This entire day was full of cultural trips and exploring Seoul for the first time. This city is truly beautiful and different from anything I’ve never seen. The first stop today was to the royal palace or Gyeongbokgung Palace. This palace housed the kings of Korea and their entourages. Some interesting points about the palace was how central it is to Seoul. Just a few blocks away is the current city hall. However, you couldn’t tell that from looking at the palace because directly behind it was a beautiful mountain range. At 10 am the changing of the guard happened. This ceremony is extraordinarily complex with very specific movements and music. There was a large drum that would be struck at each part and it was so loud that it made my ears ring. After the ceremony, we explored the rest of the palace. The throne room was beautiful with a mural called the Painting of the Five Peaks. These peaks are the sacred mountains of Korea that symbolized the importance of the king. Another interesting part of the palace was the king’s quarters because they had heating. The floors were heated through a huge stone slab underneath the building that gained the heat through fires lit besides it. we saw the changing of the guard and then continued exploring the palace. The king’s quarters were very interesting. We learned that the rooms actually had heating through a stone slab under the floor that was heated with fire at the ends of the building.
The next stop was at Jogyessa Temple which I accidentally saw yesterday while exploring the streets nearby the hotel. This time we were able to go into the temple itself and see its beauty up close. There were piles of offerings near the shrine as well as dozens of people praying near the base.
The Cheonggyecheon stream was next. This stream runs through the center of Seoul underground and was recently rejuvenated back to its former glory by the then mayor of Seoul, Lee Myungbak. He brought the stream back to life with walkways and waterfalls as well as small bridges and flowers lining the entire stream. You would never expect such a beautiful peace of nature in the middle of a busy city but somehow Seoul was able to make it work.
The last stops were Bukchon Hanok village and the Namdaemun Market. Bukchon Hanok is a small historic part of the city where traditional buildings are kept and maintained. This is still a residential village so there were signs everywhere telling the visitors to be quiet and respectful of the people still living there. This houses were beautiful with highly intricate doors and tiled roofs. It was interesting how modern life and traditional aesthetic merged with gutters lining the old roofs and electrical wires crossing the street.
The Namdaemun market is a huge complex of small shops and vendors covering an entire district of the city. The prices were extremely low with socks being less than 1 USD each and everything else much less than 10 USD. It was amazing how far just a little bit of money could go on souvenirs and various home goods.
