Katie and I were anxious to see Seoul again once more before we leave Korea. Happily, Henry and Nancy were able to go with us last weekend. We took the KTX (bullet train) early Saturday morning and sped to Seoul at 180 miles per hour. The entire journey took a mere two hours. Our first order of business was to see Gyeongbokgung Palace, the governmental seat of old Korea. It turned out that Henry had never seen the palace before, either.
This is the front gate of the palace. The palace was burned by the Japanese in 1592, and gradually rebuilt until the subsequent Japanese invasion and occupation in 1910.
Soldiers in traditional Korean clothes guard the front gate.
We were surprised to find that the palace complex was a sprawling labyrinth of walls and buildings. It was by far the largest structure of this type that we have seen in Korea.
In the middle of the complex stood the throne room, where the king himself once held court. Up until the 1910 Japanese occupation, men still came to this courtyard, dawning traditional Korean clothing, to take the civil service exam en masse amidst an elaborate ceremony.
This is the inside of the throne room. In the center is the throne itself, from which kings ruled Korea until 1910.
A Korean history museum was housed in a building attached to this pagoda-like structure.
Inside there were a lot of relics from old Korea, such as these extra long tobacco pipes. Henry surprised everyone (including his own wife) when he mentioned that he can remember his grandmother smoking one of these.
Henry excitedly pointed out the "Blue House", which was nearby the palace. This is Korea's equivalent of the White House, and is the current residence of president Lee Myung Bak. Ironically, you can't get nearly as close to it as you can the White House, but Katie and I had to get a photo of us in front of it just the same.
Throughout the palace the fall colors were wonderfully vibrant. This is a leaf from a Korean maple tree. The leaf is one of the unofficial national symbols of Korea and, as you can see, they have turned bright red.
The next morning we got up and walked to the Korea War Memorial, which we knew nothing about beforehand. We found it to be one of the best, not to mention one of the most extensive, museums we've seen in Korea. Upon entering we were greeted by a hallway featuring enormous plaques bearing the names of every U.N. soldier who died during the Korean War. Of course, 33,000 of them were American. The Americans were categorized by state.
The museum housed yet another scale replica of a turtle ship; we've seen a number of these since coming to Korea.
As a point of interest, this is a World War II era T-6. My first experience ever flying in an airplane was in a T-6 just like this one, after a member of the "Confederate Air Force" volunteered to take my Boy Scout troop up one weekend.
Interestingly, the museum is also home to a Russian Mig. I had never seen one in person. I was able to climb a ladder and look into the cockpit.
I thought this was a bit macabre. Relatively recently, the remains of fallen soldiers from the Korean War have been recovered from the DMZ. As you can see, the bodies had been undisturbed for nearly 60 years.
This was pretty interesting as well. It is one of the latest incarnations of the Daewoo K-2 rifle, the standard-issue rifle of the Republic of Korea military. Just as the other K-2 rifles, it fires standard .223 calibre ammunition. However, it also fires a 20 mm incendiary round (you can see the second, larger magazine behind the pistol grip). Using a laser beam, a computer in the rifle calculates the distance to the target. When the 20 mm round is fired, it explodes mid-air before it reaches the target, showering the area with shrapnel. I saw a video of the rifle being demonstrated, and it was pretty crazy.
In typical Korean fashion, there was a bizarre twist to the Korea War Memorial. You can get married there. In fact, there was a full-on, traditional Korean wedding taking place the day we went. We couldn't get very close, but it was evident that no expense had been spared.
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