Day 63

GYEONGBOKGUNG PALACE

During the week my schedule doesn't allow me to get out of Chuncheon, but on the weekends I often go to Seoul.  Seoul is, in a word, enormous.  A full quarter of the South Korean population lives in Seoul.  It's the largest city in any first-world country.  Let's compare Seoul to New York City.

New York City proper has 8 million people, but if you include the surrounding 'NYC Metro' area, that jumps to 19 million.  NYC proper has a density of about 27,000 people per square mile.  Seoul proper has 10 million people, but the Seoul metro area has 23 million.  Seoul proper's density is 42,000 people per square mile.  That is a lot of people.

Anyway, just understand that you probably can't wrap your head around how huge Seoul is until you see it for yourself.  I can barely comprehend it.  You can travel for two hours by subway (which doesn't have traffic) and still be in Seoul.  It's crazy.  Now let's move on.

So what is there to do in Seoul?  The most obvious answers are 'shopping' and 'clubbing.'  I've been doing my fair share of both.  But more on that stuff later, responsible and classy stuff first.

There's actually a lot of cool historical and cultural stuff to see and do in Seoul!  There are tons of museums, temples, historical sites, and so on.  Most of them are easily accessible by subway, well-stocked with English educational materials, and either free or less than $5 per person.  So far I've only been to one major attraction in Seoul: Gyeongbokgung Palace.

Gyeongbokgung Palace is pretty cool!  Here's the first thing you see:

A palace in the middle of high-rise business buildings.  Huh.

This is the first of three gates to the palace, and it's called Gwanghwamun.  The Koreans are really into naming things.  Every single gate, building, and even bridge has its own name.  The name of the palace means "palace that is greatly blessed by heaven."  That's the only translation that I've got, sorry.

You can't see in this picture, but this gate is guarded!  The guards are adorable.

Looks like a comfy uniform.

This guy gets a flag.  They've all got swords that I assume are fake.

I happened to see the changing of the guards, which was frankly pretty uneventful.  Definitely not something I'd have waited to see.  There's a bit of bell-ringing and some marching, that's about it.

It almost escaped my notice, but all the guards are wearing false facial hair.  No joke.

All of them have fake beards/goatees and mustaches.

You pay at this gate, then enter the palace through the second gate, Heungnyemun.

Second gate.  Are all these gates really necessary?

Also, what's up with the color scheme?  A pink wall isn't very intimidating.

And third gate. Geunjeongmun.  Yeah, they all sound the same to me too.  Before reaching this gate there's a very small bridge.  The bridge also has a name.  

Fun fact: if you pick up the rocks in Korean tourist attractions, each rock has its own individual name etched into the bottom.
These people name everything.

Oh boy!  Past the third gate and into the palace proper!  This is Geunjeongjeon, the throne hall.  Here the kings gave audience to important people.  It looks like it has two stories, but really, it's just a really high ceiling.

Not a bad place for entertaining, eh?

This building was built in 1395 and burned down by--surprise!--the Japanese in the late 1500's.  For those entirely unfamiliar with Asian history, Japan was the big bad wolf of the Pacific until we crushed them in WWII.  We now know Japan mostly for their weird television shows and horrifying sex toys, but once they were known for brutally terrorizing the rest of Asia.  Go google "rape of Nanjing" if you don't believe me.

Anyway, the Japanese were bullies and invaded Korea a few times.  In 1592 they came and burned everything to the ground, including Gyeongbokgung Palace.  The site was abandoned for a few hundred years before being completely rebuilt in 1867.

Told you them were some high ceilings.

Things were going pretty well at Gyeongbokgung Palace until 1895, when tensions were again rising between Korea and Japan.  The Korean queen, Empress Myeongseong, reached out to Russia for help in defying the Japanese.  The Japanese retaliated by sending assassins to kill her, and the emperor moved out shortly after that.  No royalty returned, because Korea lost the war and Japan took over.  The Japanese destroyed all but 10% of the buildings in 1915 under the pretext of needing the land for an exhibition.

Gold dragons?  Yep.

I love the Korean motifs of dragons and lions.  Neither animal has ever been found in Korea.

So basically this entire place was rebuilt starting in the 90's and continuing today.  You really have to admire the tenacity of the Koreans.  Imagine that the Declaration of Independence was destroyed, accidentally or otherwise.  Americans would be devastated and mourn the loss of a national treasure.  The Koreans would just make another one, declare it a new national treasure, and continue like nothing happened.

The king's throne/chair/stage in the entertainment hall.

Close-ups of art.

An attempt at a panoramic picture of the interior of the hall.

After this, there's the royal library:

It's called Jibokjae!

And there's also the lovely royal banquet hall, built on an artificial pond.  This place was off-limits to almost everyone except the king, and there's a story about the king catching one of his low-ranking officials in the hall.  The official said that he just couldn't resist because it was so pretty.  Instead of being a jerk about it, the king complimented his fine taste and love of beauty, and the next day raised the official a few ranks.  If only all trespassing stories ended this well.

This is called Gyeonghoeru.

It really is gorgeous though.  There were several couples taking wedding or engagement photos here.

There's koi in there too.

Traditional Korean self-portrait.  There are literally dozens of Koreans taking selfies at all times at any
tourist attraction, no matter where you are.   Even old people do it.

Not sure if they're getting engaged or married.  The woman is wearing a traditional Korean dress is called a "hanbok."

I'd go to a party here.  This would make an excellent Korean nightclub.

And the last thing I remember the name of is another lovely artificial pond with a cute little two-story pagoda on an island.  This is called Hyangwonjeong.

Very pretty in the fall!

From the other side.

I especially like the structure in the background, which is part of the National Folk Museum.

This pond is fed by a cold spring.  Nice!

Sadly, I was not permitted to get a closer look.

Okay, I'm officially out of things I know anything about.  So here's some other stuff.

Decorations on the roof.  These were everywhere.

Dragon?  Lion?  Wizard werewolf?  No clue.

Not sure if they're monkeys or people.

This is somewhere in the palace.  It clearly wasn't very popular... or important.

I left the palace park entirely on accident and found myself at the National Folk Museum.  

Ta-daaaah!  You can't go on these steps though.

Got an old guy to take a picture for me.  Thanks, old guy.

Here's some zodiac statues protecting something:

How the heck did the dragon get into the zodiac?  It's the only imaginary animal and it's waaaay cooler than the others.

According to the sign, in ancient times Korean people use this three-bar system to let others know how long they'd be away from the house.  One bar means coming home soon, two bars is gone for the whole day, and three bars means the family will be gone for several days.  Apparently house robberies weren't a big issue back then.

Very trusting, those Koreans.

Another view of the museum.  Not really sure if that building on the right is part of the museum or not.

The museum is an impressive building though.  I'm excited to go inside!

I didn't go inside because I'm saving museums for winter, when it's too cold to do anything else.  But one of their exhibits is an open-air outdoor recreation of Korean homes and businesses from different periods.  It was actually pretty cool, because you can actually go inside some of the buildings and mess with stuff.  I love that.

You can't see, but there's water and the wheel is actually turning.

It's a pretty ingenious system to crush stuff.  I'm taking notes for the future.
You know, post-apocalypse rebuilding and all that.

Here's a building where you can go inside and play traditional Korean instruments.  This kid was psyched!

Half of the outdoor was really old stuff, and the other half was 40's-50's era Korea.

The recreated street.  Cute!

Barber shop!

This place is probably functional, too.  Love the blue tiles.

Comic book store.

Traditional restaurant!

How do they make plastic food look so realistic?  Amazing.
Those copper kettles are for makkoli, the Korean rice-beer.

The coffee shop was functional and had seating and a coffee machine.  Koreans love crappy, burnt-tasting sweet coffee.
These two were adorable, they gave me peace signs in one picture but it was blurry.  :(

I also got a picture with a girl in a hanbok!

YEAAAAAAH!

I wandered back into the Gyeongbokgung Palace realm and stumbled upon a tent full of food, unattended but watched by some dudes in suits.  I asked around and gathered that if I waited for about five minutes for some ceremony to end, I would get some food.  So of course I stayed.

This lady was in the ceremony.  She's wearing a very pretty hanbok and fake hair.  

I really like her hanbok!

How do I know her hair is fake?  Because Korean people almost without exception separate into age groups by hair.  The longer the hair, the younger the person is.  There are a few people with short hair, but their hair is always straight.  Below the shoulders is under 30, shoulder length is 30-40, and then it gets progressively shorter until they hit 60.  About 99% of old Korean women, called ajumma, have the exact same hairstyle, which we waegukin (foreigners) call the "ajumma cut."  

Notice that all of them have the same haircut, visors, shoes, and exactly two styles of pants.
I didn't take this, I just found it on the internet.  Couldn't find a credit.

Anyway, back to the lady with the fake hair and waiting for snacks.

That's right, Korean woman with a weave.

 While waiting for the ceremony to end, this brother-sister duo was running around in their traditional gear (minus shoes.)

Cute girl!

So far, not a single parent has called me out when I take pictures of their kids.
Try THAT in America.

Finally it was time for food and tea!

Yeah!  Free snacks!  I was the only non-Korean person at this little event.

Frankly I have no idea what the snacks were.  Notice that they're served on real leaves.  From trees.

Lotus tea!

And here's what I got: one cup of tea, one chalk-like cookie (?) and three gooey rice cakes with cinnamon-flavored fluid filling.  Served on a leaf, and that's a real flower on the end of the stick.  I also got a second serving of tea, and both flavors were delicious!  I LOVE free snacks!

Nomnomnom.

Yep, just a bunch of people chilling and eating free snacks and tea in a palace.

On the way out I got a few more shots of adorable kids.  These ones got me first!

Do you have any idea how often Korean kids point at me and say to their parents, "Waegukin!"
An awful lot, that's how often.

Look how cute this girl is!  I want one!

The palace was beautiful and I can't wait to visit the museum!  I followed up this outing with a visit to the foreign food market in Itaewon, and later with a barbecue on the American army base, where I finally got an edible cheeseburger.  An excellent weekend!

Next weekend I'm planning to visit the infamous Penis Park in Samcheok, so hopefully this time next week I should have some lovely phallic photographs up on here!  :)

Cheers,

-애쉬톤 / Ashton