Gyeongbokgung Palace

On Monday, Bee and I took the afternoon to wander around Seoul and see the sights and culture of the city. The Seoul is WAY too big to be seen in one day, even one week. There is just so much here and so many things to see in different parts of town. They have a really good subway system here with 10 different lines that makes it easy to travel between the different parts of the city but there is so much in each of those parts that each one takes a day to explore. One of the subway lines, line 2 (the green line), circles the city. I have not been all the way around on it but I have been about half way and that trip took about 40 or 50 minutes. So you can imagine how big this city is when it takes over an hour and a half to circle it on the subway...and that is just the main part of the city.



So, the part of the city Bee and I chose to explore this particular day was an area called Jongno-gu which is just north of City Hall. It is a lovely area. The head of a pretty good sized stream cascades over a concrete waterfall there runs through the northern parts of the city. There are foot paths down each side of it and occasionally you will find large rocks arranged so you can walk from one to the other across to the other side. It is all very serene. Also in this area is Gyeongbokgung Palace.

It is a big palace and I have seen the wall, and the gate several times driving by but Monday was the first opportunity to go in and explore it. The palace was once the heart of Seoul and where the governing seat of some dynasty was before it was evaded by Japan. Most everything was in Korean so we did not get much out of the visit but it was very beautiful and exciting to wander around and see the palace grounds and the different court yards. I really enjoyed it. It cost 3000 won each to get in to the palace but I thought it was worth the adventure, to see what an old Asian palace looks like and to see the government buildings of a dynasty.

In a very small way it reminded me of going to see something like Sutter's Fort in California, just much more scenic and much, much bigger. What I remember of Sutter's Fort is a large open dirt enclosement. This palace had gardens and ponds and streams running through it. It had large and small courtyards, courtyards within courtyards and many different sized buildings, with even more diverse culture within its giant defensive walls.

- Many more pictures Here -