A long weekend...Friday

After having to work a couple of Saturdays introducing the new English program at school we were allowed a day off. Yay! So we planned an action packed few days, starting with the Van Gogh exhibition at the Seoul Museum of Art.

The exhibition is the largest Van Gogh exhibition in the world since 1990. The exhibition was organised in chronological order which made it easy to see the transitions in his artistic styles. It was pretty cool to see so many of his famous pieces in one place.

(The Sower, Self Portrait 1888, Irises, Country Road in Provence by Night)

In the afternoon we went to Gyeongbok Palace. It was nice, but palace buildings from one palace to the next are pretty similar, and so much of it reminded me of Changdeok palace which we saw fairly recently. However, the pavilion in particular looked beautiful and happens to be depicted on the 10,000 won notes. We also got to see the hourly changing of the guard ceremony, which was quite over the top, with loud speakers giving us a commentary and guards wearing stick-on beards. The National Folk Museum of Korea is also on the site which was really well presented. At the north gate of the palace we were able to see the Blue House, which is where the president lives. There was a car leaving the house at the time and I'd like to think the lady in the car was someone important!