And now we come to the final day of the holiday and the visit to the Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul. It's a splendid historical site, but most of the buildings are reconstructions rather than the originals.

However, it is most definitely impressive and the weather obliged and gave us the occasional glimpse of blue sky.



As you can see, the palace is very popular with tourists, both native Koreans and other nationalities.

The old and the new, side by side.







As I said, very popular with tourists. So much so that I tried to make the people a feature rather than a bug. Note all the umbrellas. These were ubiquitous in Korea. If it was raining, they kept the rain off, if the sun came out, people used them as parasols.



We particularly liked the fingernails on this carved creature.



A cute little carved horse. Note also that from some positions, you couldn't see the surrounding city at all and the palace could have been in the middle of countryside.



And here is a rather droll cat.



Some halls were placed beside water, which presumably helped to keep them cool in summer.



This was the building where the woman was singing. You can see the shoes left on the steps by members of the audience.



Old storage jars displayed on a series of stone steps.



Another shot that gives the impression that the palace is in the middle of nowhere.



Changing the guard at Gyeongbokgung Palace.



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