Seoul - Day 3

Recap of my trip to Seoul Korea, on Friday, 18 March 2016.

Changdeok Palace, Insadong & Bukchon Hanok Village

Today is full of possibilities. Our itinerary for today was packed to the brim, so we got up early and had breakfast at Nescafe Cafe at Myeongdong. The food was good and my hot chocolate was nice but sweet. I notice that most of the sweet things we ate here were really sweet. There was a group of Japanese tourists eating at another table and I noticed that they cleared their table and brought their used cups and plates back to the counter. I assumed this was the Japanese being very polite. When we finished our breakfast we were about to walk out when we were called by the cafe staff. She asked us to bring our tray to the counter. I quickly did so with a little embarrassment. Back home, most people don't clear their table at restaurants/cafes and I'm afraid I've gotten to used to it.

From Myeongdong station we headed to Anguk station to reach Changdeokgung (Changdeok Palace). I was so excited. The last time I went to Seoul, which was around the early 2000s, my family and I got sick and we didn't get to visit any of Seoul's palaces. We reached there by 9am and purchased our tickets. Since the tour would only start at 10am, we took a stroll at the outskirts of the palace. There was a small charming park at the right side of the main gate. We saw an energetic squirrel flying from one tree to the next, as if it was putting on a show for us.

At 10am, we entered the palace gates and began the English tour. Changdeok Palace is actually the secondary palace, the main palace is Gyeongbokgung (Gyeongbok Palace). We decided to go to Changdeok Palace because it has a secret garden. I would have wanted to visit both Gyeongbokgung and Changdeokgung but there wasn't enough time. We were taken to the throne room, the King's office, the Queen's quarters, the royal kitchen, among others. Seeing the interiors of the buildings reminded me of K-drama Goong and Princess Man. The throne room reminded me of Akatsuki no Yona.

 

Looking at how well maintained the buildings and grounds were, I felt grateful towards the people who maintained the palace who gave people like me the opportunity to walk through the palace grounds like how the kings, queens, noblemen, soldiers and servants walked hundreds of years ago. One thing that caught our fancy was the water basin we found in numerous places across the palace grounds. According to our tour guide, the water basin was placed to deter fire demons. This was important since all the buildings in there were made of wood. People believed that when a fire demon looked into the water basin, it would be terrified of its own reflection and flee.

 

After lunch at a nearby cozy restaurant, we started the Huwon (Secret Garden) tour of Changdeokgung. The garden is so huge it merits its own tour. The garden is called "Secret Garden" because back in the day, it was forbidden to all except royalty and senior palace officials. We were given more breaks to admire the surroundings but also due to the vastness of the garden. The palace tour took 1 hour but the garden tour took 1.5 hours. Looking at the trees with flowers on the verge of blooming, I thought how much prettier the garden would look in the bloom of spring. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the secret garden tour. It was very calming and I kinda envy the previous kings who had this garden at his disposal whenever he needed a respite from the world.

 

The garden even has a lovely library. The Changdeok palace and garden tour was quite exhausting considering the grounds we covered. For a break, we went to Insadong and visited the famous Insadong Teahouse. The traditional interior was really cosy and the jujube tea and rice puffs we had were just what we needed to invigorate ourselves.

Our second last stop of the day was to visit the Bukchon Hanok Village. It was quite a walk from Insadong and we had to ask for directions. When we reached there, we saw some girls wearing hanbok walking down the street and taking pictures. Apparently one of the hanok (traditional Korean houses) offered hanbok wearing session but it was not free, so we passed. We just walked around and admired the beautiful architecture of the houses there.

 

We were positively pooped from all the walking but we went back to Myeongdong to buy cosmetics and dinner. I bought taiyaki again and for dinner my friend and I decided to buy kebab. On the way back to the hostel, we heard a cat near the parking lot again. We saw two guys kneeling at one of the corners and we wondered if they playing with a cat or disturbing a cat. We then decided to buy a can of tuna again and went back to where the two guys were. They were gone and we didn't see any cat. We opened the can of tuna and left it there anyways.