In the green hills east of Gyeongju, where the old Silla capital gives way to the rice fields and pine woods that lead toward the East Sea, the Joseon dynasty left a different kind of monument. Oksanseowon is a Confucian academy, a seowon, built in the sixteenth century to honour the scholar Yi Eon-jeok, known by his pen name Hoejae, who lived from 1491 to 1553. It belongs to the Yangdong cluster, part of the Historic Villages of Korea inscribed by UNESCO in 2010 together with Hahoe, and it shows how the Neo-Confucian elite wanted to live, study and be remembered.
The academy is set at the foot of a hill beside a stream, and its layout is a lesson in discreet beauty. A tall pavilion, the Muoru, hangs over the water, its open floor designed so that scholars could sit and watch the seasons pass. Behind it are study halls, a lecture room, dormitories and a shrine, all in grey tile and unpainted wood, arranged on rising terraces according to rank. The point was to live in harmony with the landscape, and that is why the buildings seem to grow out of the hillside. Nearby, the Yangdong village itself has hundreds of tile-roofed and thatched houses on a hillside, many dating back centuries, and it is still lived in by the descendants of two clans.
The approach is through gentle country with pleasant, easy roads, rice and persimmon fields, and low hills. It is not demanding riding, but it is calm, with small villages, farm traffic and little else. Autumn, with orange persimmons and golden rice, is the best season, and spring brings cherry and plum blossom. The summer is hot and wet. The petroglyphs of the Bangucheon stream, to the south near Ulsan, are an unusual neighbour, carved with whales and hunters thousands of years ago.
Pohang, a steel city of about half a million people, lies eighteen kilometres to the east, and Yeonil, closer, is a small market town with fuel and food. In Gyeongju, to the south-west, the royal tombs, Bulguksa temple and Seokguram grotto are among the great sights of Korea. Take off your shoes where asked, speak quietly and look at the roofs. They are the best part.