A Weekend in Seoul - Pt. 2

Sunday December 23, 2018

Our first stop Sunday was to Deoksugung Palace, a quick (5 min) taxi ride from the Dragon Hill. We arrived around 10:15 am and found out that the place offers a free English speaking tour at 10:30. We decided to take a quick lap by ourselves first and then check out the tour. It was a pretty chilly day, so our "self-guided tour" basically consisted of us walking from one patch of sunshine to the next haha.

A little bit before 10:30 we made our way to the starting point of the tour and found out that we were the only people interested. Score. We were also wanting to see the Changing of the Guard ceremony at 11, and, since we were the only ones on the tour, our guide was more than happy to oblige. She said we'd cut the tour down to 45 min, so we could catch the second half (exactly the same as the first half, but in reverse) of the changing of the guard at 11:15. Win win win.

Once that was all settled she took off both walking and talking at a ridiculous speed. It was all John and I could do to keep up haha. Luckily her English was pretty good, so we caught the gist of pretty much everything she was saying. She went pretty deep into the history and personnel involved with the palace, which tended to make John and I's eyes glaze over... all the names started to sound the same haha.

For those interested, the main things we came away with from the tour is that this site is only a 10th of its original size, and it was used more as a royal residence and less as a palace.

Another highlight of the tour was when we were speed walking from one building to the next and our guide turned to us and said, "I feel like I'm being chased!" HAHAHA poor girl. It was very nice of her to accomodate us though, and much more fun walking around with someone who knows what they're looking at, rather than having John try to remember the few things he'd learned about the site a year before.

We finished the tour, as promised, a minute or two before 11:15 which allowed us to find a decent spot to watch the last half of the changing of the guard. All in all I don't think we could have time our visit any better.

From Deoksugung it was a simple walk down one of Seoul's main roads to Gyeongbokgung, the "big palace." On our way we passed by this cool statue.

I'm not sure who he is... but it's gotta be someone important right?

We also walked through Gwanghwamun Square, which had a statue of Sejong the Great. King Sejong personally created the Korean alphabet known as Hangul (prior to that they used Chinese characters and only the rich/royal/educated could read and write). A Pretty important dude.

A look back at Gwanghwamun Square

Eventually we made our way to the outer palace gates. The first set of gates opened up to a giant courtyard, on one side were the ticket booths to get through the main gates into the palace propper, and on the opposite side was the National Palace Museum of Korea.

The free English tour of Gyeongbokgung Palace didn't start until 1:30, so we decided to have a look around the museum until it got closer to tour time. The museum is really well done and kept our attention for a good 45 min. I think the best part was being able to warm up inside, and finding a bench to sit and rest our feet though haha. Not gunna lie, it was prrreeeetttyy hard getting up and heading back into the chilly weather after the nice break.

Look close and you can see our awesome guide all miked up and ready to go.

This tour was much better attended with about 20 of us following our guide to the main highlights of the palace grounds (the place is huge!). It started right in front of the main palace building where official business was conducted.

A peak inside the main palace shows the King's thrown (red staircase) and all the intricate decoration and designs. The guide told us a lot of interesting facts about the symbolism of the decor.. can't seem to remember any of it now though.

Behind the State buildings were the King's quarters. Interesting fact here, the Koreans invented a form of underground heating that kept their residences nice and warm during the chilly winters. Awesome huh?

From the King's quarters we were ushered to this big pavilion where the big state functions, parties, celebrations, coronations, etc. took place. Fun(ny) fact about this building is that the characters on the front translate to "The Big Joy" or something like that haha. John and I had a good chuckle when our guide informed us of that tidbit.

Again, it turned out to be a fun trip through the palace grounds, and a million times better with a guide. Also, the tour is free. Can't beat that.

From the palace we took off on foot again to Bukchon Hanok Village, a neighborhood known for it's old-fashioned/traditional Korean look and feel. By the time we got there both of us were too tired to really enjoy it though. We didn't last long and didn't take a single picture either haha. It took about an hour to get back to the hotel using public transportation, and, as a cherry on top, when we got to the gate to enter Yongsan I realized I had grabbed my driver's liscense instead of my military ID (MAJOR EYE ROLL). Luckily it wasn't too terribly far of a walk for John to get to the hotel and come back with my ID.

The rest of the evening was spent at the Lodge. We debated whether or not to go out and check out more sites that evening, but with the cold weather and pool/hot tub tempting us we decided to stay in. I feel like we got a good glimpse of the fun things Seoul has to offer though, and don't think either of us regretted the decision.