Long time no see every­body!! :D

Mike, my sis­ter and I went on a trip to Seoul and Hong Kong ear­li­er in the month :D We’re now home and feel­ing dizzy with jet lag, but we had such a good time! Thought I’d share some pic­tures of places we’ve been and loved, in case you’re think­ing about vis­it­ing these cities as well and look­ing for ideas!

We caught the cher­ry blos­soms while in Seoul, the pic­ture above was tak­en at Gyeong­bok­gung Palace, largest of the five palaces in Seoul. The archi­tec­ture at the palace is absolute­ly spec­tac­u­lar. It feels as though every tile, every beam, every brick is thought­ful­ly and mean­ing­ful­ly made and placed.

The palace grounds also has some love­ly ponds. We did­n’t have time to vis­it all 5 palaces, and the ponds were the rea­son why I chose to go to this palace. It’s dif­fi­cult to not get beau­ti­ful pho­tos here.

There were many peo­ple wear­ing han­bok (tra­di­tion­al Kore­an cloth­ing) strolling about :)

We also vis­it­ed the Nam­san­gol Hanok Vil­lage, Hanok mean­ing tra­di­tion­al Kore­an hous­es. The archi­tec­ture of civil­ian hous­es is no less stun­ning than that of the palace. I love the neat, clean, sim­ple aesthetic.

At the Hanok Vil­lage we par­tic­i­pat­ed in a tea cer­e­mo­ny activ­i­ty. We were served tra­di­tion­al Kore­an sweets as well :D They’re made of crispy rice. In the pic­ture the muse­um docent is pour­ing the tea from the teapot to a tea bowl for the tea to cool down a bit, before pour­ing it into the teacups.

We thought we did­n’t have time to vis­it oth­er palaces, because we were only there for 4 days, and palaces are huge! But found out that there is a rel­a­tive­ly small palace in the cen­tre of the city, which we would pass by any­way on our way to oth­er attrac­tions, so we went in. This is the Deok­su­g­ung Palace. It has new­er addi­tions with west­ern influ­ences, like the light fix­ture and wall dec­o­ra­tions in the picture.

It also has a cou­ple of west­ern style build­ings, which I cer­tain­ly did not expect to see in a Kore­an palace.

Speak­ing of archi­tec­ture, we vis­it­ed the Dong­dae­mun Design Plaza, which hous­es some shops and exhi­bi­tions, as well as a muse­um of an exca­va­tion site of a num­ber of dwellings that were built in the 1300s. This space­ship-like build­ing is just incred­i­ble to look at, and to walk around and underneath.

There is this beau­ti­ful stream that runs through the city called the Cheong­gyecheon. It was a creek that got cov­ered by trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture in the 1950s, and then was uncov­ered and restored as a city green space in the 2000s.

It was love­ly to take a stroll along the stream. A bit of a rest­ing spot from the busy streets on either side above. A lot of local res­i­dents sat on the rocks and ate lunch, hung out.

One of the staff at the hos­tel we stayed at rec­om­mend­ed going to a mar­ket for tra­di­tion­al Kore­an snacks. So we went, but I can’t remem­ber what the mar­ket is called >_<… it looks like it could have been the Gwang­jang Mar­ket. Once stepped into the mar­ket I was at once amazed and over­whelmed, because it reminds me of Spir­it­ed Away with the peo­ple sit­ting at stalls and the light bulbs above head, and because I’m not so great with crowds.

The staff rec­om­mend­ed Kore­an fried pan­cakes, which we got, it was indeed deli­cious :D

And then through rec­om­men­da­tions from a friend we went to the Insadong neigh­bour­hood, where one could find arts and crafts of all kinds, and a kim­chi muse­um! :D There are videos about how dif­fer­ent kinds of kim­chi are made, inter­ac­tive dis­plays where one could expe­ri­ence mak­ing kim­chi Cook­ing Mama style, and very infor­ma­tive dis­plays about the ben­e­fits of kimchi.

In and around Insadong there are also a num­ber of tra­di­tion­al Kore­an tea hous­es. We vis­it­ed one with a beau­ti­ful courtyard.

And got our­selves some green plum tea and shaved ice, with dried per­sim­mons, dried red dates and red beans. We drink the tea with a spoon.

We stayed at a love­ly hos­tel called the Twin Rab­bit. The staff are very friend­ly and help­ful, the room is very clean, the rate is quite rea­son­able, and the break­fast area has a giant arti­fi­cial tree which is super cute. It’s locat­ed in a uni­ver­si­ty neigh­bour­hood with lots of afford­able eater­ies and hip shops and cafes, and some street arts and music too. High­ly rec­om­mend it!

Here I was try­ing to work on the cro­chet project I brought with me under the tree. I’m a bit sad to say that my project is not com­plete by the end of our trip, and I may have to take apart what I’ve done so far because the yarn isn’t work­ing out the way I want… but that’s a dif­fer­ent sto­ry for anoth­er time. Next stop, Hong Kong! Stay tuned for more pho­tos! :D