Jongmyo Shrine and Changdeokgung Palace

A couple weeks ago, our school was on Spring Break, and we took the opportunity to go to some landmarks in Seoul that we hadn't visited yet. We decided to hit up some historic sites and see how cool they were. Despite Jess's 36 weeks of pregnant belly and footache, she hiked through these cool places like a trooper. We probably walked 3 or 4 miles that day.

Outside of Jongmyo Shrine in Seoul, there are tons of old guys sittin around playing a game sort of like chess, but with pieces that look like big black and white skittles. This particular "ajushi" (korean for old man) was totally drunk on soju and was somehow drawn to us. We showed him some love and left him at the gates.

Here's Jess with the mighty guards at the entrance to Jongmyo Shrine.

The whole reason we wanted to go was so we could have a picnic. It sounded romantic. We decided we were hungry once we got into Jongmyo Shrine, so we plopped down on the only available bench; all the others were taken up by geriatric onlookers. We got some nasty stares from a lot of people and we sat there thinking, "Man, these people are seriously rude." Turns out, we weren't supposed to be eating there (we got yelled at by a worker) and we were the rude ones. Open mouth, insert foot. The Shrine, as we found out later, is the place where they keep the Tablets of the Kings and Queens. I think that means the tablets are supposed to hold their spirits or something like that. Yeah, we were lookin like fools.. but at least we were satisfied fools.

After our insensitive meal, we walked around to several buildings that hold the Tablets of the Kings and Queens. The road that Jess is walking on has a lot of significance to the Shrine. When a new tablet was brought to the shrine, an official tablet holder (some kind of monk or something) held the honor of walking in the higher middle path. The king and prince would walk on the lower paths on the sides. Jess is a monk....ey. Tee hee hee! Shhhh.

All of the buildings have some pretty cool details on them.

The shrine used to be connected to a palace called Changdeokgung Palace, but during an invasion, the connecting path was destroyed. It's since been reconnected by a bridge, so we hopped over and explored the palace grounds. This is behind the main building of the palace. On the other side of the wall that Jess is against is the throne of the King.

This is the courtyard and main building of Changdeokgung Palace. The stonework is pretty cool.

This building was the sleeping place of the king and queen. It's basically a house that's one giant bedroom. Hmm.. The cool thing is that underneath the house, water was heated and provided floor heat to the building. Pretty awesome. Hundreds of years later, Koreans are doing it the same way. Hurray for progress!

There are two ponds at the palace filled with carp and ducks. We took some time to feed them while a flock of wild Koreans gathered to watch in awe.

I had some chips leftover, so I found some needy pigeons to give to. I'm so generous :) And no, I didn't kick him once he took the food.