Yungneung - Geonleung Tombs & Yongjoosa Temple

The 5th WSK Camp (4)

Day 2 of the camp was started by visiting the Royal Tomb Yungneung -Geonleung Tombs.

Yungneung is a joint tomb of King Jangjo (Crown Prince Sado) and his wife, Hyegyeonggung (Lady Hong). Still remember the sad story of Prince Sado? Read it on the previous post.  

The Geolleung is a joint tomb of the King Jeongjo of the Joseon Dynasty (Prince Sado's 2nd son) and Queen Hyoui.

The guide explained to us the story of the Royal Tombs. If you see on the map, there are two big eliptical area on the left and right side. The left one is Geonleung, the other is Yungneung.

After the died of Prince Sado, the father buried him in Baebongsan Mountain in Jungnangpo, south of Yangjugun in Gyeonggi-do Province. The son of Prince Sado, King Jeongjo, were very sad when he visited his father's tomb which he thought that it should not be there.



We were guided to see Yungneung, the tomb of Prince Sado. The direction showed us which way to go. The area is equipped with CCTV, also in the tombs' area. I guess to prevent people to enter it and ruin the royal tombs.
  

On our way to Yungneung.

 

My cellphone camera could not capture the elegance of the house and tomb.  



If you see the footpath to the house, you can see three tiers of path. The highest path in the middle is for the gods, people shall not walk there but the ones on the left or right of the highest path.  

Picture credited to Lisa Liang.

The house's interior. It is for holding ceremonies.

The back of the house.

Picture credited to Lisa Liang.

The tomb at the back of the house. There are several animal statues surrounding the tomb. The red fence marks the area and also to remind people that it is sacred land.

After the visit to Royal Tombs, we moved to see Yongjoosa Temple. The temple was built by King Jeongjo for his father who died after being locked in the rice chest.

Yong means dragon. The temple was named as Yongjoosa after King Jeongjo dreamt about a dragon went up to the sky on the night of the completion day.

Yongjoosa temple.

We didn't spend a lot of time here. The guide at our previous visit told  us many detail about the Royal Tombs, that's why we run out of time.

At the gate of Yongjoosa, we found this small rocks. People put rocks on top of the other and wish their pray.

The guide explained the story of Yongjoosa to us.

  

Some pictures of the temple.

Many people were praying in the temple when we came. Err...I was not comfortable to visit the temple, though. In some temples I visited before, we were told not to take pictures while people were praying on the temple. I can understand that, therefore I didn't take any pictures inside the buildings. A very rush visit to the temple, but I didn't regret it.

See you on the next post!