Day 4. Cultural Seoul. 7 April 2024

Sleep was elusive last night. My Aussie cold has now become sort of laryngitis – a bit hard to speak this am.

Awoke and completed blog.

Then met Suzie for breaky.

We had the window washers out this am.

Met Alex at 9:00 into the van to visit the Royal Palace- Gyeonbokgong or ‘G’ Palace. Here were many many traditional style buildings, another changing of the guard and Museum. Once again lots of people and a lot dressed in the traditional Hanbok clothing. Whole tour groups dressed up in cheap Hanbok while other Korean visitors were in better quality Hanbok clothing.

There was also a lake and cherry blossom and lots of patterns and craftsmanship in the buildings.

We also did a flying trip through the museum which showed life over one year – season by season.

Some really interesting facts and info re traditional Korean culture and life.

Following the Palace we moved to a Korean Pork BBQ lunch, with a number of sides. I enjoyed the lunch again. Then to Ikseon Dong – a small dong with a range of trendy cafes and shops all within the traditional Hanok houses.

We visited Kwangang Market. Lots of different foods. There was also many eating places – side by side selling exactly the same thing – some with huge queues and others with very few. One stall had a long queue and had signs indicating when they had been on Netflix – ah the power of influencers.

Then onto Bukchon Hanok Village which is the traditional housing that it actually mostly residential- a couple of boutique hotels. This was a pretty short stop walking up and down steep hills.

This was followed by Jogyesa Temple, another Buddhist temple with all the lanterns getting ready for the May 10 birthday celebrations.

We said goodbye to Alex for a couple of days. Back at Hotel for G &T and to plan for our couple of free days.

The bar was serving a Strawberry inspired buffet. Lots of beautifully presented dishes

We visited the concierge to help with some advice and a short rest in rooms before we head out to dinner

We ventured out across the roast Myeongdong for Fried Chicken. Here was the Myeongdong night market. More amazing foods on market stalls in small streets lined by all sorts of shops -lots of cosmetics and clothing. Full on.

The recommend place HBC had a line up so we went next door to Chir Chir.

I enjoyed the fried chicken.

We plan to return tomorrow night to eat from the street market.