Seoul, Korea - Jan 2016 - Day 2

We started the day with breakfast at the guesthouse. Here they provide eggs, breads, jams, milk and juices and kitchen to use. I fried my egg sunny side up and ate it with toast. We checked out and kept our bags in the lobby. Then we head up to Deoksu Palace which is just a stone's throw away.

We saw a guard practicing his walks wearing civilian clothes with his supervisor, probably for the guard changing ceremony that will takes place later in the morning.  Took some pictures at the Daehanmun Gate and hurriedly went inside after paid for the ticket to visit the palaces.

We took some pictures then walk around when we saw that the guards squad, wearing their full traditional clothes started their march from inside the palace. A lot of tourists start to flock and following them until the guards reached the palace entrance.  There are two groups, one band group playing musical instrument and another one was the regular guards. 

Tourists following the guards.

The guard changing ceremony show was fascinating. It is a show since they do not actually need to do this anymore, it's only for tourism, they are all paid actors. They were all very tall guys, at least 5'10". There were few booths set up nearby the entrances. We tried out Hanbok (traditional Korean clothes) for free and took pictures with the guards wearing it. We did not forget to take pictures with the cute guards as well, lol.

The cute guy in the middle.

Passing over the duties. Notice the yellow roofed booth at the back for free palace tour guide.

There are some volunteers wearing yellow jackets that will give you free tour in the palace. We took one high school guy that showed us around the palace. His English was not perfect but it was pretty good. He seems a bit shy but he gave very good explanation and we gave him good score for his questionnaire.

The tour guide showing us meanings of the color used in the palace architecture

Explaining the floor heating system. Red arrows shows hot air and blue shows cold air.
Makes sense right since hot air is lighter than cold air.

The palace was built in 14th century during Joseon dynasty as one of the five royal palaces. The palace was renamed in 19th century by King Gojong to Deoksugung that means virtuous longevity.

I noticed there are few building that didn't look Korean. One of them is the Jeonggwanheon, built by Russian architect as a place for the emperor to enjoy coffee. Another one is Seokjojeon Hall that has very western design, built by the same emperor to use as living quarters.

Jeonggwanheon, the coffee place

Seokjojeon Hall

Bell in the middle and water clock on the right.

One of the interesting facts that was told to us was about the unpolished stone floor of the big area in front of the palace hall. It was made that way so the guards (or anyone walking in that area) will not be blinded by the sunlight. Sunlight will not able to be reflected on the uneven surface of the floor.

After tour finished, we took our wudu' at the restroom (thank God for the heater inside!) then performed our day prayer nearby one of the benches in the palace area that was bit secluded from the walking path.

We were starving and not willing to walk further for lunch so we both agreed to eat at a small restaurant besides the palace. I don't even know how to read the place name but they had menu in English. The restaurant was in underground floor, the stairs leading down had kinda tight spaces but we were pleasantly surprised that the restaurant was not too cramped.

The menu and price looks promising enough so here we go.

Our spicy squid rice.

The squid was sooo good! I congratulated myself silently for picking this place. The ajushi (uncle) that owns the restaurant was quite friendly as well. The cook ajumma (auntie) said she liked the colorful scarf we wore on our head. I praised her for her cooking skills and for her skin. I think she's around 50's but she has clear and clean complexions, better than mine!  (T_T)

We continued to walk towards Gyeongbok Palace, the biggest palace complex in Seoul. Along the way, we passed statue of King Sejong, the genius king that invented Hangul (modern Korean writing) and Admiral Yi Sun Sin, the Korean naval commander that fought Japanese during 15th century.

We decided not to visit Gyeongbokgung, one because we had limited time (need to get back to the guesthouse before dark), second because I already visited this once (during my 24hr flight layover year ago) and I know the interior was not too much different than Deoksu except the area is bigger.

We visited National Folk Museum because the entrance was free (yup that's one of my deciding factor).  We planned to have a quick look inside but we took longer time because we kept going to the bathroom (it's cold outside!), and the area was big and has lots of interesting things inside.

Local school children playing history games inside the museum

There are replicas of traditional Korean houses, interesting statues (including men & women's private part statues (-_-;)), the 12th Chinese zodiac animal statues and an exhibition area.

Chinese Zodiac

One of the interesting exhibitions they were having was about Japanese and Korean food. I was particularly interested in one of the recipe books that titled "韓国ご飯　キレイな人の秘密がわかる" that I can roughly translates as "Korean food, the secrets of beautiful people". Well, maybe if I follow the recipe I can have beautiful skin like the ajumma I met during lunch?

The book of secrets :)

We had about less than couple of hours before dark, so we hurried towards Bukchon Hanok Village. They gave us a map of the area at the information counter. We asked them to show us the most important area to visit because we had short time, so they circled at the map of the most beautiful neighborhood area to see.

Bukchon village still had actual people living inside the houses. Considering that, we were not supposed to be too loud and entering people's house without permission (well most of the doors were shut tight and had security system anyway).  It's amazing how they still able to preserve the architecture. The winding and hilly roads made for a good exercise. I'm sure these houses cost a fortune! A house was opened as a small museum, allowing people to get in and see but I gave up since there were too many people inside.

One of the streets in Bukchon flocked by local and international tourists alike

One of the interesting house open to visit

It's almost dark, time to go back to the guesthouse for our luggages. Saw few interesting murals on the way back.

We are young at heart no matter how old we are.

We took our baggages, thanked Paul for his assistance, then headed to the train station. We were going to stay at Itaewon which is situated at the southern part of Seoul. M was freezing in her sneakers so we were delighted when we saw winter boots for sale at 5000 won inside one of the train station!

Good deal. Very fair price for impulse buy.

It was not hard to find the Itaewon Hostel. It is very near to the train station, it didn't took more than 10 minutes to walk. The hostel entrance is on the 2nd floor. Luckily our baggages were not heavy. We checked in our dorm, greeted our roommates, then headed out for dinner.

Our choice for dinner was Makan Restaurant. Maybe because the name is in Malay that's why we picked it. There are lots of choices for halal food in Itaewon because the mosque is situated here. Mostly Indian, Turkish or Middle East food, but of course we want to eat Korean food since we are in Korea right?

The restaurant was full but we were lucky they had one table left for two. We ordered Bulgogi rice served with 6 types of banchan. Everything was sooo delicious I almost licked my plate if there are no one else in the restaurant. The serving was actually pretty big but we were both hungry after all the walks, to eat everything was not a problem at all.

Bulgogi at Makan Restaurant

We saw LINE shop across the street. I had wanted to get into this shop when we were in Myeong Dong but there were too many people. There were far less crowd here so we got to take our time taking pictures with all the cute huggable plushy LINE characters inside.

The cutey LINE shop in Myeong Dong. Korean are good at making money from cute characters.

We went back to our hostel with enough time to have a good chat with our roommates before we all went to bed. There are one Californian, a Chinese girl and a Japanese girl. The Chinese girl didn't know much English but we were able to communicate using Google Translate. Google is a miracle!