I went on my first tour today, an afternoon Seoul City tour. It not only included a hotel pick up for me but also a hotel drop off at the end! Itinerary: Hotel Pick up – Changdeok Palace – Insadong Arts and Crafts Market - Amethyst/Ginseng Center – Namdaemun Traditional Market – Arrive at hotel.
Insadong is somewhere I've been wanting to go to for ages! It's a market street area that specializes in traditional and antique crafts and goods. My Korean teacher highly recommended it to me too. There's lots of street vendor food as well, and shops down every alley to be seen. Namdaemun is also well known, along with Dongdaemun, for their shopping! It was also on my list of places to visit when I came here. So now after this tour all that's left on my list are Myeongdong (where my next hotel is once I return to Seoul) and Hongdae (where all the young people congregate for food, meet-ups, clubbing and bars). I want to go but I'm not going to go by myself hahah.
Insadong is somewhere I've been wanting to go to for ages! It's a market street area that specializes in traditional and antique crafts and goods. My Korean teacher highly recommended it to me too. There's lots of street vendor food as well, and shops down every alley to be seen. Namdaemun is also well known, along with Dongdaemun, for their shopping! It was also on my list of places to visit when I came here. So now after this tour all that's left on my list are Myeongdong (where my next hotel is once I return to Seoul) and Hongdae (where all the young people congregate for food, meet-ups, clubbing and bars). I want to go but I'm not going to go by myself hahah.
There was a mistake with the time they sent me by email on when they would pick me up, so I wasn't at my hotel when the tour bus came. After clearing it up with the agency, they sent a taxi to take me to meet the rest of the group at the first stop, the Palace. Taking a taxi there was the weirdest thing ever. I feel like I haven't been in a car in like a year hahah. Also it's terrifying and not for the easily carsick, because people walk all over in the street and I begin to see why drivers have to be so aggressive towards pedestrians. Otherwise they would never get anywhere because the pedestrian stream never ends! It was also weird seeing the same familiar streets I frequently walked everyday from the view of the car...it was a bit like watching from the other side of the glass, like deja vu but seperated from what I remember.
I got MAJORLY carsick in the taxi...like I'm talking on the verge of throwing up -.- My driver for some reason drove the entire way with a tap tap tap puuuush tap tap tap push on the gas pedal kind of driving. You know the kind you do when you're teasing your car mates so everyone's heads bobs back and hit the headrest over and over? I DROVE FOR A HALF HOUR IN A HUMID CLAUSTROPHOBIC TAXI LIKE THAT. I was hanging out my open window trying to focus on breathing by the time we arrived at the palace. I was dry-heaving by like the 10 minute mark. Jesus criminy. No wonder nobody drives here.
Additionally, if I hadn't been so carsick I would've been afraid for my life; people drive in the middle of lanes all over the place and cut across and in front of everyone so people are constantly slamming brakes and like 2 cm from sideswiping each other. I have an awesome respect for these Korean drivers who drive in this utter madness and still don't hit the other cars. AND there's motorists everywhere adding to the craziness and people serving and cars driving on sidewalks...yea. Life lesson: don't drive in Korea if you can help it.
I got MAJORLY carsick in the taxi...like I'm talking on the verge of throwing up -.- My driver for some reason drove the entire way with a tap tap tap puuuush tap tap tap push on the gas pedal kind of driving. You know the kind you do when you're teasing your car mates so everyone's heads bobs back and hit the headrest over and over? I DROVE FOR A HALF HOUR IN A HUMID CLAUSTROPHOBIC TAXI LIKE THAT. I was hanging out my open window trying to focus on breathing by the time we arrived at the palace. I was dry-heaving by like the 10 minute mark. Jesus criminy. No wonder nobody drives here.
Additionally, if I hadn't been so carsick I would've been afraid for my life; people drive in the middle of lanes all over the place and cut across and in front of everyone so people are constantly slamming brakes and like 2 cm from sideswiping each other. I have an awesome respect for these Korean drivers who drive in this utter madness and still don't hit the other cars. AND there's motorists everywhere adding to the craziness and people serving and cars driving on sidewalks...yea. Life lesson: don't drive in Korea if you can help it.
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Left: This tree going by the original stone bridge leading to the palace was 350 years old!! It has really expensive and rare mushrooms growing on it (you can see the lighter colored discs growing out of the bark - Top right: Our tour guide said that Kyungbok palace loos like The Forbidden Palace a lot, but this Palace is all Korean and so uses different colors and styling. Most notable is the swirling yinyang looking symbol, which symbolizes three colors (meaning harmony of humans, earth, and sky). - Bottom right: Korean houses utilize floor-heating to heat houses, but what do they do in summer? They utilize floor-cooling systems! The holes in the bottom of this building were located on both sides so air could flow through the floor of the building :) Super cool! Floor heating systems were usually connected to kitchen to do double duty and be efficient.
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In the main hall/throne room, we had a surprise awaiting us. For some reason, today they were allowing visitors INSIDE the hall! Usually we just get to peek inside and snap photos from the threshold (like I did at Kyungbok Palace), but today after we removed our shoes, we were allowed inside to gaze at the colors, tapestries, architecture and throne. It was amazing inside! Our tour guide was beside herself, all excited because she had NEVER led a tour where they were allowed to do this haha. Lucky us :)
Changdeok Palace was incredible! I will type most of what I learned in the subcaptions of each picture set. The styling of the palace is so beautiful, and the scale on which everything is built is breath-taking. They really paid attention to colors and nature when building this palace.
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Top: A special building set aside just for the pregnant queen (whenever she was with child). There was an abalone-shell covered bench foremost in the sitting room of this building. - Bottom: The last two kings who ruled at this palace had cars. Therefore, in front of their main living quarters, they had a driveway! It looked so funny lol, kind of out of place. They also had a garage for their cars, which has since then been converted into a cafe and trinket shop today.