First, a few shots of the statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin, who is Korea's greatest military hero. He invented the turtle ships (one of the world's oldest iron-clad ships) and had one of the few victories over Japan history. More info here. and here.
The statue has been a staple of downtown for decades. They are currently renovating the Gwangwhamun area to be more pedestrian friendly. Here is a picture of what they plan it to look like. Originally they were planning to remove Yi's statue and replace him with the statue of King Sejong (the one currently in Doksugung and shown bellow). Now, considering that the street is named Sejong Boulevard and is in front of the Sejong Performing Arts Center, this change did make sense. However Yi's statue has been there for so long that it just feels correct. They did an online poll and based on the results they have decided to remodel their design to now include both statues. Unfortunately I will not be here to see the completed square which is scheduled to be finished in June.
So finally I was able to go to Kyungbokgung in the snow and it wasn't on a Tuesday (it's closed on Tuesdays). Unfortunately by the time I got there it had stopped snowing, so no fresh white blanket around. Also, plenty of people had already been there so plenty of footprints. The snow had started to melt off the roofs, but there were still plenty of snow around. I also met up with a few people. A nice gentlemen offered to take my picture for me.
He asked me in English and followed up with a few questions so I answered him in English. Then I was taking more pictures and his daughters came up and asked me "what do you think of this place?" Well I just couldn't resist and so I busted out with some Korean. I must admit I do like the shocked look on peoples faces when I do that. I talked with his family a bit and then went off to take more pictures, it was fun. Here are a few of the shots I took.
Now, this next section is an area that I have really been looking forward to. They have been restoring the palace piece by piece and this area just opened up a few weeks ago. While they didn't have the inside open, we could walk around the buildings. The last time I was here this was all blocked off with construction walls. The sad part is that they have to restore so much of the palace because it was all destroyed hundreds of years ago, but the good part is that we get to see what it would have looked like new. They take special care to construct the buildings in the traditional way and with the traditional look. So here is what part of the palace looked like with a fresh coat of paint.
These next pictures are of the Blue House, which is the presidential residence.
For many more pictures, check out my flickr set here.
Recent Comments