After an excellent buffet breakfast we traveled to the royal palace, named Gyeongbokgung. Four times a day they have a changing of the guard, with the “guards” dressed in traditional costume. And many of the onlookers follow suit.
I hesitate to “dress up” in local, cultural dress. A people’s national identity is not my Halloween costume. However, in Seoul at least, it seems this is something everyone can join in. Only a block away from the palace is an entire street dedicated to renting “hanbok” to those who want to play along.
You enter thru the impressive front gate, Gwanghwamun. The changing of the guard occurs in the open area just beyond the gate. The Koreans do not provide stadium seating, so it’s first come, first serve to be up front and have an uninterrupted view.
Within the walls are many historic buildings, and some flowering trees (while they are still in season).
And here we are. Our guide “forced” us to do the little two-finger heart sign, lol.
We had lunch at the Maple Tree House, a Korean at-the-table barbecue. The grills are simply several pieces of charcoal in a ceramic bowl with large, copper exhaust fans tubes leading to the ceiling.
After lunch we had a battalion of bicycle rickshaws give us a pedal-view of the Bukchon Hanok Village, a neighborhood near the palace with restored traditional Korean houses. Of course, it started raining just when we sat down, but that does not disturb we brave cruise-goers! But, it does reduce the quality of my photography (if it’s even possible to get worse).
It was a lovely area, and would be even more lovely if my legs were not getting soaked. One thing that grabbed my attention was how the walls were made. Seems this area added mortar so it was proud of the stones / bricks it was attaching. It was a very clean look.
This was a fun trip, and a way to save the 3-to-5 hours of bus travel to and from the port to have two days in Seoul. If I ever manage to return I’ll need at least two weeks to explore the whole city.
We are skipping our next scheduled stop in Jeju, a Korean island just south of the Korea peninsula. Seems a big storm is coming in (see rain, above), so the captain made the call to bypass the weather and head straight to Taiwan. Hopefully it’s not too bumpy.