Fun Fridays

Of course this should be entitled with a singular Friday, since I will only be referring to one - namely yesterday - of the many Fridays in existence. To compensate for the misfortune that we've had to work for the past two Saturdays, we were graced with the blessings of a long weekend. Thought I'd get a head start on the reports.

Taking advantage of the weekday, we finally made it to the Van Gogh exhibition. Despite getting in first thing in the morning, our viewing pleasure was still tested by the flow of keen Seoulites and groups of school trippers. Was glad not to have visited at peak time. The exhibition itself was well laid out in chronological order making it easy/interesting to see the various themes and styles the artist adopted throughout his life.


Over lunchtime we headed to Gyeongbokgung - the Palace of Shining Happiness. It was the main palace of the Joseon dynasty but was burned during the Japanese invasions of the 1590s. It was rebuilt to high glory during the remaining years of the dynasty in the late 19th century, but was largely demolished under Japanese rule in 1911. It continues to be restored today; in fact Gwanghwamun - the main gate of the palace - was dismantled last year for renovation and will not return until 2009. Another landmark of Seoul whose presence I will not be graced with this visit.

At midday we witnessed the hourly changing of the guard re-enactment. Since the palace no longer inhabits royalty, this is a commentated ritual carried out for the benefit of tourism. I did wonder whether being in possession of a shaped straight beard was in the guard job description, but on close inspection many were definitely stuck on. Apparently close up photography of peripheral facial hair is frowned upon, as is imitating guards for amusing photographic purposes.


The palace itself showed a glimpse of its former beauty and grandeur. Being aware of many of the features of palaces in general from our less than extensive tours of other such structures, the tour that we received was not as informative as we'd hoped. Still, the few rays of sunlight that struggled through the haze of fog lightened the palace to its reputation of Shining Happiness in the middle of the high-rise offices of Seoul.