First day in Korea (5)

At 3.40pm, we made it up the shuttle bus headed for the 4pm Cheong Wa Dae tour and solved the mystery on why we were told that the 3pm tour was the last one.
I present to you, our first clue on the bus for the President's house:

A guide whose name we do not know, whose jokes we weren't able to laugh at and whose introduction to Cheong Wa Dae we could not remember.
Because.......the tour was in Korean!
When we were told that 3pm was the last tour, it was actually because it's the last English tour.
So, we were left with no choice but to follow the crowd and enjoy the tour in an alien language.
Security is pretty strict, we had to go through metal detectors as well as to proof that our cameras were well, real cameras. We were required to turn the camera on in front of the staff.
The process was a little lengthy but the best part was, we each get a free gift. Yay! A souvenir cup from the Blue House.

Pitto suggested that it could pass off as a store-bought gift from Korea, which...is a pretty good idea. Haha... Although since I disclosed that idea here, neither she nor I will be able to pull this off. And for that matter, anybody else out there who has the same idea. Pray that your friends don't read this if you've already claimed it was bought.
And then, we were all assigned tags.

We were guided into a room for a short presentation clip featuring the President, whose appearance on screen was welcomed with a round of applause. The South Koreans really do love their leader.
We were then taken to a tour around the compound escorted by what I assume to be the South Korea secret service.
This tree in particular held some sort of significance as after one of the guides gave an introduction, there was a major flash of cameras going off.

Anyone who out there who reads this and knows the answer, please do enlighten me or I would be forced to put plan B in action....buying another ticket back to Korea and grab another one of those free cups.
And this majestic building I assume, would be the President's house:

And this building, I'm guessing is either a conference hall or multipurpose hall for international delegates:

 

The row of pictures outside are various gorgeous photos of deer. I guess the deer is a sacred animal to the Koreans. They're allowed to roam around the Blue House' gardens from my understanding of the clips shown to us. I just wish I understood the contents of the guide's explanations.

The tour which was supposed to take an hour, took longer than expected. It was already 5.30pm when we alighted the shuttle bus back at Gyeongbukgung.

Scheduled to be at Gimpo International Airport at 6.50pm, we had to rush back to our hostel, grab our luggage and rush off.

With hardly enough time to catch our flight to Jeju, we were resigned to fate as to whether we could catch the plane.

To be continued.......

Information on Cheong Wa Dae: Those interested in visiting are required to register via email with the Blue House through their website two weeks prior to the visit. You will need to provide your personal details which include your passport number and address in order to book a spot. Pay attention to the time slots for your preferred language or you might end up in the same situation as us.