Day 2: Deoksugung and Seoul City Hall

Having a super early arrival time in Korea turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it was the perfect way to get adjusted to the time difference and over jetlag. In fact, I didn’t suffer any jetlag once I got to Korea. Being up all day on the first day, I had no troubles falling asleep at night and awoke the next morning on Day 2 around 5AM having had a good nights rest.

While my mom and aunts had their Korean breakfast, I had my little yogurt, banana and orange juice meal of my own. One of the things I noticed about Korean household washrooms is that they are usually equipped with a drain in the middle of the floor. I think its mostly because before washing machines became the norm, Koreans grew up hand washing a lot of their clothes on the washroom floor using big round tubs (like the tubs they use to make kimchi) and washing boards. Heck, even with a washing machine, I found my aunt still washing certain clothing the old fashion way. My aunt’s place was like this also and thus because of the drain, there was no shower curtain for the bathtub nor really any need for one. When taking a shower, I found it weird at first and tried to be careful not to spray water all over the place but as the days went by, I felt like I was doing a service by getting it wet and in essence cleaning the washroom at the same time ^^.

As I spent yesterday exploring what I designated as Gwanghwamun – North, today was going to be about exploring Gwanghwamun - South and possibly some of Myeong-Dong. I kind of got out to a late start this morning. I wanted to head over early to Deoksugung, one of the Palaces in Seoul, as my Lonely Planet book had the Changing of the Guards ceremony happening at 10:30AM but I didn’t end up leaving until after that. I walked to Dongnimmun Station and from there took Line 3 to Jongno 3-ga Station where I then transferred to Line 1 to City Hall Station.

I got to Deoksugung (or Deoksu Palace) just before 11:30AM and it looked like nothing was happening so I figured I had missed out on the changing of the guards. In front of the palace there was a booth setup for people to try on and take pictures in traditional Korean attire called hanbok. I looked across the street at Seoul City Hall which was undergoing construction and just kind of stood there for a while a little upset at myself for coming late and missing the ceremony. Fortunately for me however, the changing of the guard times must have changed because while I was standing there, they started clearing the front of the palace area of people for the ceremony to start.

The changing of the guard involved a large number of people in traditional uniforms, various instruments such as drums and percussions and marching. Have a look:

After the ceremony was over, I bought a ticket for Deoksugung and entered the palace. The scale of the palace was definitely a lot smaller than Gyeongbokgung. It was very quiet walking around inside the palace grounds as there weren’t as many people inside as there were outside watching the ceremony. Here is a look at the main building and a class of kids getting a tour. Whenever I saw a class of kids, I always wished that I could go back to being one of them again…

There’s a small snack shop inside the palace grounds so I decided to get an ice cream and just sit for a while. I noticed that locals would also come here to just sit and talk or go for a stroll. In particular, I noticed a man in a suit by himself who was kind of walking aimlessly as if he was just trying to pass the time. It didn’t look like he was there for a walk or to see the palace or like he needed to be back to work anytime soon. I had heard stories about Korean men who would pretend to go to work because they couldn’t bring themselves to tell their family that they recently lost their job. After leaving in the morning pretending to go to work, in reality they would find somewhere to pass the time like a park for the entire day until it was time to go back home as if they had just finished work. I don’t know the accuracy or the frequency of these stories but it was something that crossed my mind when I saw this man.

After I left Deoksugung, I headed to Seoul City Hall located right across the street. I had seen Seoul City Hall, and especially Seoul Plaza which is the open field in front, many times on TV and the internet when they held massive viewing parties outside during the World Cups. When I got there, Seoul Plaza actually seemed smaller than I had thought and they were in the process of re-sodding the entire field. I had mentioned before that Seoul likes to make everything look pretty and the construction façade of Seoul City Hall was the perfect example. If it wasn’t for the cranes, I might have been fooled into thinking that City Hall actually looked like it did. The façade was comprised of hundreds of tiles. Each tile had a picture of a person with their hands out to the sides so that it looked as if they were holding hands with the individuals in the neighbouring tiles. Here is a quick video clip:

Here is a sequence of increasingly closer images of the façade i took.

Once I got closer and looked at it from an angle, I saw that there was a larger frosted outline of people holding hands.

A couple of weeks later while I was still in Seoul, they replaced all the pictures with 2 large images of Han Hyo-Joo and Kim Yuna promoting Seoul. The day was still young so after Seoul City Hall, I went back into the subway station and headed to my next destination…