Half Day Korea Contemporary History Tour

Highlights

• Half-day private tour in Seoul
• Discover a real former Korean prison
• Visit unique western-style constructions
• Walk along the Deoksugung Palace Stone-wall road, with over 20 benches and 130 trees along the road.
• Enjoy a meal at the restaurant that the main character of the famous K-drama “My Love from the Stars” visited.

Minimum travelers 2     Duration Half day

Overview

In this Korea Contemporary History Tour, you will discover a real former prison and learn the history of Japanese war crimes in Korea.

Description

If you don’t have enough time to take a tour around the whole city of Seoul, just stepping out of your hotel in downtown Seoul, you can plunge into unique sceneries with the historical stories of the Modernization Age in Korea.  You will start to learn Korean Contemporary History in the form of dark tourism at Seodaemun Prison History Hall, since the Korean modern time is represented in part by invasion and deprivation. From 1876, the Joseon Dynasty officially opened its gates to the outer world. However, the country of the Morning Calm didn’t manage well the influx of Western civilization and finally fell to the knees of brutal Japanese colonialism. After Joseon was annexed to Japan, about 400,000 prisoners were jailed in this prison (1908-1945), and most of them were independence activists. This prison is the symbol of the Korean people’s spirit of Independence and Japan’s merciless rule and atrocities. The hall is composed of Exhibition Halls (including Prison History Room, National Resistance Rooms, Underground Torture Chamber, Simulated Execution Site, and Shadow Image Experiment), Central Prison Building (for monitoring and controlling), Prison Building, Engineering Work Building (for laboring), and other annex buildings like the Execution Ground Building.

On this site, in the bright, open-air, you will discover Seodaemun Independence Park, where there used to be standing Yeongeun-mun (the gate greeting Chinese envoys) which was transformed into Independence Gate: the symbolic monument of Independent spirit in the era of the Korean Empire.

After, we will go to the Deoksugung Stone Wall Walkway. Deoksugung Palace was used as the palace of the Korean Empire (1897-1910), and Gojong, the last King of the Joseon Dynasty, stayed during his last reign. Around the place was a gathering of embassies and the liaisons of superpowers of that time. The town of Jeong-dong became the field of diplomatic battles to get the hegemony of Far-Eastern Asia. From then this area has been the spot where Western culture and Korean traditional culture merge together. Walking along the softly curved stone wall surrounding Deoksugung Palace, you can find the neoclassical atmosphere of this iconic place.

The center of culture and diplomacy now and then is encircled with museums (Seoul Art Museum, Deoksugung division of National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art), theaters (Jeongdong Theater, Cecil Theater), Embassies and Legations of the past and present(British Embassy, Old Russian Legation Site, Old US Legation Site, etc), Christian churches (Anglican Church of Korea, Jeongdong Jeil Church, Salvation Army) and Deoksugung Palace.

You can start your tour from Jeongdong Observatory, directly facing the Palace. While drinking the tea served on the 13th floor of a city government-affiliated building, you can overlook Seoul downtown and its business district filled with palace buildings, including Seokjojeon Hall in Renaissance style, and Junghwajeon as a throne hall, business buildings on Sejongdaero Avenue and the Blue House with the background of Bukhansan mountains. Seasonally, in autumn, strolling on the Palace Wall Walkway covered with yellow, orange street trees, you can pay a visit to a filming site of K-drama Goblin, pass by the door to the palace, and take a small pathway to the UK Embassy, which was banned from entering for 60 years. After the promenade of this elegant, vintage place which is hidden in the middle of crowds, vehicles, and streets, you can try traditional noodles hot or cold, with sauce or soup, and of wheat or buckwheat at a local restaurant (at your own expense) such as Yurim-myeon Restaurant (The shooting location of Korean drama ”My love from the star). Also, you will have the chance to visit the Deoksugung Palace in particular, with the backyard combined by modernity and tradition.