Our first day in Seoul was a huge success! Not only did we get settled in our new residence, but we did a lot of exploring, shopping, sight-seeing and tea tasting. This group is relentless….and I like it!
Saturday was another free day so we were scattered across Seoul doing a multitude of different activities although it seems like we all ended up at Insadong at some point in the day. I think we like it there? It must be the great art, interesting shopping, and tasty teas!
My day began with a long walk through campus down to the Sinchon station – the closest subway stop where we typically meet up to venture out of campus. Since we have horrible wi-fi connection at the dorms, I made my way into town early to find an internet cafe to check my e-mail and found this:
And yes I know we have Krispy Kreme in the states, but not like this! They of course have the classics, like the glazed doughnut with fancy iced lattes:
BUT they also have Hello Kitty doughnuts (of course they would):
Okay I’ll stop posting photos of the Krispy Kreme,….but I really, really like it there. Free wi-fi, green tea pistachio doughnuts, and a “Doughnut Theater”. What more could you ask for in life?
After breakfast and e-mail, Lisa and I jumped on the Green Line (hey, just like Boston!) and headed towards Insadong, where we got a bit lost and accidentally ended up here:
At some point we wanted to visit this palace, the second largest in Seoul, but sort of happened upon it on accident. So, we decided to take advantage of this happy accident and take a tour of Changdekgung Palace, one of the Five Great Palaces from the Joseon dynasty – also a World Heritage Site! It was truly a great learning experience for us both because we learned so much about Korean history and how it has been instilled within modern Korean design and culture. We learned that all palaces were built upon the Chinese principles of Feng Shui. All palaces needed a river in the front and a mountain behind it to promote positive energy and good fortune. They also used Chinese characters on the buildings as opposed to Korean alphabet because Chinese was considered more elegant and refined at the time. You can see the Chinese characters on the main gate here:
We decided to take the guided tour in English so we could actually understand the function of the different palace buildings. We learned that this palace was home to over 3,000 people during the 1400s, and that a lot of it was destroyed by the Japanese invasion in 1592. Here is our guide giving us a great introduction to the Joseon dynasty:
She explained how the different paint colors represented directions, representing: North, South, East, West, and Center – the heart of Seoul:
We also got to cross the oldest bridge in all of Seoul – Geoumcheongo. This is where you cross the river in front of the palace that brings good fortune:
We got to walk down the elevated runway that was only for the King & Queen, pretty cool!
Our guide was explaining many of the sculptures and markings. The creatures on the rooftops of the buildings were meant to protect it, and needed to have an odd number of statues. The more statue creatures on a building roofs means that the building is more important. Here she is explaining the phoenix engraving which means that a great king has been born:
Other interesting facts we learned: the King had a special area where he kept his many concubines, there was no furniture allowed in the King’s room to prevent assassins from hiding in his room, the King and Queen were never allowed to share a bedroom unless……, the King ate 8 meals a day that all had to be tasted by a woman servant first to check for poison, and they heated the palace in the winter using an underground furnace system!
Our last lesson is that blue tiled roofs were the most expensive to make due to the imported Chinese dye they had to use – it also took a lot of time to hand-dye each tile. This building here is one of the only blue-tiled roofs left in all of Korea and is maintained by UNESCO:
After our wonderful, and very educational Palace tour, Lisa and I headed back towards our original destination: Insadong. We wanted to do some shopping, taste some tea, and visit the Jogyesa Buddhist Temple
Here are some photos from our journey around Insadong:
After lunch, snacks and some initial shopping, we made it over to Jogyesa temple to do some meditation! This was a great post-lunch recovery and a great way to restore our energy to keep trekking through Seoul. It was so peaceful and we arrived just in time for a service with a lot of lovely chanting:
After our meditation break, we found a cozy tea house similar to the one Jen and Shana visited on Friday and ordered a ginger tea, which Lisa has decided is her new favorite, and a lavender tea.
After our tea, we did some last minute shopping where Lisa found the perfect Korean fan. The man who made them customized it for her and added the colors of the Korean flag to the figures. He also added her name! It was such a wonderful experience…..
After a long day of shopping, tea drinking, and Palace exploring, we were beat! We headed back to Sinchon, near Yonsei campus, to find some dinner and relax. We found a great little side street with some quirky cafes and interesting design:
After our lovely dinner, we walked around Sinchon until we were completely exhausted. We saw some pretty interesting sites on the trip back to campus:
Found some more great Engrish on a notebook in what I think is like a Korean Wal-mart where we stopped off to buy some dorm supplies:
And so our Saturday in Seoul was complete! I’ll try to post photos and updates from how the other students spent their Saturday. I know there was a lot of shopping and a great trip to Seoul Tower. Thanks for following along.
Kunbe,
Bethany