A TRIP TO SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

A few steps out and we are immediately attracted by one of the many Korean street food options: fried hot dogs, also known as Kogo. For 1.500KRW you can get one Kogo and cover it with any sauce you like.

Kogo, korean fried hot dogs

We reach the buzzing main street of Insadong, an art&culture area, very colourful and interesting. Walking by we stop at Jogyesa Temple where we get an impression of Korean Buddhism (not the main country’s religion, which in fact is Catholicism).

Jogyesa Temple, Insadong, Seoul

Diving into the very heart of the city, we encounter the cool Cheonggyecheon Stream, a once forgotten dirty water flow that has recently been renovated into a beautiful and green canal, featuring also small waterfalls, stone-bridges, brilliant murals on its side: a really peaceful area in the middle of Seoul.

Ambra crossing Cheonggyecheon stream, Seoul

Urban waterfall

Proceeding towards Myeong-dong neighbourhood, we pass by the City Hall and the Public Library. After seeing Myeong-dong Cathedral, one of the most important symbol of Catholicism in Korea, people start coming out of work, filling pubs and restaurants: while there’s a variety of street-food attracting tourists, locals opt mainly for bbq restaurants or chicken&beer places. Myeongdong street market has so much to offer, we can’t help but taste some street-food, including dumplings, egg-bread (Gyeran-ppang), teriyaki octopus, grilled shrimps, sweet potatoes, from 2.000 to 5.000KRW each.

Myeongdong neighbourhood, Seoul

Our second day is dedicated to Korean traditions: firstly in the morning, we visit Changyeonggung Palace, the 2nd biggest in Seoul but nowadays the most beautiful and best kept, having been restored after being under Japanese control and later destructed during the Korean War in the early 50’s. The solemn gates, several huge council halls and pavilions convey a mixed sense of charm and fear, which was actually the original aim.

A Million Travels @ Changyeonggung Palace

But the cherry on top of this palace is given by the Secret Gardens: a private extended area built upon special request of King Taejong, which provided a resting place for the royal family members. The Secret Gardens are still amazingly looked after today. Only guided groups of maximum 100 people are allowed every hour, not to make it overcrowded and to keep its solemnity. Of the 100 tickets available, 50 are bookable in loco, and 50 online on the official tourism website where we booked ours (just reserve the tickets online, pay&collect them at the booths). We recommend the combo ticket for 10.000KRW, which includes all the main palaces and the Secret Garden visit.

Water lilies at Secret Garden

Visiting Seoul in summertime is perhaps the worst season, let’s say less beautiful. In spring and autumn, flowers and trees sparkle endless colours and shades on every corner of the gardens, plus you could see the typical lotuses blooming, other than hundreds of lovely maple trees; whereas in winter Seoul gets covered in snow too, making the palaces even more scenic. In the summer everything is green, there’s a lot of humidity, as a matter of fact it starts raining the moment we step into the Secret Garden. Don’t get us wrong, the view is rewarding too, actually the sound of the rain drops on the leaves makes it very charming.

Peaceful pond at Secret Garden

After Changyeonggung Palace, we walk up to Bukchon Hanok Village, an area where many old traditional houses have been saved and restored. Clearly, living in one of these houses nowadays is expensive, luxury cars are parked around, this neighbourhood is similar to a private zone, which is very good for us visitors to enjoy the silence among these nice characteristic buildings.

Bukchon Hanok Village, Seoul

In the afternoon, we head towards the biggest Palace: Gyeongbokgung. It is way more crowded and busier than Changyeonggung, which makes it less appreciable. The palace covers a huge area, unfortunately it’s still raining.

Gyeongbokgung Palace, front gate

Also, visiting the two main palaces in the same day may be a little bit overwhelming, there’s a lot of walking to do in both. At the end of the day we are actually exhausted, we really crave more meat for dinner! Tonight we will eat at a typical Korean bbq restaurant, where lamb skewers will be our main dish: glorious.

Lamb skewers @ Korean BBQ restaurant

On our 3rd day, on Sunday, we pay visit to Dongdaemun area, going eastwards from our location. After a quick walk through the Sunday market we get to Seoul DDP, Dongdaemun Design Plaza: it’s a vast square that has been filled with a large modern and futuristic infrastructure, featuring some art&design exhibitions, museums, and various attractions, something very different and peculiar.

Dongdaemun Design Plaza

At noon, we take the metro and hop off at Ewha Womans University, the biggest female university in the world: the area is very nice, green, clean and spacious, being Sunday there are no classes.

Ewha Womens University

We are now close to Hongik, which is the university and most young-oriented neighbourhood of Seoul. We stop here for a delicious beef-cubes and rice based lunch again, and then wonder around the quirky shops and cafés that fill the surroundings.

Delicious lunch in Hongik

The cafés compete against each other for customers, offering bizarre themed designs, mostly about animals and pets, so we get to walk by Racoon café, Sheep café, Merkat coffee, plus many Cat-cafés, by far the most popular.

We decide to go on the riverside for sunset (along Han river, same name as Da Nang river). Both river banks extend for several km, and are nicely thought for citizens, providing long sidewalks, cycle paths, benches, playgrounds, water fountains. The weather is not by our side, it’s lightly raining, many young boys and girls gather under the bridges for improvised pic-nics. It seems to be a habit for Seoul citizens to come with family or friends on the riverside with their own tents, and day camping (at least we hope they don’t stay for the night), it’s a curious hobby but it makes its sense in such a wide metropolis, where getting out of town could cost you hours of traveling. We see many elderly men fishing, while we keep on walking looking for Banpodaegyo Bridge where a water show is supposed to take place.

Banpodaegyo Bridge, with Seoul Tower in the far background

Together with a big crowd we wait for almost an hour but nothing happens, so we walk away, hungry for dinner. We change neighbourhood one more time, Seoul is incredibly extended, as we head to Itaewon: it’s kind of an expat area, a huge melting pot that we didn’t expect: we eat a Turkish kebab in a restaurant while we get served by two guys from Uzbekistan, the customers are mostly afro-americans, Russians and Koreans. Walking around we see different flags of probably the most common nations of immigrants, and we notice flags of Russia, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, China, Kazakhstan, USA, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.

On our way back to the hostel, we have a sweet ice cream cone as dessert: Seoul ice creams are also a thing, in here the challenge for the tallest cone is always on!

In the morning we reach Namdaemun, with its mighty gate and crowded market, where we buy some souvenirs.

Namdaemun Market

From Myeongdong station, we get on the shuttle bus that rounds Namsan neighbourhood, a hilly side topped by the iconic Seoul Tower on its peak. From up here, it is possible to appreciate a 360° view of the endless size of South Korea’s capital city. We do not go up to the top of the tower itself, it is quite foggy and cloudy up there; still the view it’s already decent from the hilltop. We relax for a few minutes but then rain starts to fall and we take the bus back down to the city.

Foggy view of endless Seoul from Seoul Tower

After lunch, we decide to go all the way to the other side of the river again, up to Gangnam, the area that became famous worldwide thanks to Korean pop singer Psy: it’s a financial-business centre with many tall modern buildings.

Oppa Gangnam Style!

One of the top rated is the Coex, the biggest underground shopping mall in the world, where you can also find a majestic library, an aquarium and a casino. Later on, we move to the heart of Gangnam (which is still 3 metro stops away, to give you an idea of distances). It’s 6pm and people has finished their work days, the metro is busiest than ever.

Gangnam metro station, peak hour

A Million Travels @ Gangnam metro station

We eat barbecue pork in a local restaurant for dinner. The night is still very young for us today, due to our Seoul-Da Nang flight taking off at 7am, we must get to the airport by 5am, but the first trains don’t run before 5.15 and take about one hour, we would never make it on time. There are some night buses, but still we would need to wake up in the middle of the night at 3am to catch them (night express buses cost around 10-15$, 1h30). We ended up deciding to early check out and spend the night at the airport. So, we head back once more to Myeongdong, to walk along Cheonggyecheon Stream back to the hostel one last time. We take a shower and pack, leaving our hostel around 11pm. Last trains run until midnight towards the airport.

The airport wasn’t such a bad idea eventually, we found some comfy couches and slept a good 4 hours, surely better than on the plane. We look for postcards but don’t find any around, so if you need them make sure you buy them in Seoul, they are not so popular.

A Million Travels @ Seoul