Seoul: Gyeongbokgung Place

The Lonely Planet travel website named Seoul the third of nine places that are ‘least favorite’ destinations (of course Detroit was #1), but I made my first trip there this past week and had a blast, from Nagoya, it is less then a two hour flight to Seoul and a hour bus ride to the city center.

The first place I had a chance to visit was Gyeongbokgung Place, a large royal palace located north of central Seoul.Above is the changing of the guard ceremony at the main gate, these guards have not done a very good job over the years through. Construction of the place started in the mid 1390's.At the gate, you can grab a little information book about the place in English, and on the fist page it summarizes the history behind this place. Basically from 1394 to 1412, build the palace.1592, the palace was destroyed by fire during a Japanese invasion (today, to avoid conflagration there are fire extinguishers everywhere).Then from 1868 to 1888 Korea re-built the palace.Then in 1915, Japan clears away about 10 buildings because land is needed to build a Japanese General Government Building.Then from 1968 to 2007 (just a few years ago), the restoration of the palace completed to the state it is today.This place is a really amazing place, and Seoul was a fun trip. Over the next couple of days, I will put some more photos from Korea on here.