First day in Korea (2)

Arriving half an hour later than the designated 11am with no sign of the others at the gate, I suspected that the rest probably headed in first to catch the tour into the secret garden at Changdeokgung. After a round of walking on the palace grounds alone, I decided to call the others from a public phone booth outside the palace. When none of the numbers I punched in got through, I got a little panicky and decided to head to a convenience store across the road to seek help.
Funny thing was, I bumped straight into Teresa after giving up with the phonecall. Apparently, they were even later than I was as they got themselves lost on their way to the subway. Since it was pretty late, they decided to skip Changdeokgung and head straight to Gyeongbokgung. We were pretty lucky, arriving around 1pm and managing to catch the parade of guard-changing duties.

It felt like an elaborate performance with the costumes and the showmanship, very much different from the guard-changing duties at the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial in Taiwan, where those serving in the army took shifts guarding the place.
Like this:

But anyway, we spent quite some time watching the parade and it probably contributed to not keeping up with the schedule. With a 3pm appointment for our next tour, needless to say, we ended up late but not before having our first official Korean meal.

To be continued........


A little background on the secret garden: It was an extremely private area for the king where even officials had to be given permission to enter. Currently housing more than 26,000 species of flora as well as trees well over 300 years old, you can get a taste of how the king and queen enjoyed their stroll in the garden. To walk in the foliage of royalty, you need to make a note of the tour time (according to your preferred language). A separate ticket needs to be purchased for the garden.