Korea! - Day Two
So the second day was culture day. We started off the day trying on hanbok in the tourism center. I picked the princess one; although I didn't know it was the princess one when I picked it, I swear! Hanbok are pretty, but they make everybody look fat.
We started trekking uptown to go to Gyeongbok Palace, but happened upon this temple on the way up. It looked like it was an active temple, not primarily a tourist attraction. It was very colorful (actually everything in Seoul was pretty colorful). The tree must have been sacred, people were literally hugging it and whispering things to it. The amount of detail in everything was amazing.
We just missed the english tour of Gyeongbok Palace, but we were right in time for the changing of the guards ceremony. It was cool, although I think traditional Korean music has emphasis on being loud. And it was annoying having some Japanese tourist jumping in front of my camera every like 5 seconds. But anyway, the ceremony itself was pretty elaborate for something that seems as simple as switching shifts. Can't imagine doing that...what maybe 2-3 times a day? Gyeongbok Palace is huge, apparently at one time 3,000 people were living there. I'm not sure if that figure included staff or just actual residents. The whole palace is a recreation though b/c it's been burned down multiple times. I think it said twice by the Japanese and also during the Korean War.
More castle pictures here, but you have to be my friend on facebook to see them. Sorry!
After that we headed to Insadong to get some souvenirs. I wasn't too fond of the area. It wasn't particularly cute or cultural and it was WHOA tourist. But I was able to get the souvenirs, so mission accomplished.
After that we headed to Bukchon, which was super trendy. While outside the tourist info center, some English students approached us. Their homework was to help foreigners find something and film it. So we were like, ok. We were looking for dinner b/c we were hungry and I really wanted kimchi jjigae. Except that they didn't really know the area either, so they had to ask somebody.....anyway, they were enamored with Molly and her small face, so I took the opportunity to take pics of the super cute area.
The restaurant we ate at had 0 English, so we just asked the waitress for jjigae dishes. I got kimchi jjigae and Fig got soondubu jjigae. OMG IT WAS DELICIOUS. Then we headed across the street to a cute cafe that look like it stumbled out of an Alice in Wonderland fantasy and got waffles and ice cream. It was a bit on the expensive side, but totally worth it.