We arrived at our hotel in Seoul around 1 pm on Friday. Our room wasn’t ready yet, so we launched straight into culinary adventures. Cheryl had bibimbap - the wonderful Korean dish where rice, veggies, a raw egg and many other things are put in a searing hot stone bowl to get it all crackly and delicious. The maître d’, after helping me stir everything up, took a spoonful of soup (one of the many side dishes on the tray), poured it on the side of the bowl, and said “Korean people like to listen to the sizzle.” Ruth had a lovely salmon salad (also with several side dishes) - it turns out that the salmon wasn’t cooked, but she enjoyed it anyway, having enjoyed so much sushi in Japan.
We got our rooms and took a nap for a couple of hours (since we had to get up at 4 to catch the flight), and then went out to explore the neighborhood. Our hotel is in the middle of the Myeongdong area. We were looking for an ATM and hand lotion. First, we went into an underground shopping mall - whoever heard of a whole store with only SOCKS! Wow!
We came up on the other side of the street and found a pedestrian mall full of vendors, selling fruit, pastries, mochi ice cream, meat in a stick, etc. So Fun!
We found a pharmacy and an ATM, and sampled some of the excellent treats. Although we liked the pastry shaped like Crocs, we ended up getting a fish shaped pastry filled with custard, and some fruit ice cream covered with mochi, and fruit on a stick. So yummy! Then we went home to bed.
In the morning, we met our group after breakfast and started out on a mini Seoul tour. (Seoul is humongous, so there is no way we could get a full city tour.) We drove by the “Blue House” where the Prime Minister lives, and then went to a museum with a lovely overlook of the Gyeongbokgung (or Northern) palace of the Joseon dynasty (“the first palace of the longest dynasty”). It was cool to see the palace all laid out in front of us, as well as the beautiful mountains all around.
We headed for the palace to watch the changing of the guard, which was very entertaining. There were two sets of guards, one on duty and the other replacing them. Officials, the captains on duty?) inspected each guard, tweaking their uniforms and inspecting their guns, and they all marched around a lot with flags and skirts waving in the breeze.
We toured the palace grounds, and learned a bit about the relationship between the Korean king and the Chinese emperor - it seems that Korea has always been the little brother, often invaded by others, but never the invader. The grounds included three huge gates, separated by plazas, leading to the king's bedroom. Behind that was the queen's bedroom. On either side were long rows of rooms for functionaries and concubines.
We went to a special lunch place that was famous for its ginseng chicken soup. Each of us had a whole baby chicken in a pot! It was very tender! The soup was fairly bland, but dropping in some kimchi spiced it right up! There were separate bowls for the bones, of which there were many.
We saw a few more sights near the East City gate, including the Dondaemun Design Plaza (DDP) , and then took the subway back to the hotel.
After resting for a bit, we decided to take the cable car that goes up the mountain behind our hotel. It was an interesting process to get up to the cable car - and a great view from the top! UP was the operative word. We walked up a big hill to the ticket office, the three flights of stair to the cable cars. Once at the top, there were many more flights of stairs to get up to the tower area where we could see the views of the city. We decided to take the very long staircase (hundreds and hundreds of steps) back down!
For dinner we went to a Korean Barbeque place not far from the hotel. The grilled pork and mushrooms were delish, and again lots and lots of side dishes!
A few of us wandered through the night market on the way home, then to bed.
Great photos and commentary!
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