South Korea 2022 Day 9: Seoul
DAY 9: 4 DEC 2022
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| Changing of guards at Gyeongbok Palace |
Good morning!
We planned for a full day outdoors and started with Gyeongbokgung.
I seriously remembered missing the changing of guards ceremony during my previous trip.
Turns out, I was wrong when I scrolled through my past posts.
Anyway, we left our hotel by 9.15am in other to catch the ceremony at 10am.
We arrived at 9.45am and purchased our tickets at 3,000 krw each.
Then, we chose our spot for the ceremony!
The best viewing spot was just in front of the Gyeongbokgung station (line 3) exit 5.
The ceremony was interesting and we managed to snap some photos with the guards right after the ceremony!
I visited the palace during the summer of 2013.
Nothing changed except for the bare trees and frozen lake.
The palace ground is huge and there is a national folklore museum which you could visit.
After exploring the palace grounds, we left for lunch!
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| Tosokchon Samgyetang |
One of the must-eats in Korea is ginseng chicken soup.
My go-to restaurant is Tosokchon Samgyetang (토속촌삼계탕) which is a short walk away from the palace.
We arrived close to lunchtime and I was shocked that there was no queue at all!
We were immediately ushered in and given a table.
Each person must order 1 main dish and this was not imposed during my visit in 2013.
We both ordered the normal samgyetang at 19,000 krw each.
They also had the black ginseng chicken option at 25,000 krw but I read that the chicken can be tough and the normal ones are good enough.
Each samgyetang also came with a shot of ginseng liquor.
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| Samgyetang |
I missed this soup a lot!
That day, the temperature fluctuated from -4 to -1 deg C.
The soup really warmed our bodies up.
To add more flavour to the chicken, you could pour some salt and pepper onto a saucer, mix it and then dip your chicken meat with it.
Glutinous rice was stuffed inside the chicken which made us super full from the meal!
There was a long queue outside the restaurant when we exited.
After our sumptuous meal, we made our way to Cheongwadae (Blue House).
Initially, this was not planned.
However, since we had to pass by Cheongwadae on the way to Bukchon hanok village, we decided to try our luck to get a free admission pass.
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| Cheongwadae |
Luck was on our side and we managed to enter!
All we needed to show was our ID/passport at the foreigner tentage.
They will provide a wrist band with a barcode to be scanned at the entrance to Cheongwadae.
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| Palace residences |
It was a nice visit to Cheongwadae and I hope that I visit Singapore's Istana someday.
Kind of funny that I have not visited the Istana.
After our visit, we walked to Bukchon hanok village.
My likings for hanok roofs never changed because I searched for the same viewpoint to see the roofs!
And I took the same roof photos in 2013...exposed by Zhi Sheng.
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| Hanok roofs |
Zhi Sheng said I scammed other tourists to detour to that viewpoint when they probably wanted to see the houses instead of roofs hehe.
But anyway, round the corner was the famous hanok alley.
We then made our way down to Anguk station for some tea break!
Our first stop was Randy's donut.
This time round, they had glazed donuts!
Just to note, if you are dining in, you will need to order drinks.If you take-out, they will wrap the donuts for you and will not be allowed to dine in.
As we had another cafe to visit, we did a take-out.
The verdict: Krispy Kreme > Randy's due to the price point.
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| Entrance of Cafe Onion |
From Randy's donut, we took a short walk across the road to Cafe Onion.
This cafe resides in a traditional hanok and everything looks gorgeous.
I really loved the atmosphere and vibes of the cafe!
Indoor and outdoor seatings are available around its premises.
However as the weather was really cold, Zhi Sheng tried to find a table in a heated room.
And he did it!
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| Injeolmi Pandoro |
The pastries all looked so good and delicious!
We got the injeolmi pandoro, strawberry flower bread and 2 drinks.
The pandoro was surprisingly moist on the inside and we liked it!
As for the strawberry flower bread, the pastry was crispy.
The pairing between the sweet cream filling and sour strawberries was good too.
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| Insa-dong |
After our tea break, we continued to brave the cold and explored Insa-dong.
We found a mall which had many unique shops.
We spotted an area with christmas decorations and walked towards it.
The both of us bought the scratch colour postcards here!
We then took a slow walk back to Myeongdong.
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| Myeongdong Cathedral |
We spotted an area with christmas decorations and walked towards it.
It was actually the area outside Myeongdong cathedral!
We also had some cup ramen in our room to go with the chicken!
It was a long but fruitful day.
An ahjumma volunteered to take photos of us hehe.
Thereafter, we made our way to the main food street to get our street food fix.
First up: Tornado potato with cheese powder (4,000 krw)
Next up: Hotteok (2,000 krw)
The queue for hotteok was the longest out of all the street food stalls here.
We never failed to have hotteok every night haha.
Thanks to Zhi Sheng for queuing with me!
As we were out in the cold the whole day, we decided to take-out fried chicken and the staff wrapped the top with aluminium foil for us.
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| Sweet chicken |
We also had some cup ramen in our room to go with the chicken!
It was a long but fruitful day.
I think I clocked more than 30,000 steps.
So, kudos to my back and legs for that!
And that's it for day 9!
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