Seeing as I work afternoons, it's difficult to properly tour Seoul during the week. Thus, the weekend is the prime time to explore, and when you find a day that's not too hot, not too humid, and not rainy, well, there's so much to see that you shouldn't skip a beat.
Seoul is home to five monumental temples. On my first weekend in the metropolis I visited the city's main attraction, Gyeongbokgung Temple. This second temple, Changdeokgung, actually served as the city's main temple for awhile after Gyeongbokgung was destroyed in the Korean War.
Though quite different than Gyeongbokgung, Changdeokgung charmed in its own unique way, and is actually quite renowned for its secret garden!
Before entering the temple, however, there's an ancient shrine directly south of it that's worth the visit. This shrine is picturesque, surrounded by nature and was the gathering place for thousands of Seoulites.
The temple itself was also quite impressive. It's unique in the sense that instead of being enormous and imposing, the main section is actually quite a bit smaller, however there are small villages of sorts where the locals used to live, and this is where traditional Korean architecture really comes to life.
It's truly amazing walking through this temple and being surrounded by the typical roofing. What's also quite unique is that certain houses are open or uncovered, and the ceilings inside are extremely colourful, as seen above. The amount of detail that came into sorting the wood and putting these houses together, as well as the onslaught of colour really makes the Korean temples unique.
The central building in this temple was also quite impressive. Though a bit smaller, it really towers above the rest of the temple.
What's interesting about all of this, and particularly about the smaller village discussed above, is that the sizes are actually really small. On average, people who lived hundreds of years ago are shorter than people today, and Oriental people tended to be even shorter than your average European or European descendent, and this discrepancy in height is very obvious while walking through the temple, as the doorways are very low and the roofs are actually barely taller than I am. My friend is well above six feet and had to crouch down just to get in anywhere.
Finally, we decided to tour the Secret Garden. Entrance into the garden was a bit more expensive, and you could only get in if you book a guided tour. Despite that, we thought it would be well worth it because we had a friend who'd gone and said it was absolutely stunning, which, well, it was!
The Secret Garden is a very well-preserved green park, dotted with big trees, colourful lakes and small temples on the water. Very very pretty.
Unfortunately our tour guide's delivery was somewhat robotic and she had a thick accent so it was difficult to understand what she was saying, however I did manage to grasp that this is considered Seoul's "second palace" after Gyeongbokgung. This entire palace, along with the garden, belonged to the Royal Family, the garden being used for leisure. It's funny how the Royal Family obviously claimed they were humble, yet they owned all this land and refused to share it with anyone. What you see in the final image above is actually a 750-year old tree, the oldest in the garden.
Admittedly after the long and fulfilling day of visiting, we were quite starving, and we found a traditional Korean restaurant nearby owned by the sweetest people!
We devoured this soup containing several varieties of mushrooms, glass noodles and perfectly cooked beef inside a rich beef broth, definitely one of the best meals I've had since arriving! It was a good day!
As the weather cools down and becomes more comfortable, I look forward to exploring more of this enormous city!
-Daniele
