All that is left of the once extensive walls at this end of the palace grounds. This was originally a watchtower at an angle of the wall, and now it sits marooned in the middle of traffic. One hates to think what even a minor accident involving a truck would do to the structure.

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Our ride dropped us off here, and our day began. We went in to the Folk Museum first, and then went from there into the Palace grounds, rather than going into the Palace through the grand front entrance, which we actually got to last of all.

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In the grounds of the National Korean Folk Museum, which occupies one portion of the palace site. One saw these little guardian statues all over Jeju Island, and they look to me like the sort of totemic figures that act as household spirits in older cultures. I wasn't able to find out much about their age or function in the guidebooks I consulted, so the above is basically guesswork. At any rate, I would guess they are pre- everything, that is, pre-Confucian, pre-Buddhist, pre-Christian, and represent perhaps the earliest belief structures of Korean culture.

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Taken at the Korean Folk Culture Museum in downtown Seoul. There were numerous classes visiting, everything from kindergarteners to highschoolers. This is, I think, a kindergarten class. Kids are so marvellously unselfconscious that you can see any number of small dramas going on between the various groups in the crocodile.

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The big tower at the Museum, partly old, partly reconstructed; the museum is more behind and to the left in this shot, pretty much invisible. We didn't have time to visit the Museum, as we were booked to meet a relative, who would take us around the Gyeongbokgung Palace grounds.

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