Dream Come True 2013 - Day 4 in Korea - Seoul (13 Dec 2013, Friday)

Onto our second day in Seoul, one which we would probably theme it the cultural experience of Seoul!

First stop of our itinerary was the Bukchon Hanok Village... I have heard a lot about the village, that it is one of the districts in Korea filled with traditional type of Korean houses, otherwise known as Hanok. The main thing that attracted me to this place of interest was the photo spots. There are basically 8 photo spots which would take you through a tour through the village, where you would find the 8 distinctive spots to photograph the beautiful, rich in history Bukchon Hanok Village.

How to get there? Alight at Anguk Station (Seoul Subway Line 3). From Exit 2, go straight for about 300m to arrive at Bukchon Hanok Village. There is an information counter whereby you can get maps of various languages and there are guides along the way to ensure that you are on the right track. The hike around the village should took us about 1.5 hours (that was 7 spots covered), so it would probably have taken us about 2 hours if we had covered all the 8 spots.

You will find an informative map right at the train station...

And they even have the 8 photo spots displayed for your reference...

So off we went for the mission to take the photos as shown above, but when we reached the information desk, the lady suggested us to skip the last spot as it was winter and the steps would be slippery and challenging to climb.

This isn't one of the photo spots, but it is actually their elementary school. The grounds were covered in snow and I found this amazingly beautiful.

This is the first spot - the panoramic view of Changdeokgung

This is not the second spot, but we found this interesting infrastructure while we were looking for spot 2.

This is spot 2 - the Arts and Crafts Street in Wonseo-dong

This is not one of the photo spots, but I personally would have selected this as one of the photo spots. What a nice fusion of nature and the past...

The walk from spot 2 to spot 3 took us about 15 minutes.

Third spot - The whole area of No.11, Gahoe-dong

Photo spot found!

Spot 4 - The hill of No. 31, Gahoe-dong

Another photo spot found though it was covered with SNOW!

Spot 5 - Downhill Alley, Gahoe-dong

Another nice attractive house found while looking for the spots...

Spot 6 - Uphill Alley, Gahoe-dong

Spot 7 - No. 31 Gahoe-dong

That marks the end of our 1.5 hours walk around the village because I was meeting a friend WM for lunch.

WM and her boyfriend brought us to 깡통만두 (Kang Dong Man Du), their man-du is like the Chinese dumplings.

Noodles - dry and soupy versions

The kind of pancake which Ms. K likes

WM and her boyfriend had something on after so we had to say our goodbyes after lunch... But they were very kind to walk us to Changdeokgung Palace.

Changdeokgung Palace

The entrance of the palace from the inside

We bought the tickets (cost us about 6,000 won for two persons) and we didn't manage to get the tickets to visit the Secret Garden (Suwon) because it was closed by the time we arrived. Just as we were thinking how we were going to tour the Palace, we heard the announcement that the English tour was starting in 3 minutes so we join in for the 1 hour tour around the Palace to learn about the story behind this beautiful Changdeokgung Palace.

English Tour Guide!

Insides of the Palace

This stone pavement is built in such a way that the higher pavement is for the royalties and the sides are for the officials. For course, as royalties, we walked on the higher pavement.

This is Injeongmun palace, where most of the important national events such as coronation ceremony, congratulatory ceremony, reception of envoys were held. At events, civil officials lined up before their rank stone in front of Injeongjeon in the east, and military officials did in the west according to the ranks of the subjects.

Inside of Injeongmun palace


The building with the blue roof is the King's side room along with bed room, and was used as a room for council in the Royal presence. The main gate was remodeled for automobiles.

This is the Daejojeon. A main floored room divides it into Seonondol, the bed room for queen and Dongondol, the bed room for King. The last King Sunjong demised here.

Throughout the whole palace, most of the buildings are colourful except this particular building - known as Nakseonjae. This was building as a living place for a royal concubine. The last Empress Yun had lived here until 1966, and Princess Deokhye and Madame Lee Bang Ja had lives here from 1963 to 1989. It shows beautiful flower steps and fence, and various lattice strips.

SNOW!!!

It was very rare for us to see snow since we reside in a country which was pretty much summer all year round. So we spent some time playing with snow and it was definitely fun because we had forgotten that snow was cold ice water and it had melted through our gloves and we needed something to warm us up before we could proceed for our next agenda.

Strawberry Shortcake!

We stopped by at Paris Croissant, had a cup of Green Tea Latte and Strawberry Shortcake before we went to the cosmetics shopping heaven at Myeong Dong!!!

Take exit 6 and the welcoming streets of Myeong Dong awaits!

Myeong Dong!

The Namsan Tower in the background

We didn't take many photos at Myeong Dong obviously because we were both busy shopping for the cosmetics. I have never had so much fun shopping, because not only are the quality good, the prices were great! There was a lot of sales going on and we loot home many good stuff for ourselves and our loved ones!

After shopping for about 2 hours, we finally decided we were hungry and it was time for dinner!