After four days of great joy in southwestern South Korea seeing many interesting sites, my friends and I drove back from Jeonju to Seoul in early morning with a plan to have a brief stop in Nonsan to see UNESCO listed Seowon and Gongju for Baekje sites. With some problem with GPS that took us to the only prepaid card highway exit which we did not have, with help from locals, we finally got back to the highway but decided to go to Gongju directly after noted from GPS that 1-hour detour to other exit if we still want to visit Nonsan, a terrible situation for WHS enthusiast.

When we reached Gongju, the traffic was really bad, since there was a festival in the city center next to the Gongsanseong Fortress, we struck in the traffic in front of the fortress for almost one hour, a really boring way to admire World Heritage Site! Since there was no hope to find available parking slot and we really wanted to go away from city center, so we decided to pass Gongsanseong Fortress and went to the famous King Muryeong Tomb instead. With a great surprised there were only few tourists here. We walked to the tomb to happily discovered that the entrance fee was waived due to the festival. At first we went to see the original tombs and other lesser tombs nearby, the tombs were a bit similar to the Silla in Gyeongju, but since the tombs were built next to the hill, the whole tombs were blended with the whole landscape which was really contrast to Silla and Joseon Tombs. Then we went to see the replica tomb of King Muryeong. Inside was modern exhibition rooms displaying replica of tomb’s treasures, the highlight was the golden crown of Baekje ruler. Another highlight was the two replicas of the tomb chambers, one with mural paintings of four heavenly animal representing direction and seasons, a practice that can be found in ancient Chinese and Japanese tombs, a trace of cultural link between there three cultures, and another one which in my opinion, probably the most stunning, King Muryeong’s tomb chamber. Each brick has beautiful and unique design with flower and diamond motif, the lotus shaped place for candle is also beautiful. The strangest experience during my visit was to see Korean parent ask their kids to lay down on the spot where the royal coffins were and pretended to be corpse and took photo and then selfies!

Since I did not visit other Baekje Sites in Buyeo and Iksan, I was quite satisfied with my Gongju visit. To be honest I was not a fan of Korean fortress and stone pagodas, after visited couples of them, so I was actually fine that I did not insist to visit Gongsanseong or any temple. I was also a bit skeptical for Korean royal tombs after seeing many Silla and Joseon ones, but the one in Gongju, even though just a replica, was probably the most interesting and beautiful tomb in Korea. Unfortunately, with many similarities to other UNESCO listed Korean tombs, stone pagodas and fortresses, Baekje sites could not stand out when I looked back to my overall experience in Korea.