Gyeongbokgung Palace

Ok. Midterms are over, so it's back to not-work.

If you're just tuning in, I had a big adventure last weekend and decided to break it up into two posts because I'm already a pretty long-winded blogger. And there are LOTS of pictures in this one. So I was in a very large pedestrian area between two very busy roads. Then there was this castle.

It was about 3 when I got there, but I wasn't going to not go into this castle. So I crossed the busy street to get a closer look. I'm extremely glad I did too, the palace is my new favorite place in Seoul. I personally prefer the historical locations to museums. It's one thing to see something that had an impact, to me it's a whole other thing walking in the same places where history happened. Battlefields, private homes, even landmark buildings are my favorite places to visit. Appomattox, Graceland, Biltmore, Mount Vernon, I would love to visit them all. But hell, I'm on the other side of the planet. I may as well see how they do historical stuff over here. The answer is extremely well.

After crossing the street, I see the palace guards at the gates.

They stood still like the ones at Buckingham Palace

It took me a while to see whether or not they were just mannequins because their facial hair wasn't real. I figured they just put some fake beards on the mannequins until I saw one move his eyes. Kinda scary for a second, then I realized that it makes sense for guards to be disciplined. As I walked through the gate, I saw this beautiful mural on the ceiling

Colorful drawings of mythical creatures? Yeah, this place seemed directly up my alley. I stepped into a pretty barren courtyard, just the stone walkway and sand around it.

Not too much going on, but that's when I realized of course it's plain, you have to pay to see the good stuff. So I did. It cost a whopping 3000 Won. In terms of not monopoly money, about $2.75. The rest of my day was just walking around the palace looking at the beautiful architecture and colorful designs on the roofs, ceilings and doorways. It was absolutely beautiful. Also, I stumbled across the Korean presidential residence, The Blue House. It was right outside one of the palace's side gates. Here are a ton of photos from my day at the palace. None with me in them, sorry Mom and Pop.

The second gate

The Throne Room

Back of the second gate

The throne

Meow

The pond adjacent to the banquet hall 

The royal coffin chambers

The Blue House

The palace gate leading to the blue house

Another beautiful ceiling mural

My 2nd favorite picture of the day

My favorite picture.

Map of the Palace

Lyons know what's up

So yeah, that was the palace.

And then, being the blind idiot that I am, I totally missed the naval memorial to Admiral Yi.

It was a good day in Seoul. It was the first time I really felt like I was in the Capital City of another country.



I'm really gonna miss this place.