The statue of King Sejong

I have now been living in Seoul for just over a month. Things haven’t been as easy as I thought they would have been but I now feel as though I am starting to settle in and enjoy myself. Having arrived in the winter time with temperatures dropping as far down as minus 13 there isn’t a whole lot that you want to do apart from hibernate and keep warm. Unfortunately this results in you living the life of a recluse and you do start to feel a fair bit of hatred towards the country you have just decided to relocate to. However once you have adjusted (and got your heating fixed) you soon start to cheer up and venture out into the huge world that South Korea is. Now normally I would have done a lot more sight seeing than what I have in this past month, however I am not a fan of the cold and will not be making the stupid mistake of visiting a country in it’s winter time again...especially when it’s winter time is worse than the one I have grown up with. 

So when I say I haven’t done much sightseeing..I actually mean that I have only managed to visit one tourist spot. This doesn’t mean that I haven’t visited a number of different places and areas in Seoul, but of course they were for the essentials, drinking and shopping. After a while I started to realise that I know very little about South Korea so I decided to take it into my own hands (gloved of course) and battle the cold in hope for some Korean knowledge. Last week I went to visit the statue of Kings Sejong which also has a museum underneath. King Sejong was the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty of Korea and his reign was from 1418 - 1450. He is widely celebrated in Korea as he is known for creating the Korean writing system, best known here as Hangul. Before Hangul was put together the Korean people used Chinese characters for writing but as this was very complex and difficult to understand King Sejong decided to come up with a script directly for Korean people, therefore establishing a cultural identity. 

I also had the chance to learn about Admiral Yi Sun-shin who was a Korean naval commander, he is best known for leading the flight against the Japanese invasion in 1592. Unfortunately he was killed in the final battle and (according to the museum I went to) in his dying moments requested that none of his men know of his death as it would distract them from the battle. Here in Korea he is considered extremely heroic. This was a good day out and as soon as it warms up I intend on visiting a lot more places, especially the palaces.