The first one I went to was Changgyeonggung Palace. The grounds were a mix of colourful traditional buildings and shrines as well as lots of ponds and trees along the sides.
The little monument at the end there deserves special mention out of weirdness. It is called a taesil, and it's where the royal family stored the placenta and umbilical cords of their children. The little stone to the side with writing on it, according to the description plaque, is inscribed with "the story of the placenta", whatever that means.
Afterwards I got some lunch and went to the next palace, Changdeokgung Palace. The names look similar, but there's a different syllable in the middle there. The rain was really coming down hard by this point, and even with an umbrella I was getting pretty wet. The palace consisted of two sections, one containing the administrative and main palace buildings and the other containing the "secret garden" which is a large wooded area of ponds and shrines that was private for the royal family. I got there in time to do english tours of both areas, which ended up being almost 3 hours in total.
The tour concluded with a 750 year old cypress tree on the grounds, but the pounding rain made taking a decent picture difficult.
My shoes and pants were pretty soaked through by this point, and since it was late enough in the day that things were starting to close anyway I decided to head back to the hostel and call it a day. I still have a lot on my list to get through, and it's supposed to be raining again tomorrow, so we'll see how much I can accomplish.
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