Korean heritage

Today is my first day out in Korea and I was thrilled by the prospect of finally getting to see some of the city's hotspots..Since Harvey has already been in Seoul before and it is bitter cold outside, he said he would rather stay in. I quickly checked the local tourist magazine for places to see and settled on Gyongbokkung palace which is the no.1 cultural spot in town..It took me a full 1 hr to reach the place by subway (especially since this was my first time on the subway in Seoul and i had to transfer to a different line after a few stops..But surprisingly the subway system was extremely easy to use...there were english signs on all the stations almost everywhere and each and every compartment had a full map of the subway system..whats more..an english announcer lets you know that a station is arriving and if you have to get down right or left..). As soon as I walked out of the exit in the subway station, I got a complete view of the palace and it was a beautiful sight...Actually I would've felt happy even if there was a small room instead of a big palace..at that moment the feeling of being in a totally new country mattered to me the most..and not really the beauty of the building.



I could see that there were few visitors like me on such a bitter cold day...The place itself cannot be called a palace but a palace complex..It is a group of buildings. pretty much all of them made of wood, distributed across a vast area. I roamed around most of the buildings..All of them had a story to tell about ancient korean kingdoms and dynasties..and how it was rebuilt after being burnt down during japanese invasion of the 16th century. The buildings itself were pretty simple without a lot of decoration. After about an hour of walking around, I couldn't take the cold anymore..I looked around to see if there is anyway i could go into any of the buildings nearby...Luckily i found that the national folk museum is right next to palace complex...I just went in without a second thought.



The folk museum was a pagoda shaped building and had a spire on the top of it..The museum had numerous exhibits of various periods of korean heritage..Most notable was the Korean Kimchi making exhibition. There were dozens of varieties of kimchi (Korean version of pickle) on display..After about an hour of going through most of the exhibits, I walked out completely satisfied!!