Your husband has just spent two weeks locked in a hotel room studying for his medical boards and how do you celebrate? Well, if you are Beth Haegen, you wait till he gets back from the states and then you hop on a plane with your girlfriends and head for Seoul, Korea...
After lunch at a fancy restaurant, the girls headed to The Gyeongbok Palace.
Built at the beginning of the Chosun Dynasty when the Yi Dynasty moved the capital to Seoul, this palace remained the main seat of power for Korea kings throughout much of the time to the present. Gyeongbok means Shining Happiness. The main gate (Kwanghwa-mun) separates Gyeongbok Palace from one of the busiest areas of Seoul. Gyeongbok Palace was built as the primary palace of the Chosun Kingdom by its founder, King Taejo in 1395, the fourth year of his reign.
It was destroyed during the Japanese invasion of 1592 and left in ruins for over 250 years. Starting in 1865, it was rebuilt to its original grandeur. When Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910, most of the 200 building on the palace grounds were torn down by the Japanese, leaving only a dozen structures.
