Gyeongbokgung Palace and King Sejon Monument

Gyeongbokgung Palace is a massive and magnificent palace that sits about dead in the middle of Seoul. It was built three years after the beginning of the Joseon Dynasty, and many kings have walked the winding passage ways and maze like interior of the Palace. Here I am pictured on the inside of the outer gate, which defends it from the normal streets.Outside the first set of gates, which cut it off from the more urban area, guards stand in traditional costume.

 However the structure behind me is basically the entrance into the actual palace itself. Gyeongbokgung is more like a village than a Palace. It contains multiple structures throughout the Palace, with Mount Bugaksan serving as the background. When you're inside the ancient walls, its really hard to remember that you are in fact, in the middle of the biggest city in all of Korea. The palace has been restored over the years, so the paint is still vibrant and alive. There are also two different museums accessible at Gyeongbokgung. One of which is free, you don't need to even buy entrance to Gyeongbokgung to go in. You can find this museum on your way to the ticket selling area from the subway station designated for Gyeongbokgung, which can be found on line 3 (the orange line). The other museum is more like a modern art type of museum. There was a little bit about Korean history but not much, we received free entry to this museum by showing the guard our Gyeongbokgung tickets. We did this also to get back in. We spent about three hours at the Palace before moving outside the main gates to Gwanghwamun Plaza

 Gwanghwamun Plaza is the part of Korea where I have felt the most like I'm in Chicago or something. To me this area really gives off a Michigan Avenue kind of vibe. This area has a large amount of industrial looking buildings, such as the Kyobo headquarters. (Korean Bookstore). They commonly use the middle space to use for rallies and demonstrations. We went there once when they were having a demonstration about Dokdo and had to squeeze through a massive crowd to get to the other side of the strip. There is a massive strip in the center that houses several monuments, such as The King Sejong Monument and Museum. This strip separates the directions on the road and is quite large. In this picture you can only see half of the walking space. The picture above is not my image but shows a better view of the wideness of the strip. The monument in the image is the statue of the Admiral Yi Sun-Sin. This strip begins ( or ends) with the white outer wall of Gyeongbokgung Palace on one side, and just merges into regular road on the other end.
The King Sejong Monument and Museum are pictured to the side. Photo Cred goes to my beautiful friend Jenny who is a fellow exchanger with me in Korea. Also from America. Looking at  this monument certainly is cool, but you may be asking yourself, where is the museum? The answer to that question is, within the monument itself. If you walk around to the back of King Sejong, you will find some doors which lead to a stairwell that goes about two stories underground. This is the King Sejong Museum. Here you can learn all about why King Sejong is so important to Korean culture and even visit the slightly reasonably priced gift shop! **Spoiler Alert** King Sejong invented Hangul, the Korean writing system. As well as making many other scientific discoveries that I won't go too heavily into detail here. Basically, he was a pretty cool guy, really smart, and a good King. It makes sense that they have a big statue for him. I mean, we have Mount Rushmore don't we?
  

Foreigners can often get approached here by locals who are making projects for university or their jobs. On both occasions that I have  been here with my foreigner friends we have been asked to take part in either a short video interview or have our picture taken for a project. To the left is a picture of us being filmed in a video interview about why we were in Korea and what we liked about it. Don't worry if you can't speak much Korean and get approached by one of these people. Usually they are doing these projects for an English class so they can speak English pretty well. At the very least communicate. Another important landmark in this area, for Americans at least, is the U.S. Embassy. It's literally almost parallel to the Sejong Monument. Just look for the ugly building with the American flag and a bunch of police outside. We weren't actually allowed into the building from the front entrance, later finding out you have to use a side entrance if you lose your passport or something. Yet nevertheless we wanted a picture with our American flag by the embassy, so we took this one angled so that the building you see in the background is the embassy. Behind the security wall. Our friend took this picture for us, but as he was doing so, an old homeless man came after us with his cane. He clearly wasn't one of the Koreans that appreciates the foreigners. Which is why we all look slightly panicked in this picture. We had to take it fast before we had to mortal combat Grandpa-with-a-stick. All in all this is a really beautiful area, which feels strange to me, because looking one way, you see Gyeongbokgung and the country's landscape and say, "Yep, Korea." However if you look the other way might find yourself saying, "Wait...Chicago?"