A cynical person might say that once you’ve seen one Korean palace or temple, you’ve seen them all.
I’m not a cynical person. I say that if you can’t distinguish between Gyeongbokgung Palace and Changgyeonggung, or between Haedong Yonggungsa Temple and Haeinsa, then you’re not looking closely enough. You might as well say that Westminster Abbey is the same as the Notre Dame.
I’m not a cynical person. I say that if you can’t distinguish between Gyeongbokgung Palace and Changgyeonggung, or between Haedong Yonggungsa Temple and Haeinsa, then you’re not looking closely enough. You might as well say that Westminster Abbey is the same as the Notre Dame.
This little doorway is a part of the library at Gyeongbokgung, which was the first palace I visited on my first full day in Seoul. It was built in the 14th century and used on and off into the 20th century, at which point much of it was destroyed by the Imperialist Japanese. As with most of the palaces and temples, the various buildings are dispersed across a fairly large area, separated mostly by stone courtyards. Presumably this design helped to minimize the damage that was done in the event of fire. The buildings are entirely wood, making fire a real danger. The palace burned to the ground more than once (though I think invading forces were more often to blame than careless use of the floor heating systems). Tubs of water sat outside some of the bigger and more important buildings, just in case.
Also notable at Gyeongbokgung was the relative sizes of the queen’s and concubines’ gardens. I’ll leave it to you to guess whose was bigger. Hint: the lily-covered lake with a pagoda in the middle didn’t belong to the queen.
The architecture is very similar over at Changgyeonggung Palace, which was also built during the 14th century and was temporarily levelled by the Japanese a couple centuries later. Same shapes and colours, though there are more hallways connecting the various buildings. This was probably appreciated by the monks during the long winter months - again, heated floors.
The architecture is very similar over at Changgyeonggung Palace, which was also built during the 14th century and was temporarily levelled by the Japanese a couple centuries later. Same shapes and colours, though there are more hallways connecting the various buildings. This was probably appreciated by the monks during the long winter months - again, heated floors.
The gardens were my favourite part of Changgyeonggung. I elected to go on the Secret Garden tour, for which I reluctantly forked up 5,000 won (a worthwhile investment, in retrospect). The tour guide spoke excellent English, which was nice, and explained that lots of research has gone towards figuring out what purpose all the various buildings served. I got the impression that written records are a bit spotty, so this would have been no easy task. A couple of the signs posting historical descriptions, both here and elsewhere in the city, said things like “the original building was probably destroyed around 1905”. You’d be pretty surprised if historians couldn't pinpoint the exact date that part of a European castle burned down, if it was as recent as that. But I suppose the early 20th century was a turbulent time in Korea, so it’s not surprising that the written records are incomplete.
When I visit places like Seoul, a conversation I had with a fellow camp counsellor several years ago often comes to mind. She maintained that cities and buildings could not be beautiful; only natural landscapes like forests and lakes were beautiful to her. At the time, having already spent a year travelling through places like Copenhagen, Brugges, and Vienna that are arguably large, three-dimensional works of art, I had to disagree. And as long as I keep stumbling upon buildings that look like this? Not gonna change my mind.