Hi Seoul!
November 15, 2010
I had a hard time choosing between Gyeongbokgung and Changdeokgung, which was just across the road from where we stayed. My greatest regret in this entire trip was not choosing Changdeokgung on this day! :(:(
Gyeongbokgung was destroyed during the Japanese invasion (1592-98) and the site remained vacant for the next 273 years. The buildings have been rebuilt and restored over the last three centuries. So majority of the gates and halls look new.
I don't watch Korea shows in pre-modern/traditional settings (like Dae Jang Geum or Goong I find them too slow and draggy) so I wasn't quite able to relate the history of the palace to whatever I was seeing. Most of the halls and buildings were empty and no different from one another. Worse still, we didn't get an audio guide so I only had a superficial understanding of the place and that doesn't feel good...at all.
Here come the guards
Give the kiddo a break, can't you see she's more interested in the palace than looking at your lens?
Notice the influence of traditional Chinese architecture here. Despite the resemblance, there are differences as well in terms of materials used (wood vs brick), colour scheme, colours of roof tiles, level of detail of the statuettes on the roofs and how they were lined along the ridges of the roof and how high the eaves of the roofs were raised.
Most of the buildings sit on a stone foundation like this.
Doors have low clearance and small roof on top.
The king used Gyeonghoe-ru to entertain foreign envoys or hold large-scale banquets for his ministers.
Nice red beret
and nice red tree
Hyangwon-jeong Pavilion
The teacher was taking a long time to take a group photo of these children, who had to stand for so long, facing the blinding sun. The moment she was finally done with the group photo all of them scurried off.
There are two museums within the palace and we only had time to do the folk museum. Tomb-like figures of generals can be seen near the folk museum.
King Sejong, fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty, led the invention of Hangul or Korean characters. Gwanghwamun Square was opened just last year and is an important historical and cultural place where Korea's Presidential Grounds, the US Embassy and other important government buildings are located.
Lunch was at Gwanghwamun, an unknown restaurant selling Japanese food. We were so hungry we didn't take any photos of our food. When it comes to choosing what to eat, we use 'Win, Lose or Draw in the air' (when there's no menu, or menu is in Korean and there are no pictures, or no one speaks English or Chinese), 'Point-to-the-picture' (picture can be misleading) or 'Look-at-the-food-others-are-having' (not applicable if you're the only patron but most reliable method).
Namsan Park was gorgeous
By the time we reached the bottom of Seoul Tower, it was dark.
Now Dad's appearing on the paper too! But different Mom this time lol.
好辛苦才照到这张 手都冻坏了~
N stands for new. The tower was given a new look few years ago and renamed as N Seoul Tower.
All I could see was Michael Jackson dancing on a LED billboard
View pales in comparison to Taipei 101. I wonder is it due to the height of the tower or its location on top of a mountain cos it's all black when you look down. The windows of the viewing deck were poorly maintained too. If you've been to 101, can give this observatory deck a miss. Not worth the money (7,000W).
Dinner was at Myeongdong Gyoza. One serving is enough for two. This meal was his favourite.
The night ended with more shopping at Myeongdong again!
2 comments
looking at how much u've come to appreciate korea, i realised that i dun quite deserve to travel there. i dun really rmb all these man LOL. all i knew was lotte world everland samsung mt sorak kimchi dongdaemon... haha damn lame.
ReplyDeletebtw the dumplings or xiao long bao looks yummy :)
god i miss korea... its so spacious, windy and breath-taking. singapore's freaking packed. everywhere u go everyone's in ur personal zone and vice versa. its a torture
HT
we couldn't finish the dumpling it got a lil' sickening towards the end. go watch Hello Stranger you'll miss Korea even more :)
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