All posts tagged: palace

Changdeokgung: The Finest of the Five

Donning a dark blue and light pink hanbok (Korean traditional costume), our guide Jae greeted us at the gate to the Secret Garden at Seoul’s Changdeokgung Palace. Together with around 40-50 other visitors, most of them wearing thick jackets with their hands tucked firmly in […]

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Heian Shrine: A Blast to the Past

Hosting the world’s fair has become a means some countries have embraced to promote their economic progress and development agenda to an international audience. Since the event’s first run in 1851, which celebrated advancements in industrial technology in the United Kingdom and other countries, a […]

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Destruction and Rebirth of Gyeongbokgung

Palaces… always built on a monumental scale, at auspicious sites, and embellished with rich ornamentation. Unlike great temples, churches or mosques which were commissioned to mark great rulers’ authority over their subjects (unsurprisingly, religion has been used to rule people for thousands of years), palaces […]

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Hue Citadel: Echoes of Imperial Vietnam

Beginning in the 15th century in a land known today as Vietnam, Dai Viet – an empire of the Viet people from the north – which had successfully defeated their long-time rival, the Chams, expanded their territory further south. Quite the opposite of the Hindu-influenced […]

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Peacefulness by the Water

A towering water fountain stands amid decorated pools, water flows from one pond to another, carps meander around beautifully-laid stepping stones, all under the beautiful morning sun and skies. As we enter the grounds of the water garden a pool welcomes us, rimmed by intricately […]

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The Jewel of Eastern Bali

Bali, a land with towering volcanoes and pristine rivers flowing out onto turquoise water of the Indonesian seas. Its fertility not only brought welfare to its residents but also sparked wars between Bali’s many small kingdoms, fighting for as many lands to control as possible. […]

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Grand Palaces of the Ottomans

The steep cobblestone street that raises up on the right side of the expansive Gülhane Park is filled with stone artifacts from the Byzantine era, all lined up on one side of the street creating an outdoor exhibition of the fragments from the city’s long […]

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What an Exquisite Deli!

If you think this is a post about food or culinary thing, this is not. You can stop reading now. No, I’m kidding. Please continue reading but when I said that this is not a post about food, I mean it (I thought some of […]

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