Tag Archive | Gyeongbokgung palace

Gyeongbokgung Palace

Catching up on blogging today! Two weeks ago we went to Seoul and met Andrew at the Gyeongbokgung Palace.

Here’s a little blurb from the Korea tourism site about Gyeongbokgung Palace:

“Built in 1395, Gyeongbokgung Palace is also commonly referred to as the “Northern Palace” because it is the furthest north when compared to the neighboring palaces of Changdeokgung (Eastern Palace) and Gyeongheegung (Western Palace). Gyeongbokgung Palace is arguably the most beautiful and remains the grandest of all five palaces. The premises were destroyed by fire at the time of Japanese occupation from 1592-1598. However, all of the palace’s 7,700 rooms were later restored under the leadership of Heungseondaewongun during the reign of King Gojong (1852~1919).”

Gyeongbokgung Palace

So there’s your history lesson for the day! It’s really beautiful, and the architecture is amazing. Unfortunately there are not a lot of signs in English, so we weren’t sure what most of the buildings/rooms actually were. But we still enjoyed them 🙂 After we finished touring the palace, we went to a part of the museum where there were recreations of Korean villages/towns, starting way back when (not sure when, couldn’t read the signs) to the 60’s. Matt made friends with a train conductor on the fake train.

Matt’s new friend

Afterwords, Andrew had to head off to a dinner party, so Matt and I explored the Insadong neighborhood in Seoul, a really fun touristy shopping area. We decided to brave an”Indian food” restaurant, which wasn’t horrible, but as you can probably guess, not the most authentic Indian food we’ve ever had 🙂 Overall, it was a good time!