Seoul Day 3

Started our day with a visit to the palaces. Given that we've had a long day the day before, we slept in and had a quick breakfast before heading out to the world famous Gyeong Bok Gung Palace.

At Gyeong Bok Gung Palace Station

head towards exit 5

Built in 1935, the palace means Palace Greatly Blessed by Heaven. It served as the main palace for more than 500 years and is surrounded by 5 metre high walls and has 4 very large gates, which are to the 4 directions (East, South, West and North). The main door is the Gwanghwamun which has 3 entrances.

The palace is open every day except Tuesdays and there are free English guided tours at 11, 1330 and 1530 on those days. 

There is a change of guards every hour (think it's from 10 am to 3 pm) and that lasts for about 10 minutes and starts off in the square between Gwanghwamun and Heungnyemun. Quite interesting, accompanied by music. Somehow, the guards all appear very tall.... hhmm.. interesting..

Change of guards procession

We attended the 10am change of guards and spent the next 30 minutes wandering around the palace before joining the guided tour at 11. The group meets just outside the information centre after the 2nd gate. The lady we had was pretty good and we had a really large group but there was just so many different vicinities to the palace that I got a little distracted by the end.

With one of the animal deities

In one of the areas, there is a 2 tier terrace that surrounded by figures of 4 guardians - Black Tortoise, White Tiger, Blue Dragon and Vermilion Phoenix, which is then further surrounded by the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac.

Gyeonghoeru Pavilion

This pavilion had served many formal banquets for the king and his guests and was expanded in 1412 by King Taejong. The first level of the pavilion has no walls but instead has 48 stone coloumns. The pavilion is surrounded by almost like a moat thing, but it was more for the view rather than a army/war strategy (in my opinion anyway). Very pretty indeed.

Gangnyeongjeon?

Gangnyeongjon served as the king's living quarters and is named after the third of five blessings (longevity, wealth, health, love of virtu, peaceful death). The building has 2 sides and each room are divided into 9 areas. The king stays in the centre room, and the court ladies stays at night in the rooms surrounding the centre room.

The guided tour took up to about an hour and by now, as we only had coffee in the morning, we were famished from the walking and the freezing weather so we headed on to the famous Tosokchon!

Check out the queue!

Although an intimidating line to get in, we didn't take that long - possibly less than 30 minutes. And it is so so so worth the wait!

Prices were reasonable as well

Oh so good samgyetang

We had 2 bowls of the samgyetang and a seafood pancake. Tasted oh-so-good. Definitely a must try for anyone heading to Seoul. The soup was so flavoursome, so rich and the rice was just nice. It was just so so so good!!

Changdeokgung Palace

Headed to the Changdeokgung Palace after lunch and off to join another guided tour. There are English guided tours here at 1030 and 1430.

Changdeokgung is a named UNESCO Heritage Site in 1997. There was quite an extensive information from our tour guide but as usual, I got distracted by the architecture, the colours and taking way too many photographs, I didn't really get too much information.

Anyway, after the palace visit, we went on to explore Bukchon Village on our own. Went into a couple of little shops and oh, there's one a store that sells small wall decorations that are so cute and pretty! Perfect for someone looking for things to decorate a child's rooms with. Or a themed wedding/party/event.

Hello there!

Loving the little steps

In these alleys, there are several hanoks, whick can serve as guest houses. A little like ryokans in Japan I suppose. Maybe we should stay in one next time :)

We did go into a cultural centre in the area which did do some fabric paintings and runs little sessions for tourist or locals. There was a Korean family with 2 young children in the place who were doing a session while we were there. While we didn't do any of that, we spent some time taking pictures and sitting on the 'decks' of this house just to breath in the experience

Off to the famous Sanchon Vegetarian Restaurant next!

Okay, let's get this straight. It was quite an adventure getting to the restaurant. There were too many alleys in the area plus wrong directions from the Korea Tourist Organization online - we so did not enjoy the process. Anyway, met a young fabulously kind couple - thank you so much! - who used their phones as GPS, asked around and then personally walking us all the way to the restaurant. Talk about good hospitality! Go Koreans!!

Pretty lights

I've read so much about Sanchon Vegetarian Restaurant that I had such high expectations. However, we didn't enjoy the food as much as we were expecting to. Not sure if it was just too much greens or the spices. Overall, I think maybe it just wasn't our type of food.

But anyway , picture galore as usual :

Dining area

Sanchon serves a traditional temple food that uses all kind of vegetables from the yards, mountains and seas of Korea. There isn't a menu of choices of food available, but rather just a set menu. A lunch menu goes up to 33,000 won and dinner for 45,000 won. 

There's about 19 dishes that were served and a bottle of wine. I quite enjoyed the drink, but I doubt mum and A did - they kept making fun of me!! Hahaha

This would be the bit that we enjoyed most

There is also a traditional performance organized by the restaurant which starts at about 8 pm. I was expecting the restaurant to be quite packed and was therefore quite worried when the restaurant didn't confirm my reservations initially and reading how popular the place was. However, when we were there.. it was quite empty for a weekend.

But I quite liked this display at the shop. Made of folded papers. Quite cool isn't it?

After dinner, it was still too early to head home for the night, so off we went to .. yes! Myeong Dong again!!! Hahaha

Available at every train station

I suppose maybe I should be worried if I see this at every train station.. it's a box for emergency situations like bombs/war etc. But then again, if you live that close to North Korea and know that they have missiles or things aimed at Seoul, your government is only being safe by placing this. Well.. that's the good part. And I suppose the negative side of this is - well, we could be bombed at any time! Food for thought.

More street food at Myeong Dong