I don’t think a wild boar wandering onto the grounds of Changdeok Palace should be considered a “rampage” as described in this article:
A view of Changdeok Palace in Jongno District, central Seoul [JOONGANG PHOTO]
A wild boar went on a rampage at tourist destination Changdeok Palace, a Unesco World Heritage site, and was later killed on Tuesday.
The Changdeok Palace Management Office killed a wild boar around Seonwonjeon Hall in the rear garden of the palace grounds at around 1 p.m. Tuesday, working together with a wild boar capture team, according to the National Heritage Service.
The wild boar was estimated to be about 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) long and weighed 90 kilograms (198 pounds).
The animal was first discovered through CCTV footage on Sunday by the Changdeok Palace Management Office, and the case was reported to emergency authorities who conducted a search. Jongno District officials and hunters tracked the wild boar’s movements, but were initially unable to find the animal.
A backyard tour of the palace scheduled from 10 a.m. that day was halted, and search operations continued on Monday, a regular day off for the palace.
The management office and capture team members ran another operation at 11 a.m. Tuesday using hunting dogs, finding and killing the wild boar about two hours later.
For people in the Seoul area, here is something to do in the coming weeks:
This photo provided by the Cultural Heritage Administration shows the royal palace Changdeok in Seoul during the Changdeokgung Moonlight Tour.
The popular nighttime tours of royal palaces in South Korea will resume next week, months after their suspension due to novel coronavirus fears, the cultural heritage authority said Saturday.
The Gyeongbokgung Starlight Tour will start on Wednesday and go through June 8, while the Changdeokgung Moonlight Tour will open from Thursday until June 21, according to the Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA).
Tickets for the nocturnal programs are available for purchase at the e-commerce website Auction (ticket.auction.co.kr).
A special program named Gyeongbokgung Saenggwabang, which provides tourists a chance to experience a traditional tea ceremony and enjoy dessert, will start its one-month run on Wednesday.
Music concerts will be also held at the royal palace of Gyeongbok every weekend from May 30 to July 12.
At the same time, the changing of the royal guard ceremony at Gyeongbok Palace already restarted on Wednesday, the administration added.
Note: This is part two of a two part series. Part one can be read here.
The tour of Changdeokgung Palace had so far covered the entrance gate, the royal throne room, the King’s office, the royal living quarters, and the King’s garage.
View looking towards the royal throne from near the King’s garage.
From the King’s garage the tour group then moved towards the Nakseonjae area of the palace:
The Nakseonjae area of the palace is easily identifiable because of its brown and white coloring:
This coloring is used because these buildings are not considered royal buildings. Only the buildings designated for royalty are painted with bright and vibrant colors. Nakseonjae was built by King Heonjong in 1847 for his concubine Kim Gyeongbin. It stands to reason that King Heonjong must not have been to infatuated with his wife considering he had this entire complex built for a concubine. Even the name Nakseonjae tends to indicate that the King preferred his concubine more than his wife because Nakseonjae literally means the “Mansion of Joy and Goodness”. This probably did not go over to well with his wife which might explain why the King died at age 22 only two years later in 1849.
Nakseonjae had been closed off to the public for decades because it had been used as the residence for the last remaining Korean princesses until 1989 when Princess Deokhye, the youngest daughter of King Gojang, the 26th king of the Joseon Dynasty passed away in 1989. Even after her death Nakseonjae didn’t open to the public until 2006:
I found the colors and design of Nakseonjae to be even better than the royal buildings which in my opinion are too lavish compared to the more naturally eye pleasing colors of Nakseonjae. The inside of the building is all in traditional Korean design:
After visiting Nakseonjae I can understand why the last remaining Korean princess chose to live there until he final days. It is a beautiful home fit for a princess.
From Nakseonjae the tour then moved on to the Biwon or Secret Garden area of the palace. The Secret Garden is where Chosun Dynasty Royalty came to relax, study, and write poems. The most notable feature of the garden is the beautiful lotus pond surrounded with little pavilions and a rock island in the middle of it:
The rock island is supposed to be symbolic of a Taoist hermit. It was easy to imagine a Chosun King sitting on this pavilion overlooking the pond writing poetry:
On the far side of the pond is the Juhamnu royal library:
Juhamnu literally means to “Gather the Universe” and that is what the library tried to do on the first floor by gathering tens of thousands of books and manuscripts. The second floor of the library served as a reading room.
On another side of the lotus pond is a building known as Yeonghwadang:
The Korean government operated a examination system known as Gwageojedo in Korean that determined if people were qualified or not to hold various government offices. The exam was open to the Yangban class too take and required years diligent study to pass. Yeonghwadang is where the government officials sat to administer the test, known as a Jeonsi, to those seeking to pass it. This historic precedent for the importance of education helps explains the drive by Korean parents to this day to ensure their children are properly educated.
From the lotus pond the tour continued to follow a path deeper into the Secret Garden. Along the path was a number of these beautifully colored trees:
Even though it was summer time the trees still had this fantastic colors. These trees leaves remain this color all year long until it sheds its leaves in the winter. Along the trail I also noticed some other random buildings. These buildings housed people that worked in the palace and thus were only allowed to have their houses painted in peasant colors:
The trail continued and we eventually passed underneath a gate that legend claims gives those who pass it everlasting life:
However, the tour guide said it does not work very well because the average age of a Korean King at the time of his death was 38 years old. Pass the gate was more of the brightly colored trees:
The brightly colored trees surrounded another little lotus pond known as Aeryeonji:
Once again it was easy to imagine a Chosun King sitting on this pavilion drinking tea and writing poetry. The path continued pass the lotus pond and into the thickly forested area of the Secret Garden:
Some of the trees in the Secret Garden are hundreds of years old. For example this Chinese juniper is 750 years old:
The tree was planted because Chinese juniper wood was used as incense for royal ancestral rituals. The tour ends shortly after passing the Chinese juniper tree. Overall, I highly recommend a visit the palace, but make sure you budget enough time because the tour takes about 2.5 hours and some of the people in the tour group were quite surprised by its length. Also there is a lot of walking which also took its toll on some people in the group that were older or out of shape. Despite this the palace is still a worthy day trip in Seoul in order to learn little bit about Korean history and architecture plus having a chance to get some fresh air in the heavily forested Secret Garden, which is not something that easy to do in downtown Seoul.
Seoul has a handful of palace complexes that are all a bit different, have played an important part in Korean history, and are definitely worth checking out. However, out of all the palaces in Seoul only one of them, Changdeok Palace has been designated a World Heritage Area by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The palace is located in northern Seoul across the street from a fellow UNESCO site the Jongmyo Shrine and to the east of Kyeongbok Palace. Changdeok Palace literally means “Palace of Prospering Virtue” and is easily recognizable when viewed from overhead because it is an island of green in the dense urban jungle of Seoul because of the thick foliage of trees that surrounds the palace.
Donggwoldo, the landscape painting of Changdeokgung via Wikipedia.
In fact the green foliage and natural setting of Changdeok Palace played a major role in the justification UNESCO cited for including the palace as a World Heritage Area:
The Committee decided to inscribe this property on the basis of criteria (ii), (iii) and (iv), considering that the Ch’angdokkung Palace Compound is an outstanding example of Far Eastern palace architecture and garden design, exceptional for the way in which the buildings are integrated into and harmonized with the natural setting, adapting to the topography and retaining indigenous tree cover.
Besides the natural setting of the palace, UNESCO also cited the outstanding palace architecture as part of the reasoning for naming the palace a World Heritage Area. From the moment you arrive at the front gate of the palace it is easy to see why this is true:
The front gate of the palace is known as Tonhwamun and was first constructed in 1412, seven years after the main complex was constructed in 1405. The gate stood until it was destroyed during the Hideyoshi invasion of Korea in 1592. After the war it was rebuilt in 1607 and some how it has survived all the other subsequent wars on the Korean peninsula to become the oldest two story wooden gate in the entire country.
It is here at Tonhwamun that I bought my ticket for 3000 won to enter the palace. However, unlike other palaces in Seoul, this palace can only be entered as part of a guided tour in order to protect the historical and cultural treasures within the complex. There are tours every hour, but the only English language tours begin at 11:30, 13:30, & 15:30. I toured Changdeok Palace six years ago and found the then English language tour to be quite poor. I was pleasantly surprised this time around because the tour guide was actually quite good, though a bit robotic. A problem with the English language tours is that the limited number of them means the tour groups are quite large. This makes taking pictures and listening to the guide a bit difficult because of the sheer number of people you are surrounded by.
Once the tour began, the first historical structure that was presented was the Geumcheongyo Bridge, which was built in 1411 and is the oldest bridge still used in Seoul:
On the other side of the bridge is the gate that leads to the throne hall of the Korean King:
Changdeok Palace was built in 1405 as a secondary palace for the Korean Chosun Dynasty King with Kyeongbok Palace serving as the primary palace for the Korean royalty. During the Hideyoshi invasion of Korea, Kyeongbok Palace was destroyed and after the war it was not rebuilt and Changdeok Palace became the primary residence of the royal family.
The Chosun Dynasty King’s throne was located in Injeongjeon Hall:
The structure was originally constructed like most of the buildings in the palace in 1405, but was destroyed during the Hideyoshi invasion and rebuilt in 1607. The structure had to once again be reconstructed when it was destroyed by fire in 1803. The throne was rebuilt a year later and the current structure is now over 200 years old.
From this building the King was able to review his troops and governmental officials. The small stone tabulets on the ground are not gravestones, but markers that designated where the different governmental and military officials stood during reviews by the king.
Inside Injeongjeon Hall sits the Korean throne that had served as the seat of power for the Korean King for nearly 300 years:
The throne room is decorated with lavish artwork. The painting behind the throne represents the sun, the moon, and the five sacred mountains of Korea. The room is really incredible to look at with its highly detailed artwork and extragavant chandaliers. As impressive as this room is, the King actually did not use it all that often. Towards the back of this building the King had a smaller throne room the Seonjeongjeon that the King used to hold meetings with his ministers.
Outside of the building the roof is decorated with small and decorative statues of animals that represent an old Asian tale about a monkey king:
The buildings in the palace is filled with bright and colorful artwork. Here is how many of the corners of the roofs are decorated:
The sides of the roofs were painted in these patterns:
Even on lesser structures you could find beautiful, detailed artwork:
Even the doors are beautifully painted:
If you like bright and colorful artwork, Korean royal palaces are definitely the place to see it.
Adjacent to the buildings housing the King’s throne and meeting room is the buildings that housed the royal living quarters and office:
Huijeongdang is the building that served as the royal office. Huijeongdang has some impressive artwork on the sides of the roof:
What is interesting about the King’s office is the combination of eastern and western furnishings:
You can see the combination of western and eastern design in the construction of the building as well:
Huijeongdang was not only the King’s office but was also his living quarters. The queens living quarters, Daejojeon is located behind Huijeongdang:
The furnishings of the Queen’s residence were more traditionally Korean:
However, the royal bed is a mix of western and eastern origins:
The royal kitchen also had plenty of western influence as well:
The heating system though for the palace is purely the Korean ondol system. The ondol system is when hot coals are burned underneath the buildings in order to heat the floors. The smoke from this system is piped out of the building and channeled to these large decorative chimneys behind the buildings:
The ondol system is largely responsible for the Korean habbit of sitting and sleeping on floors.
Across from these royal buildings is the royal garage:
The royal family has had a number of cars that were housed in this garage and are beautifully preserved for people to see to this day.
These first two areas of the palace took about an hour to cover before the tour moved on to the last two portions of the palace Nakseonjae and the Secret Garden.
![A view of Changdeok Palace in Jongno District, central Seoul [JOONGANG PHOTO]](https://i0.wp.com/koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2024/09/24/d08b1af8-dfe2-4141-ac70-9c63c8ea2154.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)
