August 13, 2006
Some Pictures of Korea
As promised, a few pictures I took on our recent trip:
One of the places we toured during our time in Seoul was Changdeokgung palace, which includes some breathtakingly beautiful buildings. The entire palace complex is made of wood, making it very susceptible to damage, so tourists are not actually allowed inside any of the buildings. There were opportunities to view portions of the interiors by looking in through windows and doors, but most of the tour focused on exteriors. The only way to see Changdeokgung is on an escorted tour, there are three tours offered in English daily.
The painted trim on many of the buildings was spectacular, very bright and bold:
The (ceramic) tiles used on roofs and on top of walls were very interesting:
There were very cool details everywhere:
The palace grounds also had beautiful gardens and wooded areas, and a large square lily pond.
One area contained a compound of more modern palace buildings, this was the part of the palace most recently occupied. The Joseon dynasty ceased to exist with the death of the last king (I can't recall the exact date but I believe it was in the mid-20th century), now the palace is unoccupied. This is what the modern buildings look like:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We spent most of our time in Korea in the city of Icheon, which is about an hour's busride from Seoul. We were working at a manufacturing plant located a few miles outside of town. The plant is surrounded by rice fields and small areas growing ginseng, both commodities Icheon is famous for within Korea. This is a view of the area around the plant:
The close-to-the-ground buildings past the road are greenhouses. Most of the fields are planted with rice, the areas planted with ginseng are under the black covering in the bottom center of the picture. They were also covered when we were here last time (which was in February when the ground was frozen and there was no rice growing). I don't know what is growing across the road from the ginseng.
This is a view in another direction, of more rice fields.
If you are interested in seeing some other pictures I took in Icheon (and a few in Seoul), and you haven't already seen them when I linked in an earlier post, please check them out on this blog:
http://thisisitzz.blogspot.com/ ¶ 1:05 AM
One of the places we toured during our time in Seoul was Changdeokgung palace, which includes some breathtakingly beautiful buildings. The entire palace complex is made of wood, making it very susceptible to damage, so tourists are not actually allowed inside any of the buildings. There were opportunities to view portions of the interiors by looking in through windows and doors, but most of the tour focused on exteriors. The only way to see Changdeokgung is on an escorted tour, there are three tours offered in English daily.
The painted trim on many of the buildings was spectacular, very bright and bold:
The (ceramic) tiles used on roofs and on top of walls were very interesting:
There were very cool details everywhere:
The palace grounds also had beautiful gardens and wooded areas, and a large square lily pond.
One area contained a compound of more modern palace buildings, this was the part of the palace most recently occupied. The Joseon dynasty ceased to exist with the death of the last king (I can't recall the exact date but I believe it was in the mid-20th century), now the palace is unoccupied. This is what the modern buildings look like:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We spent most of our time in Korea in the city of Icheon, which is about an hour's busride from Seoul. We were working at a manufacturing plant located a few miles outside of town. The plant is surrounded by rice fields and small areas growing ginseng, both commodities Icheon is famous for within Korea. This is a view of the area around the plant:
The close-to-the-ground buildings past the road are greenhouses. Most of the fields are planted with rice, the areas planted with ginseng are under the black covering in the bottom center of the picture. They were also covered when we were here last time (which was in February when the ground was frozen and there was no rice growing). I don't know what is growing across the road from the ginseng.
This is a view in another direction, of more rice fields.
If you are interested in seeing some other pictures I took in Icheon (and a few in Seoul), and you haven't already seen them when I linked in an earlier post, please check them out on this blog:
http://thisisitzz.blogspot.com/ ¶ 1:05 AM
