Palaces and temples and museums, oh my!Seoul, South Korea

Okay, the title of this post is a little misleading: we actually went to only one palace, one temple, and one museum in part one of our "Oh my God, we're leaving in four months so we must see everything immediately" tour of Seoul and the rest of Korea. Made possible by Lonely Planet, Moon Guidebooks, Jay's easy-going nature, and my obsessive planning skills. Huzzah. So we set off to see Gyeongbokgung, the largest palace in Seoul, the Folk Museum (within the palace), and some other nifty sites. In fact, I had a perfect circular route planned to hit as many sites as possible within a relatively short walking distance, starting and ending with a subway station. Mark, poor unsuspecting person that he is, tagged along for the ride....And by ride, I mean really efficient touristing (yes, I know it's not a word). 

First up on our list: Gyeongbokgung. This palace was beautiful and huge and easily accessible from our subway line (three). You can read more about the palace here, but the short summary is that it was built in the Joseon Dynasty in the late 14th century and was the primary palace of the five built during the time. It is a huge palace with many buildings and expansive plazas. Unlike Changdeokgung, a palace that we visited when we first arrived in Korea, Gyeongbokgung can be explored without a tour. 

After you exit the subway station and buy your entrance ticket (3,000 won for both the palace and the museum), you approach the main gate, which (at least today) was guarded by men in traditional costumes. We were lucky enough to arrive just as the clouds cleared.

Also, a giant drum.

After entering the main gate, you could choose any direction and walk for a while - the palace is made up of many buildings, most of which have open windows and are furnished with Joseon-dynasty furniture.

Like the Changdeokgung and other older Korean buildings, Gyeongbokgung is intricately detailed with vibrant painted designs on the carved wood walls and roofs. 

There were also many small stone statues, similar to gargoyles, around the palace buildings.

Inside the palace complex was an area to try on hanboks, the traditional Korean clothing, and take a picture. We didn't do it, but the attendants (as well as the few tour group leaders that were there) were all wearing hanboks. We were amused by this woman wearing traditional attire in an ancient palace while talking on her cellphone.

After peeking into a few of the buildings, we wandered to the lake area, where a lovely building was on the water.

We couldn't access the building, unfortunately, so we made our way towards the Folk Museum. The palace complex is so large that we actually got lost and had to check one of the many maps on the grounds to figure out where we were going. Basically, we had to find a path that would lead us to the giant pagoda.

As you can see, this area was especially crowded, although we had been able to explore without running into people for a while. There was even a wooden cutout of two cute (albeit swollen-headed) kids for photo opportunities, just in case the palace and the giant pagoda weren't enough.

Nearby, many of the trees were important enough to have labels explaining their names in Korean and, of course, Latin (because the Joseon dynasty was almost certainly dedicated to cataloguing trees by their Latin names). This one seemed like they might have just made it up.

When we arrived at the temple itself, we had to pick a path: children/juvenile individuals or adult tours. As we were adults, but not in a tour, we wandered toward the children's section (we figured we're juvenile enough in behavior to warrant it). It turned out to be a different museum altogether, but at the entrance were many structures built to show what a palace in the Joseon dynasty would have looked like, plus a group of traditional games. One was this circle game, where you were supposed to walk/run after a spinning hoop and use a metal pole to keep it moving and upright. Jay tried his luck.

We were pretty sure that it was cheating to have the metal hook in the loop the whole time (that's just carrying it), so he tried again. Can you tell he's sped up?

This girl knew how to play.

Finally, a game that Jay and I saw in Seonbichon village: a strange cross between horseshoes and darts, you had little wooden sticks that you would throw and try to get into a metal loop. 

So Jay and Mark played for a bit.

Mark ended up losing and bought Jay his dinner. 

We had to scamper back around the pagoda to the adult entrance of the Folk Museum, where there were multiple galleries to be seen. Many were organized in chronological order and, although they filled you in on enough history to make sure you understood what you were seeing, the museum mainly focused on showing everyday life at different periods of Korean history.

There were many well-done replicas of all sorts of items, from houses to kimchi preparation to town layouts to fishing villages to cows plowing fields.

The folk museum was excellent and I would heartily recommend it to anyone in the area (certainly if you enter Gyeongbokgung, you must also make time for the museum). It also had a children's museum, but as we've all had our share of the little hellions during the workweek, we skipped it. Outside was a small circle containing statues of the Chinese zodiac animals.

Here is a (rather long) video explaining the statues and the general area. 

After the palace and museum, we walked south a bit until we found Jogyesa, a buddhist temple in Insadong. The entrance was a beautiful gate with many colorful lanterns.

After passing through the gate we came to a charming Buddha statue, which we think was for donations to the temple.

There was also a beautiful tree behind the statue in front of the main hall.

Apparently this tree was very old and special. Here is it's description.

The main hall has three Buddha statues and the ceiling is beautifully covered with lotus lanterns. It was a beautiful and very peaceful place, and it felt very similar to Naesosa temple, where we spent a weekend a few months ago.

Outside of the main hall was an area for placing candles for prayer.

We left the temple to find dinner and take a short trip to Kyobo books, a huge bookstore near Gwanghwamun. When we were finished, it was dark.

So we went to theCheonggye stream (Cheonggyecheon), which is lit up and quite pretty at night.

Mark chose one side, we chose the other.

And there you have it: our day in Seoul. I hope you enjoyed the photos; we'll update on our trip to the Noryangjin Fish Market and Cherry Blossom Festival soon.