Seoul in a Day

The free hotel breakfast consisted of western and Asian food. Cereal, fruit, scrambled eggs, potatoes, rice, Pasta salad, Korean food, bread, pastries, etc. Aparna wonders why they have butter from Holland. 

I started with miso soup. 

And they had a fancy espresso machine so a cappuccino for me. Since they had tater tots I eat mostly western food. 

As a western I am spoiled. The grapes have seeds. I bite in without thinking about it and crush a seed in my mouth. Now I'm spitting out fragments like an uncouth American. 

Now that we fueled up, we headed out. Wow, we did a lot. We covered 14+ miles by foot plus 7 subway trips. We hit Namsangol Hanok Villages, Namdaemum Market, Sukgeonmun (water gate), Deoksugung Palace and saw the changing of the guard, walked by Myeongdung Cathedral, Gyeongbokgung Palace, Gwanghwamun Square, Gyeonghuigang Palace, Heunginjimu Gate, Cheonggyecheon and Hongdae for drinks and dinner. 

The Namsangol Hanok Villages is a collection of old houses moved together. One of the more interesting things to me was how they used fire underneath the house to heat it. Fire on one side with the chimney on the other to pulls the heat underneath. 

The Namdaemum Market was more of a walk through but that was fine as we have no room for things. It would have been nicer to wander around a bit more but we trying to catch the changing of the guards. 

Sukgeonmun was quick walk around too but it was along the way. 

We arrived at Deoksugung Palace just in time to see the changing of the guards.

The palace was nice but only a fraction of its original size. 

Afterwards we decided to buy the tourists subway pass. In retrospect we should have done it earlier. It probably wasn't worth the cost but it saved us buying individual passes or trying to figure out how much to preload on a card. Paying for convenience. 

We wandered around near the tourists office as was swept into some random restaurant that was somewhat famous based on the pictures on the wall. 

Dol sit bi bum bop

Abalone rice porridge 

And a beer totaled $22.42. We waited and waited for our bill. It was getting late and we would miss the changing of the guard at Gyeongbokgung Palace. It turns out you need to walk to the front to get your bill. Cultural differences. We are going to so many places, I hope I can keep track. 

After finally paying we headed to the subway to Gyeongbokgung Palace. Along the way we passed Myeongdung Cathedral. 

As noted previously we missed the changing of the guard but this palace was impressive. 

This is the president's residence (?)

Afterwards we walked by Gwanghwamun Square on our way to Gyeonghuigang Palace.

We could have skipped this as the first two palaces were enough. Also, it's quite sad as these are replicas or restorations as the Japaneses destroyed these over the years. 

Not only are these replicas but they aren't even constructed the same. Back on the subway again to Heunginjimu Gate and Cheonggyecheon.

I can see how Cheonggyecheon would be pretty in the summer. 

We took a quick pit stop at the hotel since it was along the way to Hongdae. We stop for some local beers.

In Hongdae we ate Korean BBQ.

This only set us back $27.49. 

In the subway station on the way back I got some Mochi. 

Food total for the day was $51.20. 

Steps are around 34k and over 14 miles.