Description: Daereungwon, or Tumuli park, contains 23 royal Silla tombs. The Silla kingdom in the south end of the Korean peninsula flourished from roughly 668 to 935 AD. The tombs are very large, grass-covered mounds (see photo) on the south edge of Gyeongju. Several of the mounds/tombs have been excavated and you can enter them. The most famous tomb is the Cheonmachong, or flying-horse tomb. The famous painting of the flying horse, the Cheonmado, demonstrating the refined art of the Silla era, was found in this tomb along with gold artifacts and relics.
We ran into some school field trips that were touring the tombs at the same time as we did, and so we had a bit of a wait to enter the main Cheonmachong tomb. It was well worth it to actually go inside the burial mound and see the layered structure of it all.
But the most memorable part of seeing the Tumuli park was the reaction of the students from these class field trips. I was walking around there with a colleague and we could barely move, because almost every student wanted to come say "Hi," probably to practice their classroom English with a native speaker and shake our hands, or take our picture. It really made me feel like a big hero walking around the park there—I think I had a big smile for about 3 days because of it. We could tell from this reaction that not a lot of Americans made it to this corner of Korea. These were more late elementary school age kids here, but I got the same treatment from older high-school aged kids later in the week at Bulguksa Temple. Their teachers were very nice about it all, telling us the kids wanted to practice their English.
It's about a 6- to 7-block walk from the main train station to the north entrance of the park. The tombs aren't open all the time the park is open, so check the hours when you get your tickets. There's a big tourist souvenir shop out of the south entrance of the park. The Cheomseongdae ancient astronomical observatory and other archaeological and historical sites are also off the south and east end of Tumuli park.
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