10 Days in Seoul: A City Susceptible to Bad Puns: Monday, June 15

I was on my own in Seoul today. Well, at least after lunch. Chris and Laura took me to a place with special shabu-shabu, which is a lot like Chinese hot pot. As with pretty much all food here, it was delicious. In fact, it had 3 stages of deliciousness, each one enhancing the broth further.

I spent the day at Gyeongbokgung Palace and the National Folk Museum of Korea. The last English tour of the palace was at 3:30 and I arrived around 3:45. Instead of checking out the palace museum, a separate building dedicated to the palace history, I decided to try and catch up with the tour.

Luckily I was able to find them in time to catch the last 15 minutes or so. The palace itself was astonishing. Within it are all of these sub-palaces (like guest houses, gardens, and entertainment pavilions), which I guess are not sub-palaces at all. They are fancy, though. The sheer space is magnificent, especially contrasted with the cramped bustle of the surrounding city. For example, the main throne room is surrounded by a courtyard the size of a football field. The tour guide told a funny story about one of the kings. Apparently this dynasty is famous for keeping incredible records of everything that happened, contained in a huge volume that is now a national treasure. The king, however, did not treasure being followed around all the time by scribes who chronicled his every move. According to one account, the king went out hunting one day and tumbled off of his horse. Completely embarrassed, he told his guard that this incident should be stricken from the official records. In the historical documents there is an entry that reads something like "king fell from horse hunting. was instructed not to write this down. no serious injuries to his highness."

(big courtyard)

(these stones tell the aristocracy where to stand by station)

(entrance. guards!)

(statues all over the place... palace)

(the throne room)

(I don't know what this is)

(some kind of different building, mysterious!)

After wandering around the palace, I checked out the folk museum. Finding the museum was an accident, and I didn't know it would close 30 minutes after I went in. Though, I should have since Laura told me and I forgot. There ere some pretty cool old tools and clothes that impressed me given the time period they were from. Around the outside of the museum were little mock villages with guardian statues, gardens, and graveyards. The coolest thing about the museum was actually outside. They had a circle of statues representing the zodiac animals as anthropomorphic Korean warriors. Perhaps I am just easy to please by things that look like they could be out of a comic book or something.