Returning to an Old Friend: Changdeokgung After Twenty Years
Recently, I returned to Changdeokgung for the first time in more than twenty years. My first visit was in 1992, only a little more than a year after I had arrived in Korea. At the time, almost everything around me still felt new—the language, the streets, the buses, the food, the neighborhoods, and the rhythms of everyday life. Changdeokgung was part of that early discovery of Korea. It would be another ten years before I returned. By then, my relationship with Korea had changed. I was no longer simply a newcomer trying to understand the country around me. I was writing about Korea, and when I visited Changdeokgung again, it was for a travel article for The Korea Times . I was fortunate enough to have a private VIP tour of the palace and Biwon, the Secret Garden. The palace was experienced very differently in those days. Visitors couldn't simply enter and wander through the grounds at their own pace. Admission was at designated times, and people moved through the palace in guided g...
