경복궁 | Gyeongbokgung

Ever on the hunt for interesting, cultural places to go, we felt that Gyeongbokgung was a good way to go. Easy enough to get to, and pretty impressive visually, we headed over to take a look.

Again, it was freezing cold, so much so that large parts of the bodies of water dotted around the palace grounds had thin sheets of ice dotted around, and the ground was frosty. But the sky was crystal clear and the sun was shining, so once again it was a really good trip out.

I'd already taken a lot of photos of the palace itself, so I'll just post a few.
The cold prevented us from lingering very long, and the kimchi house was locked up (presumably because of the weather or season) so we kept moving and left to get a look at the Statue of King Sejong and a brief visit to the museum underneath, with the pretense of warming up my numb feet.

덕수궁 | Deoksugung

Creepy, cold and deserted school rooms. My life for about a month.

After our return from Tokyo, it was straight back into school. School terms run at a different schedule to home, with the new school year coinciding more with the Lunar New Year (March) rather than harvest seasons (September). This meant that, although my contract required me to be in school, I didn't actually have any classes, especially as I'd already done all of my winter 'camps' (optional extra English classes that run for a week or so during the holiday period) before our trip to Japan.

This meant I was doing the dreaded "deskwarming" that you hear a lot of native English teachers here talking about, if not complaining. Most other teachers don't have to come in, as they run on a different contract, so usually the school is almost completely empty. A lot of schools used to let their teachers take the day off during this time, to save electricity and heating that's kind of wasteful for one person (if they have the central heating turned on at all, sometimes it's not. Hellish!). Unfortunately at orientation we were told that a few people had complained that their friend got time off and not them...so the rules were changed and generally you now have to stay as deemed by your contract. Sigh. This is why we can't have nice things.

Anyway. It's not as mind-numbingly boring as people make it out to be. I wrapped myself in pyjama bottoms and blankets and caught up on some TV shows, drew some pictures, read books and comics, wrote blog posts, and studied my Korean in a nice, quiet room. As an introvert it wasn't really much different to how I spend my time at home, except the chair was a little bit less comfortable.

This was a little frustrating though, partly because I was thinking of all the travelling I could be doing in that time, but also because we'd brought a guest back from Japan that I felt like we should have been entertaining. Not that they were unable to explore on their own, but South Korea can be a bit intimidating for a first-timer, especially as we don't live that close to the main tourist attractions in Seoul, so the journey can be a little more difficult.

We ended up searching for things that can be done in the evening other than eating and drinking, because usually by the time we get to Seoul if we leave school bang on the ring of the bell, it's still about 6pm. One of the things we found was Deoksugung, a palace near Seoul City Hall.

경복궁 와 대림 | Gyeongbokgung & Daelim

So, in the timeline of events, (rather than my horribly non-chronological blog posts) a few weeks after Chuseok Nick and I went on another day out with Rachel and Jamie, this time to Gyeongbokgung and the Daelim museum.

But first: food. Of course! ;D

In honour of Nick, we had bossam (boiled belly pork, what's not to like?) but this time rather than ssam (large salad leaves that you use to make a fajita-style wrap) we had crepe-like pancakes, effectively a thin, plain version of the jeon that we love to eat. It was super good, I'd definitely eat it like that again, but then I'm not even TRYING to convince myself it's healthy via all the salad I eat when we use ssam. ;p

So. Stuffed full of pork, ssamjang and pancakes (and soju) we went to the Daelim Museum where there was an art exhibit called "Persistent Illusions" by TROIKA, a UK-based art collective that'd I'd heard of before but never experienced.

This ominous sculpture greeted us in the main lobby/gift shop.

The rippling mirrors reminded me of The Imprisoned from Skyward Sword and generally made me feel kind of uncomfortable and scared for some reason. But I like it when art causes physical and emotional reactions, good or bad.

For the uninformed: This is The Imprisoned. It's creepy.

Anyway, we headed upstairs to the main exhibits and it quickly became clear that this place was all about the kind of big hipster non-statements that I absolutely adore, so this was very exciting for me.

Deep, man.

창덕궁 와 반포대교 | Changdeokgung & Banpo Bridge

Google GIFmaker strikes again!

When you're on holiday with a limited amount of time, in a country as culturally and historically different to your own as Korea is to the UK, sightseeing tends to get pretty relentless, right? For me, anyway. I need to see as much as possible in the short time I have, drink it all in so I feel like I get my money's worth. Until someone gives me my own private jet, or invents cheap teleportation, I think I'll continue to live that way.

So here we are, onwards and upwards to Changdeokgung, or Changdeok Palace. I get confused when I see these places labelled as "Changdeokgung Palace", "Gyeongbukgung Palace", etc, because 'gung' means palace. So you're telling me we're at Changdeokpalace Palace? Same with the islands. Wolmido Island is, essentially, Wolmi-island Island. Hm. (Then again, English is no better. River Avon? Pfff.)

I digress. Let's not shoot the pedant. Changdeokgung is one of the Five Grand Palaces of the Joseon Dynasty. We didn't get to go on a tour because none of the ones available worked with our schedule, so we decided to wing it. The buildings are beautiful enough on their own, and we can look up the history later.

Sadly, this also meant we missed out on seeing the fabled "secret garden", but ho hum. Another day, another palace.

I really enjoyed this palace, because many of the buildings have the shutters opened so that you can peer inside and actually see what it's like. I'm a little bit in love with the intricacy of old Korean architecture and decoration, especially with those 5 colours to brighten every inch of the walls, ceiling, and maybe furniture too. The rooms are kept reasonably dark, presumably - like old stately homes in the UK - to protect the innards from light damage. But as your eyes adjust, more and more becomes visible and it's such a treat.