haengjusanseong (행주산성) and seooreung (서오릉)

lunar new year, known as seolnal in korea, is a holiday celebrated all over asia...in china it's easily the most important holiday of the year, and lasts a couple weeks...in korea, it's only 3 days...the dates of the holiday are based on the lunar calendar, which means the dates themselves vary quite a bit from year to year...this year the days of the holiday fell on a wednesday/thursday/friday, which is awesome...add the weekend, and it becomes a five day holiday...(obviously, the worst is when the three days fall on a weekend)...this is one of korea's two most important holidays, and the whole country takes time off work...i didn't make any travel plans at all, not even in korea...it did seem a good idea to see something though...

general kwon yul

  i started out by traveling across the city to ilsan, which is technically another city to meet up with a buddy for the day...we hopped on a bus to haengjusanseong, a former fortress, northwest of the city...the fortress was the site of a pretty big battle during the japanese invasion of korea in 1595 (the japanese have invaded korea several times throughout history, this particular time the invasion started in 1592)...when the battle took place, the japanese had already captured seoul...

there isn't much left of this fortress...you can see the earthen "walls" but right now most everything is mud...this set of stairs leads down (where i was standing when i took the photo) to a resting place, (the photo above)...the fortress was built at the top of the hill, one side is along the river which made for a nice natural defensive position...according to the history, the fortress is presumed to have first been built during the baekje kingdom, but "renovations" were made later, of course...

when general kwon led his small army (2300 soldiers) to this fort, his intent was to recapture seoul from the japanese...they (the japanese) hadn't captured this hill yet, 9 attempts were made, from three different directions...over 30,000 japanese were involved in this battle, which makes the korean "victory" pretty impressive...(of course, i can't help but wonder if those numbers are accurate)...more than a third of the japanese soldiers were killed, including their general and two of his lieutenants...

after the battle, the general was promoted to commander in chief...of what, i'm not exactly sure, since the japanese were pretty much in charge of the country at that point...at the time, a memorial was built for the battle at the top of the hill, and a temple to enshrine the tablet of the general...according to the history i've seen, both the temple and the memorial were destroyed during (what americans call) the korean war...the monument was rebuilt during the 1960s...

according to the history i've read, this battle was one of the three most important of the entire invasion...(1592-1598)...i don't know what the other two important battles were, i suppose i should find out...the fortress is supposed to have gotten its current name during the joseon dynasty...apparently the women of the time cut their long skirts in half and wore them like aprons...they used the shortened skirts to collect stones that the soldiers then used to fight during the battle...

this temple/shrine was also rebuilt after the korean war...cory says it's one of his favourite places, partly because not very many people come here...since it was a holiday on the day we went, i have no idea how popular the place normally is among koreans...the grass all around this temple had clearly been shoveled to remove the snow, who knows why...yes, shoveled...who shovels snow off grass?

just outside the entrance area to the fortress is this monument...it's from the korean war, and represents one of the crossings of the river by the american and south korean marines...i'm presuming there was more than one crossing during the course of the war...the monument is two triangles stuck together, according to the sign that's supposed to represent the marines of each country working together...

from haengjusanseong, we took the bus back into ilsan, grabbed lunch, then got on another bus to seooreung...it's a UNESCO world heritage sight (note to self, look up that list and see how many places/sights i've seen, how many are on the list)...it's a complex of tombs from the joseon dynasty...since i love seeing history, cory made the whole day history for me...seooreung means five western tombs...

sugyeongwon

there are a number of different tombs in the complex...the tombs themselves are the round mounds of earth you can see in the middle of the picture above...that tomb is of lady yi, the concubine to yeongjo, the 21st monarch of the joseon dynasty...she gave birth to crown prince sado in 1735, and died in 1764, at the age of 68...since he was the son of a concubine, and crown prince, i'm assuming that the queen of the time didn't have any sons? this tomb was originally in another part of the city, but later moved here...so i don't think the title of this tomb is included in the 5 mentioned in the tomb complex name itself...

for the most part, these tombs are on top of man made hills, which meant that most of the time i didn't have an easy view of the tomb...apparently people go over the fences from time to time to get close to the tombs, something i didn't have the courage to do straightaway...(there is something in me that stops me from going past clearly defined boundaries)...the first tomb wasn't on much of a hill so it was easy to get that photo...

ingneung

all the tombs have these entrance "gates" followed by the temple-ish looking building...this building was empty, so i'm not sure what it's supposed to be...perhaps a place where folks back then could pay respects? usually on the right of that building, at the bottom right of the hill is a little shelter over the tablet of whoeva is buried there...since the korean alphabet (hangeul) hadn't been invented yet, of course the characters on these tablets are chinese characters...(the tablets are bigger than i am)...

ingneung is the tomb of queen ingyeong, the first queen of king sukjong, the 19th monarch of the joseon dynasty...she became crown princess in 1671 (when she was only 10 years old!!) and queen in 1674, when sukjong ascended the throne...she died 6 years later, at the ripe old age of 19, in one of the palaces in the city...the information boards at each tomb didn't say why/how any of these folks died...the history online does though, at least occasionally...the online history i found says she died at the age of 20, of smallpox...she had 3 children, all of whom were daughters, none of whom lived long...

daebinmyo

daebinmyo is the burial place of lady jang...full name = jang, huibin...she became part of palace life at a young age, and found favour with the king...her birthdate is unknown, so they don't know her age, but given that everyone else was young, she probably was too...she became his concubine (apparently there is a title for a royal concubine! sugwon) in 1686, sukjong's 12th year of reign, and the next year gave birth to a baby boy, prince yun...(he was called prince yun only after his father officially recognized him as an heir)...

also in 1687, the current queen was dethroned, (i don't know how that works, but that's beside the point...if she was dethroned, why wasn't the king as well?)...when prince yun became crown prince yun, lady jang was made queen...(queen myeongbong was her official title, i think)...howeva, that didn't last foreva...in 1694, a movement put queen inhyeon back on the throne, so lady jang was demoted back to huibin...not surprisingly, the king had to do something to make himself look in control of everything, so he sentenced her to death, and gave her some poison to carry out the sentence...which she did, in 1701...after her death, the king made a law that made it impossible to elevate a concubine to queen...her tomb was also originally located somewhere else, and moved to it's current place in 1969...this was the first tomb at which i stepped over the fence in order to take a photo...i wasn't the first to do so, there were quite a few footprints in the snow...

changneung

changneung is the tomb of king yejong, the 8th king of the joseon dynasty...it's also the tomb of his second lawful wife (as opposed to the royal concubines, i'm guessing) queen ansun...each got their own hill and tomb, with one gate/building...the little shelter holds the tablets for both of them, with separate doors for each...this tomb is the farthest from the entrance of the entire tomb complex...king yejong was actually the second son of king sejo and queen jeonghui, his older brother died young...

these tombs were the second place i went past a fence...hee hee...i wanted a proper photo, and it's clear that the CCTV cameras are there simply to protect the sights...i don't know if i should so easily admit to going past the boundaries, buuuut...anywho, both tombs in this little area had these sculptures in front of them...i don't know what they all represent, but i'm sure i could find the information online if i cared to look...what was interesting was that one hill/tomb was still covered in snow, while the other side was totally clear...king yejong only served as king for 14 months...apparently he didn't deal well with stress/political upheaval, and there was a lot of it during this era of the joseon dynasty...after he died, his queen was made crown princess...she died over 20 years later...

once cory had convinced me that going past the barriers was something koreans do all the time, the next natural step was sledding down the snowy tomb of changneung...yup, sledding...buuut, since we didn't have sleds, what could we use? our bums of course...this was my first attempt, you can see it didn't work so well...in another attempt, i pulled up my legs, and slid down on the path cory had already created...sooooooo much fun, too bad we didn't go the weekend previously:)

i don't know who his other queen was, nor how long she was queen...since he (king yejong) died so young, there must have been a reason he was only buried near his second queen...i don't know where the first queen was buried...or her name, for that matter...

tomb of king sukjong and queen inhyeon, his second wife

myeongneung is another set of tombs, with a separate entrance across the parking lot...3 people total are buried in this area...king sukjong, his 2nd wife and his 3rd wife...one of them is buried right next to him, and the other on another hill not far away...i don't know why the first wife isn't buried there as well, why she has her own tomb elsewhere in the "park"...his second queen (the one who was taken down for the concubine, then put back on the throne) died in 1701, his third queen was put on the throne in 1702...these guys didn't waste any time!! queen inwon (the third queen) died in 1757, she had a nice long life...

i was fascinated by the way the snow stayed on one side of the tomb...it did the same on the double tomb...and one of the other tombs, changneung...cory thought about sliding down this tomb as well, but decided the snow wasn't good enough...lol...

tomb of king sukjong's third lawful wife

his second queen (the one who was taken down for the concubine, then put back on the throne) died in 1701, his third queen was put on the throne in 1702...these guys didn't waste any time!! queen inwon (the third queen) died in 1757, she had a nice long life...myeongneung is the only tomb that doesn't have a fence around it, i don't know why...

myongneung