Deoksugung Palace & Seoul Museum of Art

It finally stopped raining (at least for 36 hours), so we had to get out the house and do some sightseeing. Seoul is home to five Joseon palaces of ancient Korea, according to one source forming a palace compound like a Korean "Forbidden City" of sorts. My first palace visit was to Deoksugung the palace of virtue and longevity. Deoksugung was inhabited by royalty until the beginning of the 1900s, then used for official business till 1919, though it was not always the seat of power. It is composed of several buildings, and also includes a more recently built art museum inside the palace walls. I can't find much good history information on this palace, so I'll just have to suffice with pictures, though I didn't take very many good ones this day.

We arrived in time to see the changing of the guard ceremony & pose for pictures!

Jeonggwanheon Hall, 1900. Said to be the first European style architecture built in a Korean palace. This was the king's 'party hall'.

Love the juxtaposition of old & new. Such a lesson in preservation!

Junghwajeon, throne room. Used for official business until 1919.

Roof of the throne room. Each wooden tile has the same image as that of the two large gold dragons in the recess.

Funnily enough, the visit to the palace was unplanned and inadvertent. The original destination was to the Seoul Museum of Art, housed in the old Supreme Court building. Currently they have a fake facade in place advertising an upcoming special exhibit, so I had to borrow a photo.

There is currently no special exhibit running, so there was little art work on display. Just a few pieces from prominent Korean artists.

This statue display is near the entrance to the art museum, and abuts the palace wall. You can't tell from the picture but because of the way they are shaped, they really mess with your head! You feel like you can't quite focus on them, and it makes your eyes go fuzzy. It was pretty awesome.

Children's Grand Park

What an awesome time we had today! I'm quite sure adults have as much fun at Seoul's Children's Grand Park as kids do. There are numerous playgrounds, water activities, animal shows, a zoo, and plenty of other things to keep you occupied and entertained.

After walking around for a short time, we chose to see the "Aladdin" show with a full cast of animal characters. It was adorable!

Jasmine with some birds.

Aladdin with monkeys.

There were also guinea pigs, ducks, a raccoon, a cat, and many other birds. It was really a lot of fun!

The zoo at the park is also very nice. We were fortunate that most of the animals we saw today were active, and those that weren't were napping in the open. My personal favorites were the polar bears. I don't think I've ever seen polar bears in person before.

Massive paws!

We had a good natured laugh at the jaguar's expense. There was a worker on top of his cage, the roof of which is just a type of metal netting. That jaguar was stalking that man, ready to pounce. I was glad to see his animal instincts haven't deserted him in captivity.

"I'm ready!"

The lions, leopards, and tigers were all out and pacing in front of the glass, so we were able to see them very well which is always a lot of fun!

And what would a trip to the zoo be without a camel ride!

Before leaving we took some time to cool our feet in the wading area. Now I know to bring clothes next time!

Movin' on Up

This blog entry is of a more personal, reminiscent nature, so feel free to skip over the ramblings and rantings below if you've no interest in reading about my feelings!

We've begun our move north to Seoul, I say begun because we've been stuck in a hotel for over a week now waiting on the reconciliation of some housing issues. We are present in Seoul, but not exactly living here yet. I'm excited and disappointed all at the same time. Excited to be in this massive city with a thousand and one things to do, but incredibly disappointed in the Yongsan garrison here. To be the largest post in Korea I expected so much more in the way of family services and standard of living, especially since they brag on this post so much. Please do not take this as a rant against all things army; I truly enjoy the army lifestyle most days, but I am appalled at what they expect families to accept as 'just part of life in Korea'. Since I have lived in Korea under the army's care for 20 months now, I know that what they are peddling up here is, quite frankly, crap. Part of me is more than a little ticked off.

I'm also a bit melancholy for the small town environment of Waegwan and my neighbors and Camp Walker. (Wow, truly never thought I'd say that!) Of course some of it comes from having to once again say good-bye to people I've grown to love and not having anyone to fill that space right now. In time I'll adapt to the services and command climate here and learn to navigate around. But for now I'm going to wallow in my memories, already burnished by distance if not time, and hope the silver lining comes out soon.

Waegwan's Facelift

There are some grey cement walls around Waegwan getting a lovely facelift by Korean artists. They still had the awning up when I was taking the pictures, so I had to take them from the side. I also caught most of them on their lunch break!

Farewell to Arms

For more background, please refer to my prior post Nakdong Reenactment.

A sad event has occurred in Waegwan: the bridge has fallen. This is no ordinary bridge. This is

the bridge that lives in history as a horrible symbol of what can happen in a horrific war. This is the bridge that was blown while still loaded with refugees (and North Korean soldiers) in order to win a strategic battle. There is an indefinable emotional attachment to this bridge, and I'm sure if I can feel this as a foreigner it must be stronger to the Koreans. The original pillars remained and

there was a pedestrian bridge built. It was in regular use, until now. They have been doing a great deal of dredging in the river the past several months, and according to a Korean lady who can understand the broadcast news, this caused the soil around the supports to shift, which then caused the collapse.

We had a small typhoon recently so the debris accumulated rather quickly.

A view down the bridge.

Across the street is a tunnel that goes under the infamous Hill 303. I've never been in this tunnel and as far as I know there is nothing in there. I can't find out anything about it other than that is said to be over 100 years old.

Around the corner from the tunnel are some stairs that go up (and up!) the side of Hill 303 (it's a really long hill, with quite a ridge line to follow) to some Korean War memorials, and one specifically for UN soldiers. Of course they are all in Korean so I don't know what they say.

Pohang Lighthouse Museum & Camping

For Father's Day my husband wanted to go camping. The for real camping in a tent and building a fire to cook and all that. I reluctantly agreed and our chosen destination was a beach in Pohang. We didn't plan for exactly which beach, we just drove till we found a quiet, clean beach. The drive was interesting in itself, on a narrow curvy road following the coast of a small peninsula. We discovered Guryeongpo, a small but almost deserted beach about 12 miles or so out of Pohang. The water was really cold, almost too cold even to walk in, so there was no water play. The girls had fun finding seashells and digging in the sand while the hubs set up the tent and did all the prep for a fire. We had brought some fish Matt had caught to cook, but didn't use all of it, so we gave it to two Korean men sitting in front of the minbak nearby. They reciprocated by bringing us some hot coffee and we all shared a few moments of smiles and mostly silent camaraderie. It was fun spending the day at the beach, but the night got cold, and brought some rather loud visitors to the beach, so we ended up leaving around midnight. This turned out to be a good decision, because it started raining as we were packing up and rained on us the entire drive home.

Can you believe I didn't take a picture of the tent after it was set-up?

Before settling at the beach, we made a tourist stop at the Lighthouse Museum, adjacent to the popular Homigot Sunrise Square. Somehow we missed the actual square, and I wasn't able to see the Hand of Harmony sticking up out of the water. (Disclaimer: borrowed picture!)

The museum was mildly interesting. It contained displays of lighthouse lighting equipment throughout history, lots of pictures, models of famous lighthouses around the world, and a few other things. There was also a small separate building of fishery science and another building with a small special display of ceramic lighthouses. The lovely park grounds outside the museum had some statues and miniatures of several lighthouses.

the fisheries science building

various lighting mechanisms for lighthouse

Haeundae Beach Sand Festival

Haeundae Beach, the uber-popular place during the summer time so I was pleasantly surprised to find the sand festival not as 'sardinish' as I expected. The weather was perfect and we all had a fabulous time. The theme was fairy tales as you will be able to see from the pictures. There was a two-part castle/fortress at the entrance around the guy with the sword, but I couldn't get a picture of it - too big! Here's a partial:

There were plenty more!

Since we are still waiting to move any day now I couldn't make plans to go till the last minute and was unable to book a hotel room; everyone was sold out! We were only able to stay for several hours during the day, thereby missing most of the entertainment venues since they mainly had that at night. We did get to see an airshow by the Black Eagles, Korean fancy fighter pilots, that was pretty awesome.

I don't know if you can see it well in the posted photo, but they made a taeguk in the sky.

We also took some time to play in the water, but it was really cold, too cold to do anything other than get your feet wet.

There was sledding and sand boarding that were really fun as well!