Sleepless Travels Reloaded

Unhyongung - Youngjung,
Rob, Ray

Unhyongung - Guesthouse

Unhyongung -
Guesthouse exterior

Unhyongung - Official Tree

Unhyeongung - Performance

On the 9th of July, we moved lodgings to Anguk Guesthouse in the Insadon/Anguk district. After checking in, we said good goodbye to Mokeun, who had to go back to his home town ;_;

After that, Rob and his girlfriend Youngjung took us to the nearby Unhyeon Palace (or Unhyeongung)

Gung means palace, as in Gyeongbokgung, Gyeongbok Palace. This is similar to the pronounciation for ‘palace’ in Mandarin too (’gong’). It’s actually quite small, about the size of a rather large mansion. I like this palace. It was actually bustling with activity. There were dance troupes practicing in the halls, and some women doing traditional Korean craftwork. There was also a lot of work going on in preparation for the concert later that evening.

Contrast that to the dead musty halls of the Forbidden City. An empty palace feels sad; it illustrates the fact that every age will pass away, even something as powerful as the Chinese emperors once were (watch out CCP!).

Anyway, this palace was for the king’s father, a very powerful former royal regent of the second last king, I think. At any rate, I’m pretty sure he was the father in law of Queen Min who was assasinated by the Japanese. He was her political enemy (he sides with the Japanese, Min with the Chinese), so he probably wanted this meddling woman put away. Jeez, royal politics. I don’t think it was a good idea siding with the Japanese.

-Mentally points to Japanese repeated destruction, of Korean palaces and culture. Also, don’t forget the Japanese ocupation (awww…who *wasn’t* occupied by the Japanese in WWII…)-

He practically invited them into the country! Well siding with the Chinese probably wouldn’t have been too good either. Oh well. It’s a problem when you’re a weak country…

Hmm, I get the impression he was a bit power-hungry, and possibly corrupt too. Well, when you’ve been the regent and basically control the whole country…I guess the power goes to your head. I guess even after handing over the reigns to the rightful king after he comes of age, and then having a meddlesome queen…he just couldn’t help himself? Maybe I’m totally defaming him XD
-too lazy to actually go and look up the historical accounts-

Side note: The Japanese were horrible and cruel in World War II. Lots of old people still hate the Japanese. Yet the young people are completely entranced by Japanese culture (ahahahah…..
-sheepish-). I don’t know what it is about them, if their culture wasn’t so mysteriously attractive I’d probably still dislike the Japanese ‘just because’. Yes, the Japanese we know now aren’t the same as the ones back then, but it happened before, and history has a tendency to repeat itself. Especially if the current generation don’t know what really happened.

SO, my point is, enough with the dodgy Japanese history textbooks! Enough with visiting Yasukuni Shrine. Yeah it doesn’t *do* anything, just visiting it, but there is an implication that the government still hasn’t faced up to its past. Apologise, correct the textbooks, and face up to it. Nobody’s perfect, we don’t expect you to be too. A loss of face is only temporary. Just get over it already.

Anyway, there was a cute little guesthouse. It is in a house detached from the main compound. Apparently only the most favoured got to stay here.

Rob’s sitting on the porch just outside the guesthouse. I imagine it’s in the same posture and style as many a visiting official would have sat, perhaps relaxing while on official business. Ghost from the past!

One hot day, the regent sat here under the tree. The regent loved the shade the tree gave so much he bestowed official status to the 3rd level (if I recall correctly). So it is an official tree. Not as in it is officially a tree, which would have been lame, but it is a tree with official status. Practically a yangban huh?

Well, I have nothing to say. But it is a very nice tree.

Again, we seemed to have very good timing. The event that evening is actually only an annual one! There was alot of traditional Korean dances, a storyteller, musical performances and traditional singing. The most entertaining part seemed to be the storytelling, pity it was in Korean. I wanted to pick up some information about the event, but all the English pamphlets were gone by the time I looked. Which is odd because I didn’t see any obviously English speakers there. I bet some of those Koreans picked up the English one by accident and then just chucked it out :@ :@

Well, there was one billingual information sheet about Unhyeongung in general, but the English was rather dodgy. Rob commented that the Korean was very good though XD

The dances got a big boring after awhile, so we left halfway through. Swish here and there, repeat ad nauseum. See, the dancers weren’t even very pretty, they were matron-shaped cakes of make-up…They really need to train up some young girls =_=.

But a really stand-out performance was the, literally, “3 things playing” (I think). It’s called sanmul…something. It’s an odd name, as there were more than 3 instruments playing. Even if you’re only counting the front row drums. It’s mainly an EXTREMELY energetic drum performance. Women can’t play it because it requires too much muscle, apprently. But they can join in with the string instrument accompaniments in the second row. I suppose the occasional melodies in between furious drumming gives the drummers a chance to rest a bit. The guy with the cymbal (just to the left of the pole) was awesome.