This is the main gate to the palace, and marks the shift from modern metropolis to historical site.

You can see Chris, Meredith and Cory walking towards the first inner gate.  The building you can see ahead is the throne room.

The first building we came too, as most people would.  It houses the throne room.

The stairs leading up are covered with carvings and statues stand on the rails.  Chris said the statues were used to ward off evil spirits.

A picture great picture of the wood work around the roof.  It's a lot like the temple at Gyeryong-san.  Everything is hand carved and painted.

The interior of the building.  The throne at the back, and beautiful ceiling reaching high up. 

I think this was part of the emperor's living quarters, but I don't remember.

The palace was a huge complex of building.  I think that is the queen's quarters on the left.  The sign said queen, even though one would assume that it was suppose to empress.

These guys are on the corner of each roof, and like the statues on the stair way, they are for warding off evil spirits and keep those inside safe.

Chris, Meredith and I in front of a random building.  The writing is Chinese.  Korea used Chinese for long time before adopting their own language.

One of the smaller walls of the palace, with the top of the National Folk Museum towering impressive in the distance.

Behind the main building of the palace was a large garden and pond.  The pond was half frozen but very nice with a small bridge leading to a central building.  We couldn't ascertain what that building was for though.  The signs gave us no help =(

Underneath these stairs is the National Folk Museum.  The entrance is to the left.  But the picture opportunity was too good to pass up.  I want to head to the top to take an elevated picture of the palace, but the steps were roped off, and you couldn't go past the first flight.  Meredith and Cory on the left, then Chris and myself.  It was quite the impressive sight.

Some of the common statues from Korea.  I sent the Chris's a pair of the guys in the back for Christmas.  I don't remember what Chris said they were for, but I've seen them a couple of place.  I like them a lot, but some of their faces make me laugh, and I don't think that's the desired effect.  To me, they are kind of like the Korea equivalent of Totem poles.

After the palace we went in search of a tradition Korea restaurant that Chris knew about, but didn't know exactly where it was.  This was one of the side streets we headed down.  As we turned off the main road, the silence was strange.  There was no traffic noise, just us walking and a guy hammer in the distance.  A strange experience in such a huge city.

After a long search through the theatre section, we found something that wasn't a musical, and that start relatively early, since we still had a 2 hours bus ride back home ahead of us.  It was a comedy, in a very small basement theatre.  I enjoyed the experience a lot.  Even though I couldn't follow what they were saying at all, I was able to follow the plot perfectly.  I asked Chris about it afterwards, to make sure I had gotten things right and she was amazed at what I picked up.  The actor said at the start that he was really nervous having us in the audience.  Foreigners never go to theatre here, I'm guessing because of the language barrier, but I really liked it and hope to go again.