Day 40, 41, 42, 43, 44: Jongmyo Shrine, Gyeonghui Palace, Ewha Jacket and Shopping
April 1-5, 2013
Nothing much happened during the days I had school except on Wednesday. That day, I had my second field trip with my World Heritage class and we actually used the subway to get there. I don't know about you but that's the first time in my life that I went on a school field trip without the school renting a charter bus or car for its students. It was a unique yet interesting experience!
We went to Jongmyo Shrine, another place filled with so much history and meaning. I had such an amazing time that by the end of my tour around the shrine, it became one of my favorite place in Korea. It's a Confucian shrine dedicated to commemorate the royal kings and queens of the Joseon Dynasty and was built during the 14th century. This shrine houses the tablets of the kings and queens and the Koreans believe that these tablets is where the royals' spirits remain.
Our class went with a tour guide because you can't actually roam around the shrine by yourself (unless during Saturdays I believe). There are a lot of rules and the biggest one is always being respectful. There's a pathway just for the "spirits" of the kings and queens. You are not allowed step on them! Refer to the picture above.
There's only two times in the year that you can actually see the tablets and unfortunately, it's not during the day we went. You can see the shrines but not the tablets of the kings and queens itself because it's all closed. They only open it once in May (first Sunday) and in November (first Saturday) where they actually perform the ancestral rites to pay homage to the kings and queen. Also, this is done by the descendants of the royal family! HOW AWESOME IS THAT?! In the picture above, the bottom right corner, you can see the tablets of a king and his queen.
One interesting fact about Jongmyo Shrine is that the shrine itself is a reconstruction. Like other buildings in Seoul, it also fell to the Japanese invasion. However, all the spirits' tablets are all ORIGINAL and why is that? Because whenever there is a fire, a disaster or an invasion threatening the country, the King himself takes all these tablets to safety. He doesn't take his clothes or his other personal belongings, he takes these tablets! Filial piety at its best!
Okay, I think I talked too much about history once again so I'll move on now! But if you have any questions about Jongmyo, just ask me!
ย On Friday, before my sister and I went to visit another palace (there's a lot of palaces in Seoul okay!), we picked up our Ewha jackets. A month ago, we ordered these baseball jackets commonly worn by college students here in Korea. Ours cost 42,000 KRW each. It's think and amazing during winter. It also let other people that you belong to a college! I was so excited when I picked up my jacket. In the beginning, I was disappointed at the fitting because it runs larger than I expected and it's uncomfortable but the longer you wear it, the better it feels.
The jacket is dark green which is the school's colors. The front has a letter E which stands for Ewha and the right arm has Ewha's emblem on it.
On the left arm, they put the year you enter college (or the year when you buy it, usually students buy it the year they enter that's why). In this same arm, you can put your name or initials. I had them write my name in Korean with a heart!
The back has the university's name and your affiliation. Mine has "International Exchange Student." The other jackets I've seen so far has School of Business, School of Liberal Arts, etc. I thought when they gave this jacket to us it's going to be useless because it's warmer but Seoul weather is so bipolar. It's been windy and raining on and off.
That day, it was really warm. I was sweating my butt off when we went to Gyeonghui Palace after picking up our jackets. I wanted to show it off but the weather wasn't cooperating! Anyways, this is the smallest palace I've ever been to. We manage to go around in just 30 minutes. There's no entrance fee and because it's so small, there's really nothing to see. It was actually a good thing because it was too warm in my opinion. I don't think I would have the energy to go around a palace as big as Gyeongbukgung that day.
After the short palace trip, we decided to cool off by going to Timeout Gelato again. I tried to be more spontaneous and ordered flavors I never had before and well, sometimes being spontaneous is not a good thing. I didn't like both flavors I had but it was okay because I manage to cool off and stopped sweating. We went back to Edae and went shopping. For 50,000 KRW, I manage to snag quite a lot of clothes for Spring. It might not be the best quality but I'm not really picky because I just need something to wear once. Edae is just an amazing, cheap place to shop at so check it out! Anyways, I'll end my post here. I'll post about two more to catch up once again!
Until later, Mel
April 10, 2013
