Daehanminguk 2014 Day 2 ♥

Taking a longer time than expected to blog about the trip. So here goes, our second day in Seoul, Korea!

13th June 2014.
Gyeongbokgung. Insadong. Bukchon Hanok Village. Myeongdong. Singing in the Rain.

We started the day with a hearty breakfast at the Myeongdong subway station. There's a little stall that serves kimbap, ddokbbokki and other dishes that are easy to eat. So we got kimbap and ddokbbokki to share. Of course, the servings are usually pretty big so it was more than sufficient for four people.

Kimbap. ₩1,500.

Ddokbbokki. ₩2,500.

And the friendly ahjumma gave us a bottle of Yakult as service.

Service is something that you might hear of quite frequently in Korea. They call getting extra free things, a service. It's like telling customers to please come back often. So in this case, we got a Yakult as a service. Other times we may get an extra piece of something or a bowl of soup as service. Sometimes if you're familiar enough with the store owner or have been to a place often enough, you can try to ask for service.

After breakfast, we headed to the Gyeongbokgung which was at the Gwanghwamun station. If I'm not wrong, you should be able to walk either from the Gwanghwamun or the Gyeongbokgung station. From the Gwanghwamun station, we were able to see the palace from afar so we just walked in that direction.

We were able to see King Sejong at Gwanghwamun Square, along the way to the palace. And underneath the statue or whatever it's called, there's an exhibition hall that is free for viewing. It just provided information about Hangul and some other historical information.

Along the Gwanghwamun Square, we also saw the Waterway of History which records milestones in the history of South Korea. It looked pretty cool and fascinating! But I didn't take the time to stop and read every single record.

The big road that we had to cross to get to the palace.

Changing of guards.

Children on a field trip in their traditional Korean outfits!

Unfortunately we didn't go into the palace. We went through the gate and took a few photos outside the palace entrance and left. We decided that the entrance fee of ₩3,000 wasn't worth it since well, the palaces all look the same! But my sister and I did visit a palace in the end on day 13 of our trip in Suwon. I'll blog about it when I get to day 13! ^^

After our short visit to the Gyeongbokgung, we went to Insadong, toward the Anguk station! We didn't know the exact way there so we asked the tourist information counter at the Gyeongbokgung. Hehehe. Intended to just walk down the Insadong street and just look at things but of course, we did some shopping!

The shops at Insadong were quite interesting and we ended up at this mall where every floor was connected by a slope. So I could walk from the 2nd to the 3rd floor without climbing up any stairs! There were stairs in the building which we used to come back down. It was also the place that Choo Sunghoon from Superman is back went to with his daughter Sarang! He made a hand carved stamp with her name on it.

Although we didn't get many things, street shopping itself was pretty fun! It's not something we get to do back home anyway.

We got a late lunch around 2pm at a Korean restaurant. We decide where to eat on the menu and the price. This restaurant looked good and it wasn't too expensive. It was pretty cool too since it was a sit-on-the-floor type of restaurant though it was troublesome to remove our shoes. I would recommend sharing if you aren't big eaters as the portions are pretty big.

Tofu stew.

Bibimbap.

Kimchi pancake.

We were super full after the meal! It was super filling! We continued our journey to the Bukchon Hanok Village which was around the same area. There are a few other Hanok Villages around Seoul itself but we decided to visit this one rather last minute.

It's just basically a stretch of traditional Korean houses. Most of it have been turned into shops and cafes though some were still residential. There was this whole area though that was blocked out and surrounded by a pretty traditional looking stone wall. We peered over and it looked like a residential area. As in like an entire area of traditional Hanok houses and people are still living in them! I'm pretty sure that most of these houses would have air condition in them. Hehehe.

The roads were pretty steep

Traditional looking houses.

Pretty narrow streets.

We had some time left before we went for our musical so we went back to Myeongdong for some shopping! Decided to get some makeup shopping done. We went to Innisfree, The Face Shop and The Saem before we ran out of time. We stopped by the guest house to drop things off before we went for our musical.

The musical was at the Chungmu Art Hall which was at the Dongdaemun History and Culture Park Station, Exit 2. We were able to find the directions from the official Korean Tourism Organization website. It's a very useful website especially if you have a wifi device. You could just google up something on the spot.

Oh! You might wanna take note that the Dongdaemun History and Culture Park Station is huge! It took us forever to get to Exit 2 and we were almost late for our ticket collection ><

If you're planning to watch a musical a Korea, though you might want to take note that there are no subtitles, you can purchase the tickets online through Interpark. I got my tickets there in 2012 for "Catch me if you can" and now I bought my tickets there again.

Sadly, since we weren't special members of the website, we didn't get the priority sales that began an hour before the actual ticket sales so we ended up sitting in the first row upstairs. The first floor was filled up to the 19th row by the time the public sales began ㅠㅠ

Here are our tickets.

And our view from our seats.

We had a whole view of the stage which was pretty good. Though there weren't any subtitles, we did research beforehand to find out the storyline so we wouldn't be too lost. I honestly do not remember any of the lines or what was said but I think the second female lead was pretty talented. The female lead for our show was pretty good too. Lucky her! She got to kiss Kyuhyun

After the musical ended, we went to wait by the exit of the car park hoping to catch a glimpse of Kyuhyun as he left. There was a crowd waiting on the inside of the building by the lifts and another on the outside where the car park barricade was. We waited outside as it would be safer and it would save us from running.

Kyuhyun's car drove out a few minutes later and he's really very sweet! He lowered the window and waved to us just as the car stopped at the security barrier. Hehehe. I think Liting managed to take a fancam of the moment. While my supposed fancam got interrupted at the important second by someone's arm and head. Kyuhyun's face totally got blocked out! Sobs.

But at least we got to see him again outside the SM building on Day 6. Say what? Wait till that day to find out what happened! Hehehe.

We got our first chicken delivery that night too! Two two fried chicken! We got the 반반 which literally means half-half. So it was half fried and half with sweet and spicy sauce. It was pretty good but I totally prefer Kyochon~ I really recommend trying the fried chicken there! If you're staying at a guest house, you can get the people working there to help you make an order. I think for our Two two fried chicken order, it cost us about ₩15,000 for the whole chicken. It's quite worth it since you just sit and wait comfortably for the chicken to come to you. Hehehe.

xoxo, Fid♥