Namsan is extensive, with lots of hiking trails. There are numerous temples, pagodas, and stone Buddha carvings. Aside from picturesque, it's a great place to hike if you are interested in history, archeology, or religion, or if you are a practicing Buddhist.
There are, of course, royal burial mounds here -- Gyeongju is littered with them.
Although it is missing its head, this was the most elegant Buddha statue we saw on the hike. In particular, the braiding carved into the front of the 8th century statue is beautifully rendered and amazingly well preserved.
Lunch break. It was a pleasant spring day, not too hot, but we still got a bit sweaty.
One famous seated Buddha was under wraps for repair.
The top half of this Buddha is carved in relief, while the bottom half is simply etched in stone. It's about 9 feet tall and the effect is impressive.
Although we were on a stone ledge perched high in the mountains, we still had to remove our shoes, since this is an active place of worship.
The view from the ledge was breathtaking. That's Erma's mom on the right.
After we'd hiked up higher, we had a nice view of that same carving from above. Can you spot it?
This is the second-highest point on Namsan, Geumo Peak, 468 meters above sea level.
On the way down we saw this black squirrel. I'd never seen anything like it. Its Korean name is cheongseolmo 청설모 or cheongsolmo 청솔모.
Temple view with cherry blossoms and pagoda:
At the base of the mountain we visited a former royal villa grounds with a famous abalone-shaped water feature. The buildings are no longer extant but the fountain, Poseokjeong 포석정 鮑石亭, survives. Apparently this was a favorite entertainment spot for Silla royalty, who would float wine cups in the whirls and eddies formed by the curved segments while reciting poetry.
Cherry blossoms line the street as we drive through Gyeongju on the way home.
That black squirrel-like animal looks like a squirrel. Specifically, a melanistic Sciurus vulgaris still wearing its winter coat (thus the ear tufts).
ReplyDeleteThey're not native to North America. We're much more used to S. carolinensis, which never has the ear tufts.
That's interesting. The ear tufts really stood out for me. If you do a Google image search for "Sciurus vulgaris" and one for "청솔모" you get different-looking results: reddish-brown fur for the former, and charcoal-to-black fur for the latter. Is the darker coat a specific feature of Sciurus vulgaris coreae?
ReplyDeleteI don't know. What's your impression, people that have been to Korea? I know the subject of Korean squirrels has come up before, and either Lance or Erma mentioned that they were more chipmunky than North American squirrels. Neither black fur nor ear tufts are particularly chipmoncular characteristics, so I'm guessing most Korean squirrels are not melanistic.
ReplyDeleteIf you google image search "Sciurus vulgaris black", the first result is an ostensibly Polish dead ringer for your cheongsolmo friend. I'm wagering that melanistic S. vulgarises are a regularly-found color variant which might be dominant in some areas, as is the case with S. carolinensis.
Erma's mother pointed me to some web sites (in Korean) that may help clarify. The common Korean word usually mentioned as equivalent to 'squirrel', daramjwi, is in fact a Tamias sibiricus and is pictured here. It does indeed look chipmunk-like, because it is in fact a Siberian chipmunk. It is the cheongseolmo (pictured in this blog entry) that is the true squirrel, Sciurus vulgaris coreae. Differences between the two species are explained clearly in Korean at this Wikipedia page.
ReplyDelete