Changdeok Palace and the Blue House

I met up with Justin and Tim today. They are two other exchange students from UT who are also staying in the Sejong Inn. I woke them up at 9:30 to say hi, and we decided to go explore the city together. After looking through Tim’s guidebook, we selected Changdeok Palace as our destination.

One of the inner buildings

Walkway to the garden

We arrived just in time for the 11:30 tour of the Biwon(Secret) Garden.

Our lovely tour guide with adorably accented Engrish

Square pond represents the earch, circular island represents the sky

The royal library, emptied during the Japanese occupation

One of the numerous gates

A pagoda with my traveling companions, Justin(left) and Tim(right)

This house had a large and a small door. Guess which one was for the women?

The intricacy of the ceiling was astounding

A cluster of pagodas

The only pagoda with a thatch roof, surrounded by a rice paddy that would have
been tended by the king himself to symbolize his support for agriculture

A row of pots between the palace and the urbanized surroundings

The tour lasted almost two hours, and we explored the outer palace for a while before heading to lunch.

Protective figurines on the roof

Courtyard and inner throne room

View of the courtyard

Painted eaves

Another gate

The complex was enormous!

Setting off in a random direction, we stumbled across a kimbap place. Kimbap is basically sushi with egg, spam, and veggie filling. I got some delicious kimchi jjigae, a stew made of fermented cabbage.

mmm. The side dishes(banchan) from left to right:
Yongeun Jorim(sauteed lotus root), potato slices, kimchi

Afterwards, we kept wandering through the neighborhood.

A gorgeous mural

Happy graffiti!

When I caught sight of a mountain in the not-so-far distance, I knew I had to try to climb it. Justin and Tim made no protest, so we steered in that direction.

Pretty soon, we walked up a street and were stopped by a guard who told us, “Wait a minute” in rather good English. Turns out we had come across the Blue House, home of Korea’s ruling elite. My best guess is that there was an important dignitary arriving, and they didn’t want to let us innocent westerners, possibly hiding weapons under our coats, get anywhere near the guy. The blue house was situated at the foot of the mountain we had set out to climb, and had ridiculous security. There was a tall fence with rolls of razor wire on top, regular patrols inside the enclosure, watch stations, and numerous guards at every entrance.

A guard motioning not to take pictures. Oops.

One of the Blue House buildings
with the elusive mountain in the background

We carried on, saw a cool fountain, and came across a map that outlined no clear path to the top.

Phoenix fountain, currently turned off

Neat view of Seoul

Eventually we reached the apex of the road we were on, where there was an old gate, part of what I think was a wall around Seoul.

The gate

Here you can see the fence and wire
At the top of the stairs were guards that prevented us from going any farther,
saying, "no time."

Going down the other side of the mountain, we got on a bus using our Tmoney cards; you can use them for all sorts of transportation and even making calls. We got off at a subway station, and made our way back to the hotel.

A mural on the wall of one of many chicken and beer restaurants

We only serve happy chickens!

Tmoney card

My first bus!

Later that evening, I set out alone to attend mass for Ash Wednesday. The church was packed full, and I found a seat next to a nice old man who helped me follow along during songs. I was actually able to sing along to the slower songs. I guess I’m getting decent at reading Korean. The cathedral was huge and really echoed with the sound of so many people praying in unison. I wasn’t able to get any pictures, since the mass started right after I got there, and let out two minutes before the next one was supposed to start.

The line of people waiting to get into the church
(Sorry for the horrible quality)

I then walked through Myeongdong for the first time at night. It was very crowded and noisy. I found a food stand and got some ddeokbokki, fried rice and fish cakes in a spicy sauce, to go and ate it in my hotel room.

Myeongdong at night

Ddeokbokki wrapped up to go, and eaten with a toothpick