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The first thing we learned when we arrived at Chang Gyeong Palace was that there are five main palaces in Seoul. Kyungbukgung being the main palace. Chang Gyeong Gung is one of the sub palaces built by Seung Jeong for his mother and grandmother and also was intended for it to be used as a Secondary Palace incase something happens to the main palace Kyungbuckgung.
This was the first time visiting a Korean palace so everything I saw and learned from the teachers were new and interesting. Also seeing Chang Geong Palace in real life after reading and studying it in detail the day before made the activity even more exciting. I discovered that Chang Geong Palace is made of three parts; Outer Palace, Inner Palace and the Back Garden. The outer palace consisted of buildings where the King worked such as the 명정전, 문정전, and the 숭문당. 문정전 Interested me the most because of the historical events that happened there. The two tragedies that that happened was the poisoning of 장희빈 and the unintended murder of the crown prince due to political conflicts. The crown prince's son 정조 built his father's grave inside of 수원성 later when he became king.
Another thing that really caught my attention was the meaning behind all of the decorations on the palace. This really showed me how much thought was put in when constructing these Palaces. For example, the colours used in the Danchungs weren't any random colours but colours of the elements of what people believed the world was made out of. Also the Japsangs on the roof of the palaces were meant to protect the buildings from the evil spirits. The four Japsang statues are the characters that appear in 'The Journey to the West'.
Eventhough this was only my second day studying about Korean history I can already see how much effort and philosophy was intergreated in the designs. Anywhere I went, the different details on every building surprised me
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