Adventures with Gramps--Gyeongbokgung Palace

We dominated Seoul with my dad last year, but one of the places we were unable to get to was a Korean palace.  I was able to take a personal day (poor Tom had to work), so my dad, Everett, and I spent a day touring Seoul.  The highlight of our time was seeing Gyeongbokgung Palace.  

A Korean palace is quite different than a western castle.  Rather than seeing one big mansion, a Korean palace is more like a big estate with a collection of various buildings.  Each building on the estate has it's own purpose--a library, changing area, visitor housing, throne room, etc. Luckily we had nice weather and were able to spend a few hours walking the palace grounds. 

Everett was asleep (he was dosing in this pic) for much of our time at the palace.

The Korean President's house, called the Blue House, is in the background of this picture below:

I love the mix of the ancient palace grounds with modern day Seoul in the distance:

This pavilion was for greeting foreigners and for parties. The peace sign is a classic Korean pose:

Throne room:

I've always wanted to see the changing of the guards at the palace and just by mere coincidence we happened upon it!   They go through this whole ceremony where drums are beating, horns are being blown, and choreographed moves are performed as one set of palace "guards" replaces another set of "guards."

 After the palace we ate some lunch and stopped by a Starbucks to feed the bubs...

I was a bit nervous about our Seoul adventure because we decided to take public transit into and around Seoul, which I've never done with Everett (and without Tom too!).  But with the help of our handy baby carrier and our new, travel friendly stroller we successfully navigated the city (the pic below is us on the bus into Seoul).  It was a great adventure.