Sunday morning me and my friend went to the bus terminal in Gongju to meet up with another friend that was arriving a day later from Daegu. There was some confusion as to whether her bus would come to this terminal but eventually she made it.

The first thing we all did was cross back the river to the south side to where the fortress was . We could see a lot of the perimeter wall from the north side of the river so had an idea of the size and what areas to goto.

The floating pontoon bridge takes us to the lower level of the fortress where some festival events for children were set up. There was also an archeological dig closed to the public but with viewing platforms. They had labelled a 20ft wall with the age of each layer they had excavated starting from 2011 back to 400 AD.

We followed the fortress wall over the next ridge to where there was a lotus pond and building remains. There was also a buddhist temple here. We followed the wall back to the corner lookout from where we could see a panorama of the river and the north side of the town. There were also soldiers standing looking out. I thought they were dummies as they were perfectly still. Actually they were people in costume as they then turned and started to march away in precision.

Down in the festival area of the fortress there was costume dress up and childrens games . I dressed up as the king with the crown and took some pics. We were then quite hungry so wanted to leave the fortress and go to food tents set up outside. Just outside a small coloured passenger train just pulled in so we jumped on not knowing when the next one would arrive.

It took us about a 15 min walk in the opposite direction of town. Here there was a newly made Hanok village where people can rent rooms to stay. We went to the restaurant to look for food. All the items started with the word 범 (bam) which we didnt know what it was. Someone told us it meant 'chestnut'. So we ordered chestnut seafood pancake, and chestnut noodles. The taste was not that noticeable other than the dark colour which made us think it was meat before.

A short walk was the National Museum of Gongju. Since we couldnt goto the National Museum in Buyeo yesterday I was eager to see this one and what artefacts it had from the Baekje Dynasty. Entrance was free and had pottery, ironware, and jewellery . Outside the museum were stone statues and the path led us round to the royal tombs.

The tombs were all closed but had stone entranceways. They are the same domed hills like in Gyeongju the Shilla Dynasty capital east of Daegu. At the end of the tombs was a Royal Tomb Museum. This joined several of the tombs in a large interior hall. You can go inside the tombs to see the interiors.

The first was like a sauna and was very hot. You crawl thru a 3ft high crawlspace to get inside. There were just rocks in the hollow chamber. The second and third tombs were nicer as they had taller 4ft entrances with tiled bricks in the interior. These were probably fake reproductions but it was an intersting interior and one which I havent seen in korea before.

We then tried to get back to the fortress and the bridge across. We passed thru the festival market area and saw a grandmother drag act which we found quite strange . It was now after five so we decided to skip the festival area north of the river and just went back to the bus station.

We caught the 6pm bus which took 35 mins to get into the outskirts of Daejeon. We saw a subway station so jumped off as the bus terminal is not at the train station and we would have had to have taken another bus, whereas the bus is direct to the train station. This was my first time on the Daejeon subway which is quite nice and new even though it only has one subway line.

The high speed train from Daejeon got us to Dongdaegu in 50 mins so I was home after 9pm. We missed the night parade that was taking place in Gongju. There are also more big parades taking place sat/sun in Buyeo the following weekend but I am already booked elsewhere. Also there is a Gongju Chestnut Festival coming up. Some of these are just excuses to setup the tents again but fun anyway.

Having spent two days at the Baekje festival this year and visiting the town of Gongju instead of just Buyeo I still say this was one of my most enjoyable festivals that I went to. The parades, opening ceremonies show, fireworks, and floating lanterns combines so many other festivals as well as things unique to this week.

I look forward to going back again for a third year if I am still in Korea. If you want to goto events for the closing weekend coming up the festival website is http://www.baekje.org/html/en/