While in Seoul the other day I just happened to be in front of Deoksu-gung Palace in central Seoul when the royal changing of the guard ceremony was to take place.  The guards walk down the street on the side of Deoksu Palace in formation was a band playing music:

They were actually quite impressive as they marched down the street towards the palace.  The guards then got into formation in front of the palace:

While the guards were in formation there was a person on a loud speaker narrating in multiple languages what was going on which was a good thing to have so everyone could understand what was going on.

The captain of the guard came forward as a big drum was hit:

The captain of the guard greeted two government officials who were responsible for overseeing the changing of the guard at the palace:

As the government officials watched the changing of the guard soldiers marched around and took up positions to the sounds of music that was being played:

The costumes the soldiers wore looked quite good and the soldiers knew their movements quite well:

You could tell they put a lot of practice into this.  Does anyone know where the city gets the people to play the roles of the soldiers from?  I am assuming they are probably drama students from the local universities.  Where ever they are from they did a great job:

After the guards changed position the government officials then went back into the palace:

The guards remained in position around the palace gates after the government officials left:

Also the captain of the guard remained in position near the box that supposedly holds the guard forces orders of the day in it:

With the government officials back into the palace the ceremony was effectively over and tourist that came to watch were then allowed to take pictures with the guards.

Overall it was quite a good show they put on an by the end of the ceremony quite a large crowd had gathered around the palace where none existed before the ceremony started.  However, I would recommend that they get an announcer with less of an accent when speaking English because she was hard to understand at times, but really just a minor quibble.

I would also recommend that people not be allowed to walk in between the guards when the ceremony is going on.  There was a lot of random people just walking through the middle of the guards during the ceremony.  There was also quite a few people with cameras walking into the ceremony to get up close pictures of the soldiers which was a bit annoying to see as well.  So probably a little crowd control measures would help improve the ceremony as well.

However like I said before great job by the performers and things like this really adds some color and vibe to the city which was good to see.

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