Sleepless Travels Reloaded

Gyeongbokgung second main
entrance gate
Originally uploaded by tr[n]ty.

View from throne room towards second
main gate, note city buildings behind

re-enaction ceremony

re-enaction ceremony

Us and the guard

While in Seoul, we visited Gyeongbok-gung (palace). There are a few palaces right in the centre of Seoul but this is the main one. It’s quite amazing how even though it’s in the centre of Seoul, it looks like you’re out in the country most of the time (when you are facing towards the back of the palace).

Throughout the summer they hold openining/closing of the main gate ceremonies - in period costume, and as near as possible to how it was done a few hundred years ago.

Seems like a few hundred years ago there was this really loyal general who was in charge of the gates. And he demonstrated his loyalty to the royal family by making up really really complex ceremonies for the opening/closing of the gates. Actually it’s so complex that the re-enacted ceremony is an edited version. The original ceremony was supposed to show how much the general cared about the royal family’s security. I don’t know how effective this sort of thing was though -__-”

There was pomp, splendour, trumpets and a really big drum too! (I took videos but I’m not even going to think about uploading them on dialup -_-). Apparently the society for preservation of history (or something like that) looked up the old palace records which described the ceremonies in a very detailed manner. So even the guards’ costumes are pretty accurate.

Anyway, the demonstrations were performed just inside the main gate of the palace. We didn’t have to pay to enter this area, so actually anyone can come and watch the performance without having to pay entrance fees. The entrance fees were also pretty reasonable, especially compared with how much and how frequently we had to pay entrance fees to cultural heritage sites in Beijing -grumble-.

Everyone was taking photos with the guards who would always only look straight ahead. Reminds one of those outside Buckingham eh? All of the guards had a really traditional Korean look. We speculated that they were selected from the guys doing Korean compulsory military service - a ’special assignment’.

I quite like Gyeongbokgung. In layout, it’s sort of like the abridged version of the Forbidden City in Beijing. So instead of walking for hours and hours in the hot sun, at least Gyeongbokgung only took us a about two and a half hours. Although I guess I as surprised the main throne room was so near to the main entrance…in China the main throne room was about 3 big halls (with their LARGE paved plazas in between).

Next entry: palace interiors and buildings!

P.S. It’s my 21st birthday today!

Photos from Gyeongbokgung: here
Photos from Korea: here