Tourist for a day

Working in hotels has it's perks and last Saturday we took advantage of this and joined a full day Ancient Korea Tour. Grace Travel Service are one of several companies that offer tours in Seoul, and as my department sells a lot of tours to guests I thought it is important to experience what the guest is paying for and is the tour good value. So at 8am we were met at the hotel by our escort for the day, Mr. Louis Lee. We then jumped into a very modern mini-van that sat around 8 people and we headed off to a few more hotels to pick up some other guests.

After picking up the remaining guests on the tour; a couple from Siberia on business, two Indonesian Americans, and a Korean Swiss lady, we headed to the area where the Presidential Blue House is. This area is extremely fortified with hundreds of security around guarding the Presidential Palace and the offices that surround. It is referred to as the blue house because the enormous rooftop has tiles that are blue. Kind of looked green to me! Once we drove out we drove through a small town near the blue house that is one of the remaining low level housing areas with the traditional lane ways between the houses. This area was once what all of Seoul looked like, but urbanisation has taken its toll!

We then had a short drive to the Gyeongbok Palace where we left the van and had a really interesting one hour tour. I will not go on about what was said in the tour as you really need to experience for yourself, but really it is so interesting how the Korean royalty lived in the past. The buildings gave such a great feel of how the royal family lived, and also struggled to keep themselves alive in times of so many wars and anarchy from inside and outside the palace.

We then had a short walk over to the National Folk Museum which is housed in a beautiful building that was built in 1972. It is representative of several hundreds of years of Korean design styles and also has a towering five-storey pagoda as it centerpiece. On the site of the Folk Museum there once stood a beautiful large Korean building that once housed many of the ancient treasures, but were all destroyed by the Japanese during the Japanese occupation. We toured the museum for around an hour and really on saw about 1/5 of it before it was time to leave. We will be sure to return there as it looked like there was just so much to see. What we did see gave a great insight into the living of the common people and also how they lived and survived based on the classes of the people. By the way there is no entry charge to get in! First time I have seen this in a city.

We then drove to the Jogye Temple which is one of the most ancient Buddhist temples in Seoul. It has for the most part remained intact through all the wars and occupations, and has some very interesting historical drawings on the walls of the temple. We also climbed the bell tower where we saw the various bells and drums used to signify certain events to the community in the surrounding area. The large bell for instance is only used during funerals!

We then did a quick stop to the Amethyst Factory where we were told about this famous rock and shown how it has been turned into various jewelry. Of course they tried to sell their works but we declined.

Next was to lunch finally where we enjoyed a nice Korean BBQ lunch at a very normal restaurant in Ieteawon. Food was great, but rather a boring place to eat. Was hoping for something more traditional.

We then set off on a 90 minute drive through the typical Seoul traffic to our next destination, the Korean Folk Village. Finally after arriving we jumped out of the van to be welcomed by some rain which kindly stayed with us for the next two hours. In any case we had a great walk around the Folk Village which is set up to depict the ancient times of the rural people. As it says in the brochure, it is an all natural environment set on 243 acres with more than 260 houses from the different regions of Korea. There is also set ups done throughout the villages depicting the living culture of the people in the late Joseon Dynasty. There us a nobleman's Mansion (99 rooms), a commoners house, and even a provincial Government office with a jail!

Sadly because of the rain they had cancelled the performance of the village people. What we would have seen was the traditional music and dance of the farmers, the games they played, as well as a wedding. Oh well, I guess another time.

We then jumped back into the van and headed back to Seoul. We returned to the hotel around 5.00pm! We were so tired, but a great day of learning and understanding of the Korean culture.