Gyeongbokgung Palace Part 2

After staring at the beautiful throne room, I made my way to an opening on the side of the courtyard walls and entered into a smaller grouping of one-story, ornately decorated buildings. This was the crown prince's residence. What struck me at first was new it looked and also how detailed every inch of the walls, corners and roofs were. The buildings that were standing there were recreated in 1999 after they were leveled during the Japanese colonial rule half a century before that. In fact many of the structures inside the palace walls were new recreations, but were built in nearly exact replicas of the originals, right down to the same direction the door where facing and the same dragon pictures that were on the ends of every singled roof.

I had picked a good day to explore this bit of history; it was the first day of our Chusak break, or the Korean Thanksgiving, and hardly anyone was there. I also came here alone. When I entered the prince's corridors, there was not a soul to be heard nor a sound from off the nearby streets. I thought I had strayed into a true abonded palace in an ancient time period. For the first time I was in Seoul, one of the largest cities in the world,  I did not see bundles of wires, tight packed shops or glowing signs, or hear the usual city bustle. I was in a true place of history, alone, and I could walk anywhere I wanted, stay there as long as I wanted and roam into any nook and hiding place that caught my eye and not follow, or be followed by, anybody. For they next 2 hours I roamed the palace grounds with this new-found independent spirit.

I exited the Prince's corriders and walked through a narrow gate that stood ajar, begging me to see what it hid on the other side. The gate opened up into a large grassy field filled with black and white magpies pecking in the grass. Through trees I could see more stone walls and tiled roofs in front of me. There was after large triple-decked structure way off in the distance and ever more rows of stone corridors. How large was this place? It was more than a palace, it was a grouping of villages. A glimpse of my map told me that I had only seen about a faction of all the place had to offer.

I made my way across the field of magpies and towards the stone and tiled roof structure which had walls that looked like rows and rows of doors lined up end to end. This place is called Hamhwadang, and was once the residence of the court ladies and concubines, and they were provided very elegant and detailed corridors. There were rows upon rows of long hallways which opened into another sections of more long corridors that had doors lined end to end. There were so many small buildings with pretty tiled roofs and brightly colored wood trimmings, I wondered what each building was once used for. After scoping out all the rows of rooms and passageways of the women's corriders, I walked out of the gates and into another grassy court yard over looking an huge black pond. There was ripples moving in the water in nearly every square meter of the pond, but from what, I had to move closer.