Jongyesa, Changdeokgung (New)

Went over to a temple today, cause Yong Hui and I hadn’t been one here yet. We decided upon Jongyesa, cause it’s one of the more grand ones. And it was really really big and nice! When I first looked at the Buddha statues in the temple, I stood in awe for a while, cause it was so big and stoic, and seemed to fill up all the space inside the temple.

Actually the Buddhist culture in Korea is pretty strong. When I was there, I felt almost like it was Sunday church day, cause many families were here and participating in the activities. There were religious classes, bonding sessions for the children, dance activities for the elderly and more. It’s really a stark contrast from the scene in Singapore.

   

We chanced upon the canteen by accident, and the helpers there were so nice! They gave us lunch for free even though we were obviously foreigners. And the dishes were good too!

Since there was a palace nearby, we headed to the palace too. This one is called Changdeokgung (昌德宫). Like all other attractions in Korea, this one is pretty cheap too, only $1.50! We were lucky, cause we needed to join the English tour in order to enter the palace, and coincidentally the English tour just started when we got to the place.

Notice how the temple pictures on top looks like the palace pictures. In ancient Korean history, only temples and palaces can be painted in bright colours, hence the similarity in looks.

Notice the small sculptures on top of the roof: they are actually sacred animals that watch over the palace and protect the emperor and his people.

Here’s our English guide. I have no idea what her name is, but she was really engaging and told us much about the history of the palace. Without her, I don’t think the palace trip would have been so interesting and fruitful.

The small stones below are the place markers for officials to stand at, when addressing the emperor. Of course, the emperor sat in the palace, and the officials had to stand in the sun. The chinese words on each stone signified the different rankings, and the administrative officials stood on one side whereas the military officials stood on the other side.

The wooden panels below are actually the doors for the palace. In the summer, where the weather is hot, the panels were left on top, parallel to the ceiling, to ventilate and cool the place. In winter, the panels were let down, so that the doors could be closed, blocking out the cold wind.

Here, the guide is standing on a cement step, which was used in the olden times by the officials to climb onto horses.

The pavilion in the middle of the pond is known as the Lotus Pavilion, due to its lotus shaped roof. In the middle of the pond, there exists another circular piece of land, covered by lots of flora. There is a reason behind this as well. In the past, people believed that the Earth was flat, and the heaven was round. Hence, the water in the pond represented the rectangular Earth, and the circular part with the greenery represented the heavens. And since it was situated in the palace, it signified that the emperor was born in the place where the Earth meets sky.

To end off the tour, we went over to the Secret Garden, which is a giant garden behind the palace. This is probably the most majestic of all gardens in the 5 major palaces. Only 30% of the land is accessible to the public. However, since spring just began, we couldn’t see much of the scenery. Still nice enough though!