Jungmyeongjeon Hall

Jungmyeongjeon Hall is a small Western-style brick building in central Seoul where Emperor Gojong was forced to sign the 1905 Eulsa Treaty that ceded Korea's diplomatic rights to Japan. The building was originally part of Deoksugung Palace's Western pavilions and has since been restored as a museum focused on that single, devastating moment in Korean history. The exhibits are compact but well-translated into English, walking through the lead-up to the treaty and Gojong's later attempts to revoke it. Plan about forty minutes inside. The hall sits just outside Deoksugung's wall, so combine it with the main palace and the Seoul Plaza area for a focused half-day on late-Joseon and colonial-era Seoul.