The Blue House

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The Blue House, or to give it its Korean name, Cheongwadae is the executive office and official residence of the Korean head of state. It is where the current president Park Geunhye (and many presidents before her) lives and works. I had been meaning to visit the Blue House for years, but kept forgetting about it, as spaces are very limited. Finally, I decided that it had to be this winter. There are limited spaces available for English speakers, only ten per tour, with four tours either every Saturday or every other Saturday (I can't remember which). I had to reserve spaces on this tour months in advance, you have to get in early especially if you want a spot on a Saturday tour, I think the week day ones don't get booked up so quick.

The Blue House is located in the centre of Seoul, behind Gyeongbokgung, the main palace. The map on the Blue House's website isn't very accurate, and we had to ask at the tourist information booth, where the check-in office was. They must get asked this question a lot, as they gave us a very accurate answer, and we found the check in booth. I handed over our confirmation code and our ID cards. We had already supplied our ID details, and we had been approved. This is why the tour must be booked at least three weeks in advance, so that they can do the necessary security checks on everybody. Then we had to line up for the coach. We had to show our IDs again to a security agent before we could board the coach. One the coach was full, we drove for about five minutes up the road. We entered the Blue House compound and got of the bus. We had to line up to go through security. We had to present our ID cards again, and go through a scanner, and our bags were x-rayed. it was very strict. We had to take a drink from our water bottles to prove it wasn't some kind of poison, and turn on our cameras and take a photo with them to prove they were legit. We were issued with number ID tags, that we had to wear and have visible at all times.

We were given an audio guide and a sheet of laminated paper that outlined all the places we would visit on the tour. There were seven points of interest that we would visit. I had expected the tour to be quite small as there were only 10 places available for English speakers, but there were loads of people. The vast majority of the people on the tour were Korean. The limit on non-Koreans must be due to the small number of audio guides. We sat in the auditorium, waiting for the second bus to arrive, and the people to go through security. There was a video playing on the large screen, but it was all in Korean, so i just had to make do with looking at the pictures. I tried to listen to the audio guide, but I've got a horrible attention span, so I can't remember a thing it said. So most of the information I've written, I got from the official website after the fact. After the briefing we headed outside. As we were leaving, we were given a present. It doesn't get much better than this in my eyes, a tour that was free to join, and they give you a gift. The bloke was originally going to give me the big box, but changed his mind and gave me a smaller packet. Inside, there was a gorgeous traditional style purse. I was a bit miffed, as I wanted to know what was in the bigger box, was it a better present? Well, the box was given to plenty of the children in the group, it turned out to be a small globe inside. I think it would have been pretty cool to receive that, too.

The first place we visited was Nokjiwon, which is a garden in the Cheongwadae compound. The garden was completed in 1968 and there are commemorative trees planted by previous presidents to celebrate special occasions. The biggest tree is Bansong, an umberalla tree, which is located in the centre of Nokjiwon. It is 17 metres high and was planted around 1850. In the past, this site was a small farm where the kings themselves cultivated crops. Nowadays, it is used by the president to host outdoor receptions for foreign and domestic guests, and to celebrate special occasions such as Children's Day with outdoor picnics.

We passed through a few places, where we couldn't take photos. I think these were Sangchundae, which is a small informal meeting house, and Chunchugwan, which is the press centre. We also visited Gyeongmudae. Gyeongmudae is the site on which Cheongwadae previously stood. Geomancy, done during the Joseon times, had shown that this site is the most auspicious place, as it is the spot where the influence of energy from the different mountain ranges around the area converge. However no buildings were built no this spot until 1939. It stayed as an open space, but was flanked by two buildings, Yongmundang and Yongmudang, which represented scholar officials and military officials respectively. After the Japanese rule of Korea, Rhee Syngman, who was the first president of the new Korean Republicto use the Japanese Governor-General's residence as the presidential office, which had been built on the site. Later presidents continued this trend, until it was decided that the building wasn't big enough to house both the presidential office and residence. The old building was demolished in 1993 and a stone marker was erected to indicated that the buildings were located there. This stone marker reads "Cheonha Jeil Bokji", which means the most propitious place under heaven. The small hill has been restored and looks like the original back garden of Gyeongbokgung Palace.

We followed the path around. There were quite a few security personnel with us, and scattered around the grounds to keep an eye on us. We came upon the main building next. We were quite far away from it, as the huge lawn was in front of us, but we still managed to take about a million pictures. This building, or really set of buildings is fairly new, as its costruction was completed in 1991. It didn't sit well with people that the president was using the former residence of the Governor-General from the Japanese colonial era. The main building houses the private office of the president and other function rooms, the president's private office is located on the second floor. Along with the main building there are two annexes. The Blue House looks unequivocally Korean and was based on the architectural techniques that were used in the construction of the royal palaces. The building gets its name from the 150,000 traditional Korean blue roof tiles that are used to cover it. These tiles are known for both their unique colour and durability.

We went under an arch and followed the path down to come to our last stop on the tour, Yeongbinwon. Yeongbinwon was built in 1978 to accommodate presidential guests, as they had been using hotels in the downtown area, but this was inconvenient for local citizens as well as a security concern. The building is supported by 18 granite pillars, these bad boys were huge. The granite came from Hwangdeung village in Jeollabuk-do. Since no one was staying there (I presume) we were able to get right up to the front of the building and have a bit of a wander around the outside, taking some photos.

When we were standing about, one of the security agents came up to us and asked if we would like to visit Chilgung. It was on the info sheet we had been given, but it said that you needed to make an appointment to visit. Since we didn't know it existed, we hadn't made an appointment, and therefore thought that we would be unable to do this part of the tour, as it looked like a special add on. So when this security agent asked us, we all jumped at the chance. We followed the crowd and we were shown out of the gate of the Blue House. There were still quite a few national security agents about, and the gate had guards in front of it. We walked around the corner and we were at Chilgung. We followed the tour around, not that we had a clue what was being said, but there were a few information boards in English, and we could take pictures freely, as long we didn't get the Blue House in any.

Chilgung means seven palaces, chil means seven and gung is a suffix meaning palace. Each of the palaces or shrines is dedicated to one of the seven concubines that gave birth to a future king during the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910). Each palace houses the ancestral tablet of the concubine. Originally, the compound only housed Yeuksanggung, which was the shrine that honoured Choi Sukbin, the birth mother of King Yeongjo. When King Yeongjo came to the throne, he erected the shrine to remember his mother, naming it Sookbinmyo. In March 1744, twenty years after it was erected, the shrine was renamed Yeuksangmyo which means nurturing auspiciousness and then nine years later in June 1753 it was elevated to its name, Yeuksanggung. During the reigns of King Gojong and King Sunjong, the shrines of the other concubine consorts, which were scattered around Seoul, were moved to the Chilgung site. Chilgung was pretty and it was nice to wander around it although by this point in the afternoon, the sun had started to dip in the sky and we were getting pretty cold. We left Chilgung and came out in front of Cheongwadae Fountain and Cheongwadae Srangchae, which is a museum about the former presidents, which I now want to visit at some point in the future.

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