Seoul trip
Sep/090
We visited Seoul at the end of July. Only now have I gotten around to posting the pictures.
In Seoul, we visited the largest Buddhist temple in the area. Unfortunately, the pictures we had taken weren’t very good and the temple wasn’t much different than Beomeosa in Busan.
We also visited one of the imperial palaces, Changdeokgung, and took a tour through the palace grounds. This palace was originally built in the 15th century and has been renovated a few times throughout history. Gung is the ending that signifies a palace, so this is “Changdeok palace.”
Changdeokgung tour
This is the king's road to his throne. The two sides of the road are lower, and the higher(middle) section was only for the king to walk on.
The king's throne room
This is the king's throne. Notice the picture behind it of the sun, moon, and five mountains. It's behind all the kings' thrones in Korea. The sun represents the king, the moon represents the queen, and the five mountains represent five aspects of his kingdom.
These are rooftop guardians of the throne room.
The king's living quarters. According to Confucian rules, men and women should sleep separately, so the queen had her own quarters.
The remodeled interior of part of the king's quarters. Now, it's just a large western-style living room.
After the king's quarters were lost in a fire (and later rebuilt), he took the opportunity to make his living quarters in the same building as the queen, and this mother of pearl couch is in the living room separating the two rooms.
This beautiful artwork is reserved only for temples and palaces. It was against the law for anyone else to paint a house or building in this way.
This ondol fireplace is used to heat the floors of the palace. On one end of the building is the fireplace, on the other end is the chimney. There is a gap under the floor, above which is a layer of clay which rests under the actual floor. The heat/smoke from the fire heats the gap and the clay, keeping the floor nice and warm for the winter time. It is because the heat comes from the floor in this way that Koreans do everything at floor level (eating, sleeping, pretty much everything). And that's why they take their shoes off at the door, to keep the floor - the surface they do everything on - clean.
Walkway to the Secret Garden
This is the largest pond in the gardens; behind it is the palace library.
The pond and library
Notice the three gates in front of the library (a big one and two tiny green ones on each side). Only the king was allowed to go through the middle gate. Everyone else had to go through the tiny green gates, which were intentionally made so small that you have to bow to walk through them. Only the king was allowed to walk upright through the gate.
This gate is supposed to keep you from aging if you walk through it. It's one of those "long live the king" kind of things.
A rose of sharon, the national flower of Korea
We also spent some time in Insadong, a tourist-centered area.
Here’s the only picture we took:
The alleyway to a vegetarian restaurant that we found in Insadong.
We also went on what was described as a “shaman walk” up into a mountainside where there is a temple and various shrines.
A view of Seoul
These are some rocks on a mountain behind a Buddhist temple that are supposedly shaped like a monk meditating. I think that shamanists worship there, too.
The Seoul fortress wall
Here's another view of Seoul and the temple
These rocks are the Skeleton rocks.
We also did some shopping in Seoul, but we don’t have any pictures of that, as it was really cramped and a picture wouldn’t really reveal anything about the experience. Hopefully, this weekend we will be going to Gyeongju, but if we don’t we will go eventually, and I will write about some of our other or future adventures.
No comments yet.
Leave a comment
No trackbacks yet.