Today is our last day in Seoul and in South Korea for that matter, after a relaxed start and breakfast we set off to visit the temples and palaces we didn’t have time to do last time. On the way to Jongmyo Shrine we stopped at Tapgol Park which is a nice grass area with a ten story pagoda in it, there was a lady who was circling the pagoda which is called circumambulation. While Chris was taking photos I was approached by a group of school children who asked if they could take a photo with me in it which we did and they seemed to be very happy about it – not sure they will be when the see the photo but there you go. We walked up to Jongmyo shrine which is the Royal Shrine, unfortunately what the guide book had failed to mention is that you can only go in on your own on Saturdays the rest of the time you have to join a guided tour and the next one in English wasn’t for a while so we decided to give it a miss and Walk up to Changdeokgung which we went to on the first day to go round the Secret Garden. We walked along the outside wall of the shrine as the complexes used to be joined which was really interesting as it was along roads filled with small businesses, everything from making jewellery boxes to what looked like grocery distribution shops! We reached the palace and got a ticket for both the palace and the garden, again you can only go in the garden on a guided tour so we opted for the English one that was scheduled to start at 11.30. As it was only just after 10.00 we walked through the Palace and went into Changgyeonggung which was originally designed as a palace for the elders of the royal family to live as so many members of the royal family chose to live in Changdeok Palace, originally it was built to serve three queen dowagers, there are a number of differences between this and other palaces one is that the main gate and throne hall face east unlike the norm which is south. Also the residential inner halls are bigger than the administrative outer halls because the compound was intended for residential use. So Friday is obviously school trip day as everywhere we went there were loads of school children with quite a number of them in the traditional costume and all of those asking either Chris or I for a photo to be taken with them! It was interesting as the girls wanted Chris to take a photo of me with them and the boys wanted me to take a photo of Chris with them! All very strange, we finally managed to finish looking round the complex and it was almost time for the tour of the secret garden so we walked up to the gate to meet the guide. The Changdeokgung Palace was home to the kings of joseph Dynasty who ruled from 1392 – 1910. The secret garden was intended as a place for kings and members of the royal family to relax but it was also a venue for various outdoor activities. The king would join military exercises and archery contests that were held in the grounds, they also tried their hand at hunting (tiger and wild boars), gardening and growing rice. There are also a couple of building complexes that are not decorated, the guide said this was because it was where the king could just relax and didn’t have to be on show. The whole tour took about an hour and a half and once it finished we wondered round a bit more then decided to go and get something for lunch. We found a noodle restaurant where we had really nice spicy Raman and by the time we had finished that and walked back to our part of town it was time to go back to the hotel for a relax before going and getting something to eat tonight and packing ready for a really early start tomorrow!
