Kyongbokkung Palace...South Korea

   I have not covered South Korea/ Republic of Korea (ROK) extensively like I have many other countries but I have toured around Seoul, and in particular the Kyongbokkung Palace. This small, mountainous, Asian country of about 50 million citizens has over 10 million of it's citizens living in the capital Seoul (approx. numbers). ROK rivals Japan as a stopover for flights crossing the Pacific Ocean to get to East Asia and beyond. Gimpo International Airport just to the west of Seoul used to be the main airport but it is now used more for domestic flights and short trips to close Asian destinations.

                         



    Incheon International Airport, which is the primary airport today is one of the largest and busiest airports in the world, it lies 48 kms west of Seoul. Several times I landed in Seoul during a stopover, this particular trip my wife and I landed on the way to our destination and on our return home.

     We arrived at about 2am and the traffic snarl was incredible for that time of the morning. There  was so much road construction and our airport shuttle driver could not give an inch to other drivers or they would try to nose into the lane. After about an hour we arrived at the Olympia Hotel, which was pretty nice, and we checked in. We had drove out of the sky scrapers and into the rural area of Seoul where the life for locals was very simple.

                       

                       

 I went for a walk at about 5 am and saw many people walking to work. I noticed about 15 men around a mountain of bricks, they were hammering the old mortar off the bricks and piling them up. The homes and shops were very basic with junk strewn all over; to tell you the truth the locals looked very tired, perhaps the older Korean's had a hard life. There were no English signs to be found and anyone I tried to converse with could not speak the language.

     On the return trip to Seoul I could see from the airplane that there was a massive sprawl of 20 floor apartments that were identical, they spread across the horizon as far as the eye could see. The population, when taking into consideration the metropolitan area, is about 26 million citizens; very densely populated. We ended up back at our familiar Olympia Hotel, it was a good home base. I went out of the hotel at 6am and was greeted by -6 degrees. I noticed quickly that there were very few cars on the road; sure it was early, but in a city with more than 10 million, something was a bit peculiar; I learned later that it was Independence Day.

                          


     My goal for that morning was to get up the mountain, high enough for photo's above the sky scrapers. The road I was walking on ended up to go down through a long tunnel; after the tunnel I took a small road up until it ended. There was a trail for me to access that went up; I could hear Korean music being played in the distance which put me in the zone for a day in Korea. I traversed on the trail for awhile and noticed there were many bunkers, what else could these man made holes be ? I came upon a fence with rolled barbed wire and followed that until I got to 2 army guards at a gate. There was a sign that had Korean letters and English, it was written "no stopping, no photography."

   I was at the top of the mountain, there were military everywhere, camouflaged guard posts, bunkers, soldiers at every T in the road; as long as I was not in any danger, this was kind of neat. What was not so good about all this military is the constant worry that South Korea has had with North Korea possibly bombing them....this has been a constant threat since the end of the Korean War in July of 1953. I followed the mountain ridge for a km or so until I got to a pagoda where I assumed at a later hour there would be Korean tourists. There was a trail that appeared to go back down towards the main street so I started to descend.

  About half way down I met a Korean family (Kong) who were very pleasant; there were 3 girls with their parents (and family dog), the oldest daughter had some English skills, the others not so. This family told me that there is a palace on top of the mountain, and also telecommunications, hence the military presence (spy's are a constant worry). Mr Kong invited me to their home for breakfast so I went back to the hotel and told my wife that I had met some new friends. Off we went to the Kong's apartment where we had wonton soup with seaweed, egg, mushroom, and ground beef, it was excellent. We had a good conversation, as good as possible with our limited language skills; the oldest daughter did well at trying to interpret. We talked about many issues facing South Korea; one interesting fact was that the president could only serve one term, even if she/he were doing a great job; Korean's just do not want to risk someone having power for too long.

   After breakfast they wanted to take us by car to the Kings Palace (Kyongbokkung), we did not have any more film for the camera so they give us a roll that they had at home. There was 1, 120 Won to $1.00 US so a roll of film would have cost about 7,800 Won. Since the stores were closed for the holiday I did not want to risk taking any photo's other than at the Palace.

                         


                         

  The Kyongbokkung Palace was built in 1395 during the rule of the Joseon Dynasty. It was a very nice setting in the middle of such a large city. We toured the large National Folk Museum which give insight into the Korean culture. There were many buildings inside the compound that were described as the Kings: workshop, meeting rooms, living area; rooms for workers, temples that were old and temples that were newer.

                         

                         

 There were large gardens with pagoda's and Buddha statues placed around the grounds, it was a good experience.


                         

Popular for wedding photo's, you could see many photo shoots happening in all corners of the compound....people were very friendly.

   Next time I was in Korea I stayed at the airport backpacker house in Incheon and went to the coast for the day. There was a seaside village where I found some rock climbing and a shoreline to explore. The locals seemed very friendly and I found that so many more people had some English skill than in the previous years. I would like to explore more of Korea in the future.