The legendary capital city of the sophisticated kingdom of Silla, the first great capital of unified ancient Korea, the fourth largest cultural, economic, and political center of known ancient world, one of the oldest human living cities in the world, an open-air museum are all the superlative definitions of Gyeongju stipulating all tourists to visit making this city one of the MUST destinations in Korea.

For sure all clarification above make you expected something great from Gyeongju with many ruins like ancient Greek or Roman cities. But Gyeongju turned out to be quite disappointing with nothing much to see, most of historical sites are burial mounds in the park, with few outstanding buildings. Cheonseomdae, the tiny ancient planetarium, and beautiful Anapji Pond are two major sights but are not so outstanding in my opinion. To flavor many bored tourists the city of Gyeongju tries their best to turn historical park into flower fields to make the park more attractive especially in the evening with the really nice set of light decoration. Another area that worth mentioned is Mount Namsan with lots of Buddhist artifacts scattered around the mountain but considering the quality of art, Seokguram Grotto is much superior.

Many tourists and reviewer praised Gyeongju by admiring Bulguksa Temple and Seokguram Grotto, but we should separate these two places from Gyeongju as they are different site in term of World Heritage. So, if we cut Bulguksa out from Gyeongju, I rarely heard people mentioned the beauty of historic sites in city center or mount Namsan.

All in all, Gyeongju is a victim of overrate tourist advertisement by using too much historical fact. Gyeongju is easily compared with Nara in Japan, however the feeling after visit of these two cities are totally different, for Nara you don't expect much from this short-lived capital resulting lovely surprise and enjoy the trip, but with load of expectations for Gyeongju the outcome is upside down. I agreed that to enjoy Gyeongju may need time to appreciate its secret, but with the Korean governmental fact that the amount of tourist visit Gyeongju is decreasing compared to other regions of Korea may provide some answer to all of us.