Gyeongju is a beautiful city rich in history. While there we ate tons of delicious food and visited plenty of cafes. Near our hostel was Cafe Cattle and Bee which we stopped by for breakfast one morning.
I ordered a delicious mint latte (left) and thought I ordered a fruit cup and instead ended up with fresh orange juice. It was delicious but not quite what I had expected, and defintely not what the workers thought had happened, thinking I had ordered for my friend and myself, thus letting others cut her in line as I wandered off a bit embarrased with my two drinks.
Near Cheonmachong and Cheomseondae’s parks were a ton of tourist restaurants and for Chuseok we settled on one, since they were some of the few non-cafe places open for dinner. We ordered bulgogi ssambap (beef with lettuce to wrap) and some pajeon (korean savory pancake) and 백세주 (a traditional Korean wine)
We ended up with a lot more food then we expected. The wine tasted heavily of ginseng and was strong. My friend enjoyed it, drinking most of the bottle on her own, I only managed one shot glass sized drink.We really didn’t need the side of pajeon, and the meal was somewhat pricy but it was good and we were definitely full at the end.
Our favorite cafe on our trip was Kona Coffee, which we went to on Chuseok. I needed some peppermint tea since my allergies were acting up and the owner was kind enough to give us a second peppermint tea for free. He also brought candy over to our table to enjoy with our tea. The atmosphere was nice, with art filled tables and relaxing music. We were the only ones at the cafe the entire time we were there.
One of the most popular Gyeongju foods’ is it’s bread (빵). You can find shops selling them anywhere and everywhere in Gyeongju. Much to our surprise on the actual day of Chuseok almost all of these bread shops were still open. I bought a big box of them to take back to share with my coworkers who loved them. We bought them at a shop open late called 경주시 지정 전통음식 황남빵 located at 347-1 Hwango-dong. The center is filled with red bean paste which honestly isn’t my favorite thing, but it’s definatly worth trying.
I feel like I learned a lot during my trip to Gyeongju not just about Korean history but travel lessons like travel buddies are great, especially when things don’t work out as you expected because you can come up with games to play, whether it’s impromptu rock skipping or scavenger hunts. Names of places can be misleading. Breaks are necessary and spending hours at a cafe isn’t always a bad thing. Especially when your introverted soul needs to recharge from all the crowds. If there’s rain in the forcast maybe pack extra socks and flip flops because soaked tennis shoes on the ride home that takes nine hours sucks. For every mean person there will be more that are happy and welcoming. And lastly, I think I might be burning out on hostels.