plaza spaces with racks of colourful paper lanterns to honour the Buddha’s birthday. Many lanterns had paper tags with wishes and prayers from the petitioners.

After a delicious lunchtime buffet, we travelled to Tumuli Park to visit the tombs of the Kings of the Kingdom of the Heavenly Horse. The elegant burial mounds for the rulers of the Silla Kingdom date from the 5th or 6th century. We entered the one tomb that had been excavated and saw the burial chamber with replicas of the golden crowns and artefacts that were unearthed. To see the actual golden artefacts, we journeyed to the Gyeongju National Museum. There the beautiful items were displayed along with many other historic remains from that kingdom. Especially impressive was the huge bronze Bell of King Seongdeok the Great.

To finish another exciting day, we travelled back to Ulsan to the Taehwagang River Bamboo Forest. The gardens along the river were in full use by the locals and held many colourful flower beds in addition to the remarkable bamboo.

We experienced a small taste of rush hour before returning to the comforts of Heritage Adventurer to cool off after a hot day.

Images © C. Finch, Heritage Expeditions