8th of November - On guard duty

At 0900 we met in the reception and mounted a bus that took us took us to the Blue House - the president's residence. It can be discussed long and wide the reasoning behind why it was named as such, as the building was really white with a teal roof. Apparently it was more blue in evening. Hm.

From there we drove to the Gyeongbok Palace where we started off seeing the change of guards. Today it's solely purely theater to recreate how it was done back in the days, it has no practical use today (apart from attracting tourists). Arriving 10 minutes early there was already a plenty of people waiting around the roped off changing area, so it was hard to get a clear view of the action. 

But what could be seen were very serious-looking people in fancy uniforms (and hats) waving their flags (instead of insignias on uniforms) doing some very serious marching around with serious looking (glued on) mustaches and beards, accompanied by a small orchestra with bells, drums and horns. Overall quite the sight. 

Our tour guide led us around the palace grounds for an hour or so introducing us to the buildings, their purpose and the overall construction and reasoning behind why the buildings were where and how the were. Most of the palace had been burned down multiple times during wars, though leaving the stone foundations every time, so even if not everything has been rebuilt (I got the impression only a fraction of the original buildings had been rebuilt to this day) it was still fairly well known where the original buildings had been located. The structure was similar to what you'd see in e.g. China with several outer walls with gates in before reaching the center where the - in this case - king had his residence. Parks, a pagoda for parties, buildings for the king's mother etc.

 

Leaving the area we entered the National Folk Museum which we got 45 minutes to see. This meant largely rushing through; only reading the main signs and quickly continuing not spending too much time anywhere. One could easily have spend a few hours inside to see it all, but due to our tight schedule we didn't have more time. Following this we got an introduction to the Bukchon Hanok Village; again a place I had been to previously so it wasn't much new. 

After this we were brought to Insadong Alley which I hadn't seen before; basically a street with plenty of restaurants and souvenir shops. Nothing much interesting so I - together with two others - went to the Gwangjang Market to get lunch, before traveling to the Coex Mall so they could see the fancy library and Gangnam statue, before returning to the hotel. Both trips with the subway took around 45 minutes so it was a bit of a travel for what in the end was not much. But we didn't really have anything in mind so it was nice to just spend our time on something. 

The weather had changed compared to the previous days (pretty much my entire stay) and it was overcast and chilly. We did get the occasional 3-4 droplets at times but nothing that made you worry about being outside. While it was still possible to be outside and enjoy yourself I did feel the turn in the weather put a slight damper on the overall impression. It also meant that you didn't get the same bright light lighting up the library as the last time I was there - but being late-ish afternoon and overcast it was dark enough for the installed lights to make an impression. 

For dinner we were 4 who went together to the night market across the hotel and sampled the food stalls.