Therefore, a young lady suggested us to do some other activities while we were waiting. Since we came in a rather big group and there were three different activities, we had to be divided into three different groups. My group was the first to have tea while chatting with the female monks. We were taught on how to hold the little tea bowls and how to drink the tea. As I looked at the bowls, it reminded me that during a short visit to U of M Museum of Art, it was mentioned that Korean tea bowls were once coveted by many to be used in tea ceremony especially among the Japanese . Mostly came in the form of celadon glazed or white porcelain, it was well liked for its plainness and simplicity. As we talked, we asked a bunch of questions to the monk such as what was the deciding factor that made her decided to become a monk and how she meditated. Unlike the typical idea of meditation that we could find by google-ing image (a person sits cross-legged with eyes closed), she was capable to meditated pretty much all the time, while eating or talking, although it was pretty difficult when she first started. Secretly, I coveted her ability and hoped that one day, I would also be capable to do zikr as easy as breathing.
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| My masterpiece! ^^ |
After a while, we switched to another activity which was coloring some sort of geometric pattern which called as mandala using water color. We were supposedly to clear our mind and let our inner self to express itself and one of the monks seems to know how to read our characters/personality based on our creativity. However, I wasn’t sure even sure myself whether I cleared my mind or not and being pretty hungry, was not helpful either. I wished there was enough time to try the third activity which was using colored salt, but nevertheless I was really glad when we could finally go to the second floor and had our lunch. All of the food was vegetarian, so both I and Elise could eat everything and luckily I wasn’t being greedy as the only rules set in this kitchen were that one must only take what he or she could eat and must finish it all.
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| Hyangwonji Pond and Bugaksan |
Soon enough, we walked to Gyeongbok Palace which was only about 10 minutes walk from Jogyesa. The moment we arrived, it felt like I stepped into Korean historical dramas as there were few guards standing at the Gwanghwamun Gate wearing Joseon’s attire. As we walked inside, few historical dramas’ scenes flashed into my mind such as The Moon Embraces the Sun and Dr. Jin. I used this long awaited opportunity to explore the palace with Christine and Elise. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to visit the structure that I wanted to visit the most, Gyeongharu Pavilion, as reservation was required. Nevertheless, we managed to visit a lot
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| Guard changing ceremony |
of other buildings such as Taewonjeon shrine, Gyotaejeon, Geoncheonggung residence, and Hyangwonji Pond. But it would be better if we could look into the interior design of every building as most of them were closed to the public. But my disappointment were replaced satisfaction when we could watch the entire guard changing ceremony.
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Chunyeo painted with dancheong.
The lower part is the bracket system. |
Every time I see Korean traditional building, the first parts that I like to see is its “chunyeo (추녀),” slanting curved rafter at the corners of the eaves, and the lower part of the roof. The use of Korean traditional decorative coloring called “dancheong (단청)” makes it really pretty and colorful. However the wooden structure under the roof seems pretty complicated that it makes me wonder how they made it in the old days without using a nail but interlocking wooden brackets instead. Another interesting feature of Gyeongbok Palace was the existence of animal-shaped ridge tiles at the roof corners.
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| The roof of Gyeongharu Pavilion. |
It was believed that these animals would protect the building and prevent bad lucks. Different buildings seems to have different number of animals. For instance, there were ten animals on Gyeongharu Pavilion’s roof, but there were only six of them on the Gwanghwamun Gate. Therefore, based on the number of the animal figures, we could figure out the importance of the infrastructure as the more important it is, the more ridge tiles would be placed on the roof
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| The map of Seoul |
Satisfied, I left the palace with a happy feeling and we went to Seoul National Museum. The museum was not really big and the main exhibition place was basically only on the second floor. Nevertheless, there were some cool things such as the miniature model of Hanyang and also the current Seoul. We didn’t really spent a lot of time there and went to Cafe Ato to have something cold as it was a pretty hot day. Most of us chose either affogato or ice-cream with brownies except for Kali who decided to have lemonade instead. I chose the brownies and it was definitely one of the best desserts I ever had. When we left the store, some of us decided to go back to the temple with Nora whereas some of was went to Myeongdong area.
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| Ice-cream with brownies. What do u think? ;p |
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