Gyeongbokgung Palace

This weekend we decided to have an adventure and explore two other bases here in Korea. Osan Air Force Base and Yongsan. Yongsan is in Seoul and Osan is about 1 hour and 10 minutes south of Seoul. There is a free bus that took us up to Osan (3hrs away)and we spent the day catching our barings and trying out a little shopping there. It was nice to be able to have a larger BX and even get to eat lunch at Chili's (Yes, American fatty food). We then stayed the night on post. That night we decide to let the boys rent a movie from the base library and each boy got to choose a movie. The boys got to watch Braxton's movie the first night and we told Isaiah that he could start his in the morning. Well, that night the boys kept coming into our room to use the bathroom and we found out why in the morning. Isaiah decided that he would watch his movie at 1:45am. We didn't hear a thing! Oops!

From Osan we caught another bus to Seoul. We then explored the subway station there. We were very nervous due to the fact that here in Daegu we only have two lines and it is pretty hard to get lost on them, but in Seoul there are about 8 (I'm guessing). To our luck, our destination wasn't too difficult and we didn't get lost and are now pretty confidant that we will be able to get ousrselves around on another visit.

In Seoul we saw a reenactment of the changing of the guards that was done back in 1479 (Joseon Dynasty). The guards duty at that time was to devout himself to the peace and security of the dynasty by protecting the monarch and his family living at the palace. The ceremony has been passed down and so that the have a pretty accurate ceremony. The ceremony starts with a drummer who then calls the musicians who are followed by the guards. Then everyone changes up and the drummer starts up agian and then the musicians leave followed by the leaving gurads. Pretty cool! Isaiah wasn't all that impressed except for the drumming, it was so loud and he said that the drum was making his heart pound. But we all thought that the ceremony was very entertaining. We then explored the palace grounds and were facinated with how massive they were. The grounds were very beautifullly kept and we were very impressed. We were starting to get tired by that point but had a little bit of time before our bus took us back to Osan, so we explored the Korean Folk Village Museum that was also attached to the palace grounds. Very interesting to learn about a new culture.

We had a great time even though the majority of the weekend were walking the entire time. Came home with some pretty cool gifts, and some ideas for Christmas! I now own a Korean tea set. It now is sitting on some shelves in my bathroom. Braxton told me that he really likes my antiques. Wow! They must look old to him. Funny kid. We all slept well the night we got home.