Aug 04

Gyeongbok Palace Continued

Ok, so picking up where I left off......again. Pictures of the palace! Easily the most beautiful thing in the whole enormous city. Ready? Here we go!

One of the many buildings inside the labrynth of the palace. You can get lost in this place for sure. I think this might have been one of the quarters for some of the lady's in waiting. Apparently each night there were over 700 people ready and waiting to serve the king and queen if they were requested. Over 600 ladies in waiting and over 100 eunuchs.

One of the many doors in the walls. Most of the hallways and building walls have doors like these ones.

This is Kyeonghoe-ru, the largest pavillion in the country and a ballroom of sorts. This is where the king would entertain foreign guests. It's just gorgeous.

Here's a view from the side, looking in.

And here's a close up of one of the sculptures on the walkway.

Here are a couple pics of me and of Hisung in front of it, enjoying the shade from the hot hot sun.

We also went into the king's resting room. Actually I forget what it's called, but it's where he spent most of the day. It's relaxing and quiet, and even in the hot still weather, somehow a lovely breeze floats through the room. It was easily the coldest place in the whole palace. We got to walk inside if we took our shoes off. It was really neat! The ceiling was amazing.

They also had a small couch set up and a place setting where the king would have eaten. Here's a couple pics of the room.

Here's a couple shots of the walkway. There's so much detail all over the place, I couldn't help but take some closeups.

I don't know how on Earth I got a shot of this walk empty. It's the path to the king and queen's rooms as well as the way back out, so it's always full of people. This was towards the end of the day, so I guess a lot of them cleared out by then.