May 19, 2011 Tombs, tombs, tombs, tombs, tombs, tombs.......

Yeah the title explains itself.  What did we do today?  Saw lots of tombs.  It's fine until you see a lot then it's starts to lose its interesting factor.  Also, some of the tombs they have, they don't even know who's actually buried under there.  That's who they think is buried under there.  Yay..... It was pretty hot too and so hearing a lecture when there's not much shade was pretty hard. 

We went back to 경주 Kyeongju (kyung-joo) and the first tomb we saw was 나정 Najeong (nah-jung).  At the tomb, Dr. Peterson told us of the Tangun myth that many Koreans believe that the original Korean people came from.  The legend is that one day a bear and a tiger both wanted to become human.  The heavenly being Hwanung told them that if they would live in a cave and eat nothing but garlic and mugwort for 100 days, they could become human.  The tiger couldn't endure but the bear did.  The bear turned into a beautiful woman that Hwanung took the lady/bear as his wife.  On the mountain, she bore a son named Tangun who ruled the land peacefully for 1,000 years.  Many Koreans don't take this story at face value but it's taken seriously.  Because myths, just like religions, contain elements or symbols that can be traced to prehistoric times.  Also, the definition of a myth is not the complete truth but a story based on some truth.  Dr. Peterson said he had an experience where he was talking to some Korean people and said, "You guys don't actually believe that people can come from a bear?" and they replied back, "Yeah that's just as crazy as the belief you guys came from Adam and Eve."  Wow....Wow is right.  Whether their statement was valid or not, it showed that many Korean people hold tightly to the Tangun myth.

We also saw the tombs of who they believe the first Park and 경주 Kyeongju Kim ancestor came from who's stories are also myths.  While the first Park ancestor came from an egg left by a flying horse, the first Kim ancestor came from an egg found in a forest.  I thought it was interesting learning about myths!  I never knew myth had that definition.  I thought myths were just completely false but they have some truth to them.

We went to a Korean buffet 경주한식뷔페 that was nearby for lunch.  It was really cheap and pretty decent.  All of us felt like death afterwards.  Just when you think you're done, there's ice cream haha.

After lunch, we went to the 5 tombs which were very grassy and each of the tombs were close to each other.  It was still hot and so it was STILL hard to pay attention.  But for what it was worth, it was pretty to look at.