Galleries:
One point about photography in South Korea is that individuals hold a legal "Right to Face," meaning that capturing or publishing an identifiable image of a stranger without consent is not allowed. This makes street photography rather challenging. There are 4 ways to deal with it and I am using some or combinations in my distributed images:
If some images look a little odd, you now know why.
Gyeongju (pronounced gyung-joo), some 6 hours and 2 buses away from Sokcho served as the ancient capital of the Silla Kingdom for nearly a thousand years (57 BCE to 935 CE). Often called the "museum without walls", the city is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site filled with ancient ruins, stone pagodas, royal palaces, and hundreds of grassy burial mounds known as tumuli. It offers a peaceful and deeply historical look into Korea’s past – and for all these reasons, we chose to include it in our itinerary.
Close to the heart of the city lie two breathtaking landmarks celebrated for their illuminated water reflections. Donggung Palace and Wolji Pond was built in 674 CE as a secondary royal palace and banqueting site for the crown prince, featuring a meticulously designed artificial pond that casts flawless mirror reflections of the wooden pavilions at night. Nearby spans the magnificent Woljeonggyo Bridge, a grand Silla-era structure originally built in 760 CE to connect the royal palace grounds with the southern mountain region. I was able to capture both of these at blue hour.
Extending beyond the central tomb complex (in fact some 14km from the current city centre), Gyeongju's spiritual and architectural legacy includes the twin structures of Bulguksa Temple and the Seokguram Grotto, both built in the 8th century. The Bulguksa Temple in particular is a massive tourist destination with coaches constantly arriving and departing. Little opportunity to avoiding individuals in the frame here!