Korea Part II

Time to finish writing about Korea :) Part I in case you missed it.

One of the major things I did on the second day I was in Korea was go to the Gyeongbokgung Palace, which was one of the royal palaces in Korean history. They have free tours in English, so since I knew absolutely nothing about Korean history, I decided to join in on one of those. We had stopped at one of the East Palaces (the smaller, non-World Heritage one) and I had gone through it really fast and read some of the signs... but it was only slightly of interest. Figured hearing more about the place would be more fun than just cruising through it (as much as I wanted to spend the whole day just eating haha).

A lot of the architecture was really similar to Chinese palaces, which isn't much of a surprise since both Korean and Japanese cultures kind of stemmed from Chinese (Confucian) classical culture. The four directional guardians were there as well, surrounding some of the structures within the palace ground: the red phoenix in the south, white tiger in the west, blue dragon in the east, and black turtle to the north. Thank you, Fushigi Yugi, for teaching me about these mythological creatures.

There were three main gates in the front of the palace, which extended so that from the front palace, the royals could see the peasants in the street (and be reminded of who they were supposed to be representing, our guide said). The road to the palace was also divided into three: one road for civil servants, one for the military, and one for the royals (I think? Or was it two roads...).

What was super interesting to me was the color choices the Korean royals decided to paint this place (since presumably, despite this being a reconstruction, they tried to keep the colors true to the originals that had been destroyed by the Japanese during wartimes). Normally, palaces in Japan - not that I've seen the Imperial Palace beyond the gated walls - tend to be fairly earthy colors, or blacks or something. Chinese palaces tend towards the auspicious color red. But this place... was painted green, and had bands of other very bright primary colors all over. There was also this amazing structure with a square pond (that had frozen over since it was so cold). I swear it looked like the scene from some kungfu movie or something.

In the rear of the palace, there was yet another pond - this one more "feminine" because of its roundness, or something. Our guide also informed us that these rear gardens were the home to tragedy as well, since one of the Empresses was actually murdered back there by Japanese assassins. That was kinda crazy to hear about, how that happened. Actually, I've been reading a little bit (and by reading a little bit, I mean looking on wikipedia) on the Korean Joseon dynasty and daaaaaaang, it's super interesting and full of drama. It was really interesting to hear them talk about the Japanese though, since even in Koreans today, there's still this kind of dislike that seemed to be voiced whenever something Japanese came up in our tour (though, after looking at the history, I guess I can't really blame them for really hating the Japanese).

Before meeting back up with my group, I had to get lunch from somewhere. My original plan was to grab pho or korean deliciousness... but unfortunately, I ran into a problem and had less than half an hour to eat. I was in a 大パンニク - big panic lol. I also didn't know where to go for food, since everywhere looked good, but also looked like I was going to maybe not make it in time.

Then it happened. I saw people walk down the street with a huge hotdog on a skewer... with a whole (probably) potato spiraled around it and deep fried. What. I thought those were only in places like county fairs in the US. So I found myself one of those, got it with some Korean spices added, and bam, there was half of lunch. A few minutes later, I ran into a small vendor that was selling these mochi-like things in cups. Inside though, were different things like kalbi, bibimbap, and pizza. The outside got all crispy (since it had the same mouthfeel/texture as mochi, but the outside wasn't sticky really) and the inside was an amazing explosion of flavor in your mouth. THe kalbi and the bibimbap ones were SO AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS. And so, since I was running out of time, I decided that those things were going to be my lunch, and that I was probably going to die early from a heart attack or something. Either way, I moved my death date up by at least a year from that lunch haha.

The ride back was fairly uneventful; we made one last stop at this last minute places where you could buy Korean souveniers and food to take back home (like nori and kimchi). They were a little more expensive though, and I also grabbed a coffee (and was a little late back to the bus because they were so. freaking. slow.)
The rest of the plane ride was rather quiet and nice. I watched Cowboys vs Aliens rather than sleeping on the way back.

And that was South Korea (or well, really, just Seoul), in less than 48 hours. Amazing. Exciting. Tasty. Gorgeous. Full of history. Full of food. NOT ENOUGH STOMACH.

I definitely want to go back. ♡