Exploring Seoul (first time)

In a short period of time, we managed to do a fair bit in Seoul. It's long been on of James' favourite places to visit, after a whole bunch of work trips to Korea. After the late night (early morning arrival), we didn't get up as late as expected, and headed out for a wander. We made our way to Namdaemun markets to have a look around, and managed to find a tiny coffee stand (yay!) followed by a place that sold a variety of deep fried pastries (the red bean paste filled one was the winner). 

With no space in the bags for any souvenirs, we decided to keep moving and made our way through the city centre to Gyeongbukgung palace. This is an interesting place, having been dismantled by the Japanese during their occupation in World War II, and rebuilt again afterwards to the original plans. There were a lot of people wandering around in traditional dress, due to it giving you free entry. We avoided the queues for the Insta shot with the guards in traditional dress and better enjoyed the wandering through the back sections, which were a lot quieter. 

From there we wandered over to a traditional "Hanok village" area in Seoul - again hugely popular with the Insta crowd. The number of people going through there must drive the locals crazy (it's a residential neighbourhood). They have restrictions on visiting to between 10am and 5pm, although we suspect that this doesn't stop the committed posers. As it was lunchtime by this stage, we made our way to a restaurant for a tasty lunch of japchae and bibimbap, and then on to Insadong, one of the tourism favourites in Seoul with a bunch of shops, restaurants and art galleries. A fun place to wander through (noting the previous caveat about not buying souvenirs), the highlight was a visit to the Teastory teahouse. This was James' 3rd visit, after a recommendation from good friend and colleague Hyuck Cho on his first visit to Seoul. We enjoyed "white" and "yellow" tea, with tasty sesame treats.

The rain that had been on and off all day was starting to settle in by this stage, and by the time we got to the Cheonggyecheon stream running through the city it was pretty steady. It's a pretty walk along the reclaimed stream through the heart of Seoul, and has the advantages of some bridges, which provided shelter during the heavier portions of the showers. With no umbrellas or raincoats (we'll chalk it up to the lack of sleep), we made our way back to the hotel via the subway for a rest. Well deserved too, after clocking up well over 25,000 steps. 

We ducked out to the Myeongdong Night Market for dinner (this time with umbrellas), and were pleased to find a little hole-in-the-wall joint that provided us with jjajangmyeon noodles and seafood pancake for dinner - yum!