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The Grand Tour II: Treaty Ports and Imperial Cities of East Asia
The Grand Tour II – Treaty Ports and Imperial Cities of East Asia So I initially thought that 12 cities (and chapters) would cover it. This was what I had done for The Grand Tour Part I in Southeast...
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The Grand Tour II-11: Capital City… Hanseong / Keijo / Seoul (漢城 / 京城 / 서울)
The Gyeongbukgong Palace 景福宮 Complex is the largest palace complex in Seoul and was built by the Joseon Emperors. And so at last we have left China, and made landing on Korean soil. For 500 years, the...
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The Imperial Palaces and Shrines of the Joseon Emperors, Seoul
Unique brickwork in the Gyeongbokgung Palace. We start our tour of Seoul from when it was called Hanseong 漢城, and ruled by the Joseon Dynasty (also transliterated as “Chosun”). The architectural...
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Jeong-Dong, Seoul’s Former Foreign Legation Quarter
European Palace in the Deoksugung, view from Jeong-dong. In October 1897, King Gojong – the last King of the Joseon Dynasty – declared independence from Qing China and proclaimed the formation of the...
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Keijo 京城, or Japanese Seoul
Seoul City Hall was the former Keijo City Hall, built in the 1930s. In 1910, Imperial Japan annexed Korea forcefully, culminating a process that began with the Meiji Emperor in 1876. The Joseon...
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The Westin Chosun Hotel, Seoul
The Westin Chosun Hotel. The Westin Chosun Hotel is the grande dame of Seoul’s hospitality scene. It originated as an act of cultural desecration. In 1913, the Japanese destroyed the Hwangudan Altar –...
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The Grand Tour II – An Epilogue, or Goodbye to the Far East
The Shanghai Bund. So inevitably, I have arrived at the epilogue to Part II of my Grand Tour, on the Treaty Ports and Imperial Cities of China, Korea and Japan. 15 glittering cities of the Far East –...
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