According to Lonely Planet, one of the top 5 places to see in Seoul is Gyeonbokgung palace, located about an hour and a half north of Suwon by subway. We'd been meaning to do something "touristy" and Sunday was the perfect spring-like day to sightsee. Mel, Hannah and I met Dayna at the palace mid-afternoon.
The palace was originally built in the 14th century but it was detroyed like a lot of things in this country by the Japanese in the 16th century. The castle was reconstructed about 125 years ago, so although it looks very old, it is not. I like the above picture because you can really see the contrast of old and new that is so common in Korea- random recreated ancient castle in the foreground, modern skyskrapers in the background.
There were lots of tall doors...
The castle grounds were enormous and would take hours to explore properly and that's not how we roll. This small building built on a little island was particularly scenic, with lots of hungry fish with big mouths to feed swimming in the water around it.
The blossoms were in full bloom and reminded me of our Apple Blossom Festival at home in the Annapolis Valley. The palace shared its grounds with a folk museum (seen behind the blossoms in the above picture), which we visited only to buy their tasty ice cream.
It was a nice stroll, although it felt a little artificial since we knew it had all been recreated. It was a bit like a walk through the park. I recommend that they build a roller coaster.
After visiting the palace we got some sandwiches (a rare treat) in town and went to the bookstore. On the way back to Suwon we saw this pimped out Spiderman train- pretty cool, huh?
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