Day 2: Gyeongbokgung, Gwanghwamun Square, Samcheongdong, Bukchon Village
The thing about travelling free & easy is that you get to wake up any time you want! We woke up at around 10-ish and had brunch at a Korean restaurant near our guest house before making our way to Gyeongbokgung.
Gyeongbokgung (Gyeongbokgung Station, Exit 5) is probably the most famous royal palace in Korea. It's always good to visit somewhere with a strong history/heritage, like an old palace or temple when you're in a foreign country because you get a glimpse into the past and traditions of that country, and I like to imagine how it's like to live in another era.
Gyeongbokgung is really modest, compared to the palaces I visited in Japan. It's still very grand and huge, nonetheless, but it's less flamboyant.
The entrance fee wasn't too expensive, we paid 3000won per pax. There was also a package deal to visit the other palaces, but we thought Gyeongbokgung should be enough for us, since we're not exactly history buffs.
This is the only fancy place in the palace. The gold dragons were spectacular in real life. There were free English tours at the palace, and one of the tour guides pointed this out (quickly takes out camera and took a few shots before all the other tourists rush over).
The entire palace is huge. We didn't manage to cover the entire area, but everything else looks pretty much the same after awhile!
Raymond had been to the palace before and he warned me that there's only 1 exit, which means that the further we go, the longer it will take to exit the palace. I think we ended our tour within an hour lol and we exited at Gwanghwamun gate, the main gate of the Gyeongbokgung palace.
Had to take a picture with the royal guard.
There was some sort of a bazaar going on opposite the Gwanghwamun gate, and we didn't know at first, but the bazaar was freaking huge and it led us all the way to
Gwanghwamun Square.
Rows and rows of clothes and food.
There were a couple of stalls selling homemade jams, cookies and drinks.
There was a stall selling takoyaki with crabs! Unfortunately, it was all sold out, so we had to get the normal octopus takoyaki.
Next up, we headed to Samcheongdong-gil, a few stops from Gyeongbokgung!
Samcheongdong is famous for the Bukchon Hanok Village (Anguk Station, Exit 2), it's really interesting to see Korea traditional houses in the middle of modern architecture. Samcheongdong is also home to many cafes, galleries and cool indie shops.
We found this crepe shop from Harajuku! Tried their strawberry cheesecake crepe, but I still prefer the ones they have in Japan!
The slopes in Korea is no joke. I swear some of them were like 45degrees.
We took a break at one of the cafes at Bukchon Village. I can't remember the name of the cafe, but it was up on one of the hills, and had a really cool alfresco area on the balcony, so we had a pretty good view of the sunset. It was freaking cold though, both of us were shivering at the end of it.
We decided to settle our dinner at this Tteokbokki restaurant called Spicy+. There was a queue and we had to wait around half an hour before we could get seated.
Ordered one of their main set meal, with ramen and glass noodle. I think I still prefer ramen to the glass noodles.
We ordered a fried rice too! I think this is the best part! After we cleared all the ramen, the vegetables and the Tteokbokki, the waiter mixed in our fried rice together with the leftover sauce and some seasoning. Ahh, it was so good.
Day 3: Gwangjang Market & Myeongdong
Started the day with breakfast at COCO BRUNI! Do visit this cafe if you're in Hongdae and you're a fan of hot chocolate. They serve the BEST hot chocolate here. It's really rich and semi-sweet (because i'ts dark chocolate). I don't recommend the cold dark chocolate though, go for the hot one!
Nice ambience too! It's really crowded at night, so if you want to avoid the crowd, come during the day.
There are plenty of options for cakes and chocolates as well. The tiramisu was pretty good.
I'm a big fan of running man, and there's an episode where they sort of explored the touristy parts of Korea (just googled, it's episode 186). They went to this market and they had to stop at different stations and eat their way through the market. There is no way I'm going to give this place a miss.
Thanks to Google, I found the market and it's none other than the Gwangjang Market (Jongno 5(o)-ga, Exit 8 or Euljiro 4(sa)-ga, Exit 4).
Gwangjang Market is famous for bindaetteok (mung bean pancake). There were so many vendors selling the pancake, and seriously I don't think there's much of a difference, everything looked equally delicious.
We just had to order one. And it was good. The pancakes were served with Kimchi (the usual) and some onions with a sour vinegar sauce. That extra toppings made a whole world of difference. I especially love the onion and sour sauce dipping. I recommend sharing this cos it's quite oily and it gets a little jelat towards the end.
We also managed to track down this Bibimbap stall that was featured on Running Man! It was yummy, and there was more vegetables than rice lol.
We definitely left the market with our tummies full.
Next up, MYEONGDONG. Exit 5, 6, 7, or 8 – Myeongdong Station Line 4. We bought tickets to the Nanta show at 8pm, so we had a few hours to kill. Since we will be going to Jeju and Busan, and returning to Seoul after that, we thought we would buy all the things during our last few days in Korea, so we don't have to carry around the extra few kgs worth of skin care and makeup items.
Myeongdong is well, everything I've imagined it to be. Shopping paradise. Seriously, every single Korean cosmetic brand that you've heard of is here. There were also alot of tourists, and the China market is so huge that they have Chinese working at the beauty stores and cosmetics counters. The Koreans speak decent english too, so no worries about communication problems.
We visited Lotte duty free before going over to the Nanta show, but I honestly don't think it's worth the trouble! It's so crowded, so hot and they only stock the best sellers. Some of the brands like Tony Moly and Etude House sell their products in bulk, so you will end up with like 10 lipglosses. Long story short, buy your beauty products at the normal shops on the streets and get your tax refunds at the airport.
The Nanta show was awesome! They have different groups running the show, and the Black team was up that day. It was really entertaining and I think the lady chef was hot. She's really fit and had beautiful toned arms. Gosh, I'm so envious of her.
On Day 4, we travelled to JEJU! More about that in the next post!
