Tuesday, January 09, 2007

More Seoul!

Ok, so continuing from the previous post, the first few pictures were taken at the main Palace, on a gorgeous, but bitterly cold day. It was kind of nice though because the Palace was not very crowed, unlike the temples we saw in Kyoto which were just swarming with people.





We noticed that the Korean Palaces and temples seem to use a lot more vivid colour than the Japanese. Actually you can see it in the traditional clothing as well. While Kimono's can be all sorts of colours, they are not as consistently bright as Korean Han-bok. Actually the other day I had a student tell me that Korean Han-bok looked silly because it was so bright. Its interesting to note the animosity between the two groups of people. Obviously not everyone shares the same feeling, but their history is an obvious sore spot.


This is a picture of the ceiling of the interior of the Palace. The detail that goes into these buildings are amazing. It's also slightly dizzying....

Awwww. Ian made a new friend!!


The last few pictures here are from the night we got taken out for dinner (recall the story in our last post...). We were so happy simply with the area they took us to. Seoul seemed to have so much life. There are all these little 'niche' areas and there always seem to be people around. I imagine Tokyo must be more like that, and I know Osaka is. That is a disappointing part about Nagoya. It is so conservative, and everything closes at 11, which if you know either Ian or I at all, you would know we are night people, making this a very difficult thing to adjust to!


During the weekend, this area of Seoul is closed off the cars, so people just wander freely. They also happened to still have their Christmas decorations up, adding yet another level of excitement to the area. The funniest thing though, was this giant fake keyboard that ran from one end of the strip straight through to the other (a matter of many blocks). It was pretty cool though, and we entertained ourselves on it for a while.





Ok, sorry for the slightly abbreviated version of everything but I am trying to get all the Seoul pictures posted before we move and have another bunch to put up! Our official move date by the way is January 26th, and my last day at Nova is fast approaching (only 6 more actual work days!)
I will post more Seoul pictures in a day or so! Enjoy!

Love Tara

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very cool. The inside of the palace is awesome. Somewhat celtic appearing from the photos. Good luck with the move.

Daver said...

Wow, first I wanna say sorry for taking so long to post but you know how it is sometimes :S.

Anyway Korea does look so much more alive with everything they do. Not to mention the christmas lights seem to be a lot less weird (mushrooms in Japan?!) and just very colourful. You keep impressing me with these great pictures. I can wait to see more!

p.s. Awwwww Ian's friend is so cute!

Meaghan said...

whoa.. haha I definitely love the colours. You were right! hehehe

your friends in Japan said...

Mom - I agree, it appears a bit celtic because of the thick lines that knot around each other. We got to see our new apartment this past weekend, and it looks great! We'll have updates very soon.

Dave - The parts of Seoul we were in were quite touristy, and a lot of places cater to an american audience. The real Korean food/shopping/etc. is much more interesting. And yes, Japan does seem to strive for much more in the way of random and bizarre things...wait till we show you pictures of the new underground walkway near our apartment. ,:|

Meaghan - AhHah! I knew it!

-ian