On the forth day we headed to Gyeongbokgung Palace. The palace was orgininally built in 1395, just after the Joseon Dynasty was founded. Gyeongbokgung means "the palace greatly blessed by heaven". The palace was destroyed during the Japanese invasion of 1592-'98. A secondary palace, Changdeokgung, was constructed and served as the main palace. Gyeongbokgung was left deserted until 1867 when it was reconstructed by the Prince Regent. This rebuild was mostly torn down during the Japanese occupation of Korea. In 1990 a restoration effort began, starting with the Heungnyemun Gate.
Baby O was a rockstar in Korea! J could hardly walk through the crowd. He got stopped often for pictures, and people oohing/aahing over Baby O. Baby O is usually a good sport about it and smiles at everyone. It is fun (but also a little annoying) to see how excited people get about Baby O.
The Gyeongbokgung Palace grounds also houses the Korean Fold Museum. It was not a very big museum, but it was fun to see some historical objects, traditional clothing and traditional daily life of the Korean people.
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| 1981 the year of the rooster |
As we were leaving Gyeongbokgung Palace we were able to see the changing of the guards. The changing of the guards ceremony is only done for tourist. It was fun to see the traditional clothing.
Next we headed to Insa-dong which is a neighborhood in Seoul to get a quick bite to eat. There is a walking street in Insa-dong with many shops, cafes, small street vendors and street food. After our snack we wanted to find the cocktail vendor that a friend had told me about. She called them adult caprisun's. We got a mojito to share, it was very tasty. After our drink we headed to Jogyesa Temple. There was a pretty building housing a big gold Buddha and some people praying. (There were signs no picture sign up, so I don't have any of this part of our day.)
After the temple we headed back to our hotel to rest a bit before dinner. Getting back to the hotel took a little longer than it should have because we accidentally got on the wrong train. Thankfully we only went two stops out of our way and there was a nice man that pointed us in the correct direction and told us where we needed to transfer.
Before dinner we stopped at a little (and I do mean little) bar that had some of its seating pretty much on the road. After our beers we went to dinner, it was kind of like a teppanyaki restaurant with a flat cooktop in the center of our table. I am not sure what it is called. They had a set menu option that we tried. It was good and there was a ton of food, a pork chop, steak, a few shrimp a hamburger patty and some vegetables.
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