Jeongdong in an Afternoon: The Treaty Room and the King's Escape, Ten Minutes Apart

Five minutes west of Seoul City Hall, the road suddenly narrows. Deoksugung stone wall on your left, century-old brick buildings on your right. Ginkgo shadows shiver each time a car edges past. It’s the most famous walking street in the city, but most people cross it without knowing what lies under their feet.

Jeongdong is the neighborhood where the Korean Empire’s last five years are compressed into a few blocks. The room where a nation’s diplomatic sovereignty was stripped away. The path a king walked while fleeing to a foreign legation. The first classrooms of Joseon’s first boys’ school and its first girls’ school. All within a one-kilometer radius. No other corner of Seoul packs this much modern history into a ten-minute walk.

Why is all this modern history crammed into Jeongdong?

Because the foreign legations clustered here. The American legation set up in Jeongdong in 1883. The British, Russian, French, and German legations followed, one after another, settling around it. The reason: proximity to Gyeongungung (now Deoksugung), whose walls sat right next door. It meant the flags of the Great Powers were lined up on the land closest to the king.

Missionaries came in behind the legations. Schools, churches, and hospitals came in behind the missionaries. This is the alley where Henry Appenzeller founded Pai Chai Hakdang in 1885 and Mary Scranton founded Ewha Hakdang in 1886. Locals called this strange foreign enclave seoyangchon — the Westerners’ Village. The social circle where diplomats and reformist officials mingled was known as the Jeongdong gurakbu — the Jeongdong Club.

So by the late 1890s, Jeongdong was both the most international neighborhood in Joseon and the place where the negotiating tables that decided the country’s fate sat. That’s why Agwan Pacheon (King Gojong’s refuge at the Russian Legation) was possible here. That’s why, of all places, the Eulsa Treaty (1905) was forced through here. Every party to those events lived within walking distance.

The five stops, in order

Start at City Hall Station Exit 2 and loop counterclockwise. There’s almost no incline, and the longest stretch between any two stops is six minutes on foot.

① Jungmyeongjeon — the treaty room is smaller than you think

Across from Jeongdong First Methodist Church, slip into the narrow lane beside Yewon School. Thirty meters in, a two-story red-brick building appears. The sign is modest. Easy to walk past.

Its original name was Suokheon — the imperial library. Built in 1899 in Western style, it became Jungmyeongjeon when Gojong moved his residence here after a massive fire swept through Gyeongungung in 1904. Then, on the night of November 17 the following year, the treaty handing the Korean Empire’s diplomatic sovereignty to Japan was forced through on the second floor of this building. Gojong never signed. The document carries only the names of five ministers, Ye Wanyong among them.

The second-floor exhibition reconstructs that night. A few mannequins. A table. What strikes you first when you step in is how small the room is. A nation’s diplomatic sovereignty was handed away in a space the size of a school classroom — it’s a gut feeling no photograph conveys.

This is also the building where, two years later, Gojong resolved to send emissaries to The Hague. The exhibit carries the story through. Admission is free. The building sits outside the Deoksugung walls, so no palace ticket is required. Closed Mondays.

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② Jeongdong First Methodist Church — the red-brick anchor of the alley

It sits at the intersection where Jeongdong-gil bends, the landmark that keeps you from losing your bearings on this walk.

Founded by Henry Appenzeller in 1885, this is Korea’s first Methodist church. The Bethel Chapel standing today was completed in 1897. It holds the title of the first Western-style Protestant church building in the country and was designated a historic site in 1977. Red brick, arched windows, a facade stripped of ornament — the kind of building that endures because it doesn’t try to impress you.

The steps in front of the church see more people sitting than anywhere else in Jeongdong. Look west and you see the Ewha Girls’ High School wall. Look east and there’s the Deoksugung stone wall. This intersection is, for all practical purposes, the center of Jeongdong.

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③ Ewha Museum — the school that started with fewer than five girls

Walk through the gates of Ewha Girls’ High School and you’ll find a gray-brick building tucked inside the campus. Simpson Memorial Hall, built in 1915, is the oldest building left on the school grounds. It has served as the Ewha Museum since 2006.

Ewha Hakdang was founded in 1886 by the American Methodist missionary Mary Scranton. The first cohort numbered fewer than five students. At a time when the idea of sending a daughter to school barely existed, many of the early pupils were abandoned children or girls from the poorest families. The name Ewha was bestowed by Gojong himself.

The exhibition includes a reconstructed Yu Gwan-sun classroom. Yu was a student at this school, and the well she once drew water from still sits in a corner of the campus. Also on the grounds: a stone marker for the Sontag Hotel site, a stage for diplomacy during the Korean Empire. The campus alone functions as a small historic site.

One catch: the hours. The museum is inside an active school, so it’s open weekdays only. Closed on weekends.

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④ Old Russian Legation — one white tower on a hill

At the western end of Jeongdong-gil, behind Jeongdong Park, a white tower stands on a rise. At first glance it looks like a structure with no clear purpose. It’s the last fragment of what was once the largest, tallest building in Jeongdong.

The site opened as a consulate in 1885. A two-story Renaissance-style brick building was completed in 1890. Perched on a hill with a tower rising above it, the legation commanded a clear view of Gyeongungung and the whole Jeongdong area. The choice of location was diplomacy itself.

In the early hours of February 11, 1896, Gojong slipped out of Gyeongungung in a court lady’s palanquin and entered this building. Agwan Pacheon — the king’s refuge at the Russian Legation. It had been four months since the assassination of Empress Myeongseong. The king had concluded he was not safe in his own palace. He stayed here for 375 days, running state affairs from inside foreign walls. During those months, the pro-Japanese cabinet collapsed and a pro-Russian cabinet took its place. The Independence Club was founded during this period. Gojong returned to Gyeongungung in February 1897 and proclaimed the Korean Empire that October.

The building was largely destroyed during the Korean War. What remains: the tower and part of the basement. After restoration work, the area around the tower is now open to visitors. The view of Jeongdong’s rooftops from up here is the best on the whole walk.

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⑤ King Gojong’s Path — 120 meters, opened after 122 years

A narrow lane running downhill from Jeongdong Park toward Deoksugung. Stone retaining walls rise on both sides. All you see as you walk is the sky. The path is 120 meters long. At a slow stroll, it takes three minutes.

This is the route Gojong is believed to have taken on his way to the Russian Legation in 1896. The land was under American ownership for decades, returned to Korean hands in a 2011 land swap, and after restoration work beginning in 2016, it finally opened to the public in October 2018. A hundred and twenty-two years.

Honestly, there’s not much to look at. Walls. Packed earth. And yet this segment is the most arresting part of the walk, because your body registers something a sign can’t tell you: a king passed through this narrow gap in the night. If Jungmyeongjeon surprises you with the size of the room, this path surprises you with its width.

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⑥ Pai Chai Hakdang History Museum — Joseon’s first modern school for boys

Head south from Jeongdong toward Seosomun and you’ll find a red-brick building: the East Hall of Pai Chai Hakdang, built in 1916. It’s called Appenzeller Hall, after the founder.

Pai Chai Hakdang was established in 1885 by Henry Appenzeller as Korea’s first Western-style modern school. Gojong gave the school its name, too. Syngman Rhee and Ju Si-gyeong studied here, and the museum has restored a classroom from that era — wooden desks, a chalkboard, even the quality of light through the windows. It’s a photogenic space, yes, but it’s also the most immediate way to see where modern education in this country began.

The schedule is tricky. Open Tuesday through Saturday only. Closed Sundays, Mondays, and public holidays. This is why the Ewha Museum (weekdays only) and this one align on just four days: Tuesday through Friday.

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Hours at a glance

🕘 Jeongdong modern history walk — six stops (as of August 2026)

Things worth a sideways glance along the way

The stretches between stops on Jeongdong-gil are sights in themselves.

If you need coffee, there are a few cafés around the Jeongdong First Methodist Church intersection. But this neighborhood is more business district than tourist zone. On weekdays from noon to 1 p.m., office workers flood every seat. During that window, you’re better off walking King Gojong’s Path or finding a bench in Jeongdong Park.

How to read this alley

What stays with you after a loop around Jeongdong is a sense of distance.

The Russian Legation where the king fled, and Jungmyeongjeon where his diplomatic sovereignty was taken — six minutes on foot. Between them: Joseon’s first school for boys and its first school for girls. The losing of a nation and the beginning of its modern education unfolded in the same alley, inside the same decade.

That’s why this neighborhood doesn’t read as purely tragic. In the Jeongdong of 1896 to 1905, collapse and creation sat side by side, and the buildings that remain each stand for one side of that story. Walk them in order and the contrast comes through on its own. Forty minutes on your feet. Three hours if you stop and look. Seoul doesn’t offer many three-hour stretches this dense.