5 April: Catholic Cathedral, Deoksugung Palace, Namdaemun Market

We decided to go to Korea for our birthdays trip this year. Flight departed at some god-awful hour and arrived at 5am. By the time we got out to the bus it was almost 6am. Even though the language was completely unknown, getting the airport bus tickets was straightforward, soon we found ourselves on the comfortable bus with reclining seats. And fast asleep.

Got to the hotel early, and they let us check-in. Woot! We stayed at the Sejong Hotel which is just behind Myeongdong and convenient. We unpacked and decided to rest for a while. Because we were so tired it turned out to be a 3 hr nap, which was probably a good thing. We went out around lunch and explored the streets of Myeongdong. I was in Seoul for business 18 months ago and remembered some parts, though it took me a little bit to re-orientate myself. We had lunch at a restaurant that only sold chicken, and there were only two types — roast or ginseng. We had ginseng chicken, one each … small chicken.

After lunch we walked to the Catholic Cathedral where a couple had just finished their wedding ceremony. We sat around for a little while, then the lights went out! Must be saving energy since the ceremony finished.

We left the cathedral, walked through Lotte Hotel to the City Hall area. Totally unplanned but we caught some changing of the guard ceremony at the Deoksugung Palace. It is ironic that the palace is surrounded by skyscrapers and next to a Dunkin’ Donuts.

From the Deoksugung, we walked to Namdaemun Market. There were all sorts of stalls including food, snacks, clothing, scarves, shoes, kitchenware. We were tired, so we went to a basement café that was straight out of the 1950s to have coffee and tea. It was quiet though, and we both fell asleep a little.

Went back to the hotel via subway, fell asleep for an hour again (lots of napping today!), then went out to a nearby restaurant where we had an all-you-can-eat barbeque dinner of beef and pork. They kept serving us food and we were very full. We also shared a bottle of rice wine.

Read our brochures for a little bit, then went to bed.

6 April: Insadong, Changdeokgung Palace

Took the City Tour bus from the stop opposite our hotel. It’s one of those hop-on-hop-off affairs so we plan to use it as our mode of transport today. The bus took us to Namsan and Seoul Tower — places we’d never go on our own. Our intended destination was Changdeokgung Palace but it got obvious that the bus wasn’t going to get us there in time for the 1pm tour. So we stayed on the bus for one more stop and stopped at Insadong.

I love Insadong, it’s a quaint little street with art galleries and antique shops. We went to a tiny family-style restaurant I stumbled into last time I was in Seoul. Sitting on the heated floor, communicating with the ladies who worked there in sign language. We had a most wonderful lunch of all sorts of dishes — fish, soup, steamed egg, tons of kimchi, tofu, pork … everything in small plates arranged all over the table. KRW20,000 each, IIRC.

More walking around Insadong, but there wasn’t enough time to fully explore before we had to make our way to Changdeokgung Palace to join the 3pm tour (we had to join a tour as that’s the only way visitors can go in). Nice palace, but empty buildings.

I think I’ve see too many historical buildings in my life, it was nice, nothing exciting. The flowers were very pretty though.

After the Changdeokgung we hopped back to the bus and went to Itaewon, which is supposed to be vibrant and full of shopping. We didn’t like it, it had too much of an even more downmarket version of Camden market to it. Luckily we had the tour bus ticket and spent half an hour walking around before catching the next bus back to the hotel.

We got off the bus and noticed a local restaurant right by the bus stop and decided we should have dinner there. We interpreted the Korean menu using a complicated series of guesswork and comparisons with photos on the walls. We had miso bean curd set and a clear beef soup. VERY nice. And cheap too, KRW5,000 I think.

Lots of walking today, I was tired.