Sleepless Travels Reloaded

Hello again. I disappeared for what feels like a few weeks, doing this and that, but mostly sleeping.

Interestingly enough, my influx of Korean-themed blog entries has somehow garnered me a listing on Kangmi’s Korean Bloglist [scroll down to the bottom under "The Wider Korean Blogosphere"]. I think it must just be an automatic listing based on the words contained in my most recent entry, because at the bottom of the lists it says that it is powered by Bloglines.

Okay, on to the main beef. The theme for this entry is just ‘building exteriors’. Note the compicated roof structure and colour scheme - very Chinese, I thought. It was like being in the Forbidden City again (forgive me for the frequent comparisons to that place)…

Well there are some differences. I don’t know if they are caused by the difference in construction time, or just because it’s Korean.

[China: first built Ming dynasty (1600s?) renovated and additions added during Qing dynasty (~1700-~1910), Gyeongbokgung: really have no idea when first built but the whole thing was burnt down by the Japanese in early 1900s, rebuilt recently by the government.]

Anyway, I noticed that the Korean buildings tended to be a bit more solid-looking (or maybe the FP is just falling apart…which it was!). Okay, the FP was huge and grand and it stood on huge slabs of stone too, but the edges and angles seemed softer. In the photos here you can see the stone slabe the buildings rest on are cut very….polygonal-ly. Or something.

Also, note the animals on the rooftop…spines are whatever they’re called (most obvious in the third photo). Here, the stone sculptures are stuck on blocky lengths of white concrete. It outlines the roof spine rather clearly. The stone sculptures are normally dark blue black in colour. They are rather solid-looking lumpy pieces that depict animals such as lions. I don’t know if it’s actually stone - I wouldn’t be surprised if they were actually made of metal.

For Chinese buildings, any roof ornamentation has to sit directly on the roof tiles, there is no white stone covering. The ornamentation tends to be more whimsical and delicate looking - normally there are dragons snaking down the length of the roof, complete with whiskers waving in the air. It’s so delicate that protective wire is normally put over the ornamentation. It’s a bit of an eyesore and destroys the view, but I guess it’s better then having the whiskers break off in a hail storm. The Korean roof ornamentation didn’t have wire protection; they don’t need it anyway XD

The building in the third photo used to be the Queen’s quarters. They allowed people to go into this building, but shoes had to be removed before stepping up and into the building.

I really quite like these buildings. Nice and solid. Hardwearing.