So today we have a day to ourselves so we had decided to do as many of the Palaces that we could, there is a five Palace pass that we had planned to buy but when we arrived at the first Palace it is Royal week and all entry is half price so the lady at the ticket booth said it wasn’t worth us buying a pass. The first palace we visited was Deoksugung Palace, which was the kings residence twice during the Joseon dynasty King Seonjo lived here after returning to the capital after the withdrawal of Japanese forces in 1593 and when Emperor Sunjong moved to Changdeokgung Palace in 1907 he bestowed the title of Deoksu (virtue of long life) on his father so the complex became known as Deoksugung Palace and he remained here until his death in 1919. The complex consists of a number of halls including the Throne Hall which has the Dragons and gold symbols of the emperor and two halls which were used as council halls. After the death of Gojong in 1919 the Japanese tried to sell many of the palace properties but failed in the face of public pressure, they made the palace into a public park in 1933 with only some of the outer halls left standing, however they have since been reconstructed. We walked round the residence and offices. There is also a Western style stone building in the park which was built in 1910 and consists of 3 floors decorated in western style, we didn’t actually go in but we did sit and watch some traditional folk dancing which they seemed to be practicing for the 3rd Royal Culture Festival that is taking place this week. Then we finished walking round the site and set off to for the next palace. We walked down the main street past the statues we saw on the first day, it wasn’t actually that far to walk and possibly easier than it had been when we drove round on Sunday. Gyeongbok Palace was built in 1395 and it served as a palace for more than five hundred years. It is a massive complex consisting of 500 buildings, within the palace walls were the Outer Court (oejeon), offices for the king and state officials, and the inner court (naejeon) which included living quarters for the royal family as well as gardens for leisure and play. On its extensive premises were other palaces, large and small, including Queens residence (Junggung) and the Crown princes residence (Donggung). It took a good few hours to walk round the area, some buildings were really nice with courtyards and gardens while others were very decorative but obviously for administrative purposes. We sat and had a rest by the pond that has an inlet and a pavilion on it, this was just round from the National Folk museum which is actually a reconstructed pagoda. A lot of people are on holiday this week and because of that there seemed to be a lot of people walking round in national dress, mostly they seemed to be Korean tourists but there were a fair smattering of European and what looked like Japanese tourists as well, it was rather strange seeing people in traditional costume with selfie sticks! By the time we finished it was about 1.30 so we started walking towards the main street so that we could find something for lunch but also to head towards the next palace, We found somewhere quite small for lunch and had something similar to what we had yesterday which was really nice. By the time we had finished it was about 2.30 so we decided that instead of walking to the next Palace we would save that until we are back in Seoul at the end of the holiday so instead we walked to the other end of town with a view to going up the Cable car, but by the time we got there we realised there was a two hour queue so we decided against it, we went up to the base of the Cable car station which gave us a good view over the town then walked back down the stairs so that we could have a good view over the city. Once we got down we went into the market and picked up an ice-cream which was really nice as it is so hot today then we went back to the hotel and jumped in the shower to get rid of some of the dust and grime, had a relax and a drink before heading out later for something to eat.
