Seoul City Transit Tour (Final Part)

We were actually pretty happy that we gave Cheonggye Plaza a miss. I wasn't really in the mood to walk around in the rain to look at some man made stream :P Also, it was already way past lunch time (or so it felt like) and we were hungry! Our tour guide explained to us on the bus that we will be going to a popular traditional Korean restaurant, in the outskirts of Seoul city.

I really have no idea where this restaurant is located or the name of this restaurant (everything is in Korean!). I might ask Ashley to read the signs and try to figure out the name of the place. Oh yes, Lil Miss Korean Boy Band fan now reads Hangul too! Man, this K-Pop craze is getting out of control. Anyways, it looked like a pretty popular restaurant, with tons of tours buses parked outside. Looks like this is where all the tourist go to for the 'traditional Korean lunch' part of the tour..haha! :P

If I am not mistaken, the restaurant consist of three levels (maybe four?). The ground floor is for walk in customers, the second floor is for tour guides as well as their bus drivers and the third floor has small private rooms for various tour groups. I am not too sure, but looks like there is also karaoke somewhere in that restaurant! LOL!

Ahhh, this is our tour group's private room. We had to take off our shoes and place them in the little nooks beneath the floor before sitting down in our individual booths/tables. We shared a table with a guy from New Zealand and his Israeli girlfriend. Our tour guide told us that water and Korean tea is on the house but we needed to pay for any other drinks that we ordered. OK, got that! Now bring out the food please...

So, what did we eat? Of course, they brought out a few different kinds of banchan (side dishes). Now, let me state that I am not really a fan of kimchi. I would usually just eat the spinach and beansprouts but since I was in Korea, I figured I would try a piece (just to see if it taste any different). Guess what? It was different!! Man, I guess I have been eating bad kimchi all this while. That's why I didn't like the taste. This was actually good! Since the other three 'angmohs' didn't like the taste of kimchi, I had the whole dish to myself. Yay for me!

For our mains, we had a choice between Bulgogi (of course) or Bibimbap. Bulgogi is thin slices of marinated beef grilled with mushrooms, onions, spring onions and garlic. It is usually served alongside some lettuce and rice. Bibimbap on the other hand is a bowl of white rice with vegetables that are seasoned and sauteed. It is then usually topped with chili pepper paste and a raw egg. Almost everybody (except two people, I think) went with Bulgogi. I would say that it was a good choice. The servers allowed it to cook for a bit, then they would come and mix it all up and sort of like 'stir fry' it in front of you. The meat was so tender and the sauce was really sweet and nice. Super yummy!

Look at the size of the pan. That was a three person portion. Even after sharing, we still couldn't finish all the food. Let me say it once again. It was really really yummy! One of the best bulgogi I have ever eaten before. After lunch, we all piled into the little bus again and headed back to the airport. It was a fun ride back, with our tour guide teaching us Korean phrases, giving us Korean candy to munch on and some Korean trivia. We even received a bottle of hand lotion each, compliments of the Korean Tourism Board! After arriving at the airport, we still had quite a number of hours to kill before our flight back to Malaysia. Stay tuned to see what we did!

Seoul City Transit Tour (Part II)

After Gyeongbokgung Palace, we all piled into our little tour bus and headed to Insadong. Insadong is a dong (neighborhood) located in the Jongno-gu district of Seoul. Originally, it was made up of two towns whose names ended in the syllables "In" and "Sa" which was divided by a stream that ran along Insadong's current main street. It used to be a residential area for government officials about 500 years ago. During the Japanese occupation, the wealthy Korean residents were forced to move out, sell their belongings and Insadong became an area well known for trading of antiques. After the end of the Korean war, many flock to the area as it became South Korea's hub for an artistic and cafe lifestyle. Today, it is a tourist destination, known as the largest market for antiques and artworks in Korea.

Our tour bus dropped us off at Insadong-gil, the main street in Insadong. Known as a 'traditional street', it is connected to a multitude of alleys that lead deeper into the district. Our tour guide told us that we had about 45 minutes to walk around and that we are to stick to the main road (I guess if we venture into the small alleys, we would definitely take more than 45 minutes to get out!). So off we went!

Insadong-gil is pretty unique, I would say. It has a balance of old traditional shops as well as ultra modern ones. You can get pretty much anything here, from antiques to modern art. Our tour guide told us that we could find souvenirs here but we actually had a tough time trying to locate any. I guess our definition of souvenirs is different from hers. She must be referring to nice Korean handicrafts and artwork (which cost a bomb) and we were thinking more of fridge magnets! We did however manage to buy something for my sister. She is a hugeeee K-Pop fan, so when she heard that we will be transiting in Korea, she told us to pick up some Super Junior and 2PM (for those of you who don't know, they are Korean boy bands) socks. So errrr, we got her that. I think it's about US$3-4 a pair. It was a little embarrassing for two 30 something year olds to go ask the shop keeper if they had boy band socks, but hey, we would do anything for Ashley :P

There were not many people out in Insadong that day. I am guessing it's because it was a weekday (we were there late Monday morning) and also due to the weather (cold and rainy). We were told that if we were to visit on a Sunday, it would be so packed, we can't even walk. It has been reported that Insadong gets approximately 100,000 visitors on a typical Sunday. Wow! That sure is a lot of people. Even Queen Elizabeth II paid Insadong a visit while she was visiting Korea a while back :P

Apart from antiques, traditional handicrafts and art stores (Korea's oldest tea house as well as oldest bookstore are also located here), there were many modern cafes and restaurants in Insadong too. Check out the Korean Starbucks! Yup, you can find a Starbucks no matter where you are in the world. I bet there would be one in the middle of the thick Amazon rainforest too! :P We didn't go inside but I wonder if the menu is a little different than what we are used to. I know that they have Kimchi donuts in Dunkin Donuts, so who knows what they have in Starbucks. Kimchi frappuccinos?

The rain began to come down hard the moment we got on our tour bus. Originally, our next stop would be Cheonggye Plaza, to see the man made stream. However, due to the heavy rain, everybody agreed to give it a miss when our tour guide asked us if we still wanted to go down and walk around. We just took some pictures of it from our bus. With that, we are off to our next stop. The traditional Korean lunch!

Seoul City Transit Tour (Part I)

Sorry for not updating for a couple of days. Our apartment building management is in the process of installing new cable wiring for the entire building, so our Internet connection hasn't been the best lately. Hopefully they will be done by the end of this week or next, if not, I'll just go crazy with the Internet connection being disrupted every half an hour or so.

Alritey, back to the Korean Transit Tour. I guess you guys remember me blogging about Kevin and myself going on a Seoul City Tour while we were in transit on the way back to Malaysia last month. Our first stop was the Gyeongbokgung Palace in northern Seoul. It usually takes about 45 minutes (depending on traffic) or so to get from Incheon Airport to Seoul. It took us about an hour and a half cos we were caught in rush hour traffic. We arrived just in time to watch the changing of the guards ceremony in front of the Heungnyemun (the 2nd Inner Gate) Gate. I managed to record a short clip of the ceremony. Check out the above vid!

Here is a photo of Kevin and I in front of the Heungnyemun Gate, with the guards in full uniform behind us. There is a total of 3 main gates, with the Heungnyemun Gate being the second. The main outer gate (Gwanghwamun) is currently under reconstruction. When the Japanese invaded and took over the palace in the early 20th century, the palace was heavily destroyed. They even moved the Gwanghwamun Gate to another location. Today, the Korean government is still in the process of restoring the palace to it's former glory and one of the big projects is to move the Gwanghwamun Gate back to it's original location. So, for now....the Heungnyemun Gate is used as the main entrance to the palace.

There are many buildings in the palace grounds, each built with a specific purpose. Here is Kevin in front of Geunjeongjeon Hall. This is the throne hall, where the king formally granted audiences to his officials, gave declarations of national importance and greeted foreign envoys as well as ambassadors during the Joseon Dynasty. In 1985, this building was recognised as one of Korea's National Treasure. You can also see our tour group behind Kevin, with our tour guide holding the Korean flag :P

This is another one of Korea's National Treasure. The Gyeonghoeru Pavilion is a hall used to hold important and special state banquets during the Joseon Dynasty. Originally constructed in 1412, it was burned down during the Japanese invasions of Korea in 1592. The present building was constructed in 1867 on an island of an artificial, rectangular lake that is 128 m wide and 113 m across. Everything looked so beautiful and serene, with the frozen lake and lovely architecture. Please excuse my super red face. I was actually freezing my toes off, with the temperature hitting the below freezing mark that day. Very very cold day. Oh another piece of trivia. You can actually find the picture of Gyeonghoeru on a 10,000 won banknote. Just thought I should throw in that interesting fact :P

From the pavilion, we crossed over one of the three bridges and headed out to the National Folk Museum of Korea (which was just next to the palace). We didn't have time to go in but we just looked at various sculptures and decorations that was on the museum grounds. Here is Kevin posing with the sculptures of the twelve Zodiac animals. Yes, he was born in the year of the rabbit!!

Here is the main building of the National Folk Museum of Korea. The museum has three exhibition halls which illustrate 'The History of the Korean People' from pre-historic times to the end of the Joseon Dynasty in 1910, 'The Lifestyle of the Korean People' and 'The Lifecycle of a Korean from Birth to Death'. It also houses a children's museum and an outdoor exhibition. The museum was originally sited on Mt Namsan and was moved to Gyeongbokgung in 1975.

We had some time to just walk around the palace and museum grounds, just to enjoy beautiful scenery, amidst the crisp and cool winter air. Many people have mentioned that Korea is a very beautiful country and I totally agree with that. Everything we saw around the palace grounds looks like it's been taken out from a painting, it was so beautiful.

As much as we would love to spend more time just enjoying the palace, it was soon time for us to leave and head to our next destination - Insadong! Time to put on our walking shoes and head out to for some souvenir shopping. Stay tuned, I will blog more about that in my next post!