KOREA TRIP JUN 2014 - DAY 12

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS BLOG POST IS CONFUSING AS THIS IS WRITTEN BY ALL THREE OF US. All trying to play a part in this travelogue haha.

Day 12 - 18 June 2014

The Big Day in Korea cos of World Cup. Look at the crowd at Seoul Station. 
We saw lots of them on the train streaming it, with the antenna attached to their phone. 



First stop of the day, Gyeongbokgung! Gyeongbokgung is the largest of the 5 grand palaces built during the Joseon dynasty. It is in front of the Cheong Wa Dae (known as the Blue House), the Presidential residence of South Korea. It is also the palace that every travel agency brings you to. That explains the crowd!

Gyeongbokgung Station, exit 5.

At Gyeongbokgung station! Photo taking starts right away!








So crowded with so many students!!!





At the entrance!!! The palace gates mostly look alike for all the Korean palaces. There was this large drum outside the palace! 








There are several of these gates / structures inside the palace.



People, people and more people... 




This the interior of one of the royal rooms. Maybe that's where the king sits! 


Some weird urn like thing... not quite sure what this does haha







There are many different areas wotjom









Like all the other palaces, Gyeongbokgung has a large, lush green garden. It's a welcome break from the city and the ancient structures of the palace.








An overview of the Palace on a printed art piece! Looks pretty impressive. Kinda reminds me of Age of Empires. Especially Age of Empires 1 where the Yamato civilisation had buildings which looked like that haha.
















Below is the palace well! We actually lifted the cover and there is water deep down below. Doubt any one still drinks from there though (don't even know if the water is still drinkable in any case lol).


There's another structure surrounded by a "lake". Couldn't go in to have a closer look at what exactly it was as we were running on a tight schedule.







Group of Korean students on a education visit no doubt! NE in Korea is definitely more fun than in Singapore!






After touring and seeing all we could of Geongbukgong, it was time to catch our bus to go over to the Blue House! 

I made the reservation rly early for this tour. I think as soon as it opened for registration. Cos I wanted a specific time slot for it and there were only 10 vacancies open for each time slot.

The security check there is so strict, having the need for them to check our bag as well as for us to drink our own water!!! To ensure that we're not bringing poison or chemical weapon? Haha. They even asked us to operate our camera in front of them to ensure there is no hidden weapon inside.


We started off in an auditorium where they screened an introductory video of the Blue House as well as South Korea's current President, Park Geun-hye. The Blue House provides foreign visitors with audio walking guides which had surprisingly good English (and Chinese) descriptions of the various check points along the tour.




The Presidential Garden is gorgeous! So much nicer than the Istana back in Singapore haha. This area is called Nokjiwon, where a succession of Presidents planted trees on special occasions. The most famous tree (shown above) is 130 years old!  The Blue House tour guides were very helpful,constantly offering to help us take photos.






And there's the famous blue tiles, which are the signature markings of Cheong Wa Dae. 











This building here is an annex or archive of some sort. We vaguely remember the audio tour guide mentioning that it stands on 12 special pillars or something like that haha.







After the tour, we then walked back following the street signages towards Tongin Market and find our way to the famous Tosokchon for Ginseng Chicken!

At Tosokchon, the queue was very long, all the way to the back.
However,the queue move quite fast, only waited for about 20 mins.
Umbrellas were provided to keep us from the Sun. Good service from them!





The restaurant is very big, so queue was fast
As soon as we got seated, we were hurried to place our orders. To be honest, there wasnt much to choose from the menu and we had a good 20 mins to decide haha.


The famous Ginseng Chicken!!!






Bro got a roasted chicken cos he dint want to have the ginseng chicken. He probably was too excited over it that he forgot to take pictures! We had one roasted and one ginseng chicken to share. With rice of cos. 



Next, we made our way to Buam dong - 부암 동 

Bus 7212, 7022 or 1020 to Buam dong. 

It wasn't easy to find that cafe, took about 30mins to find the correct way, even with the help of the locals. I was confused with the directions, I forgot which way to walk towards, and ended up walking the opposite way. In the end, we went to the Buam dong Community Centre to ask for directions. The local kindly provided us with the map and gave us directions. 

Finally. we made our way to Sanmotoonge cafe!

It was a long long walk....



Interesting buildings during our journey !!! Finally on the right track!








There are many small beautiful cafes and cake shops scattered around Buam Dong! This is definitely a place to consider if you would like to spend a quiet afternoon chilling out at a nice cafe, drinking coffee and having a slice of cake.













Seoul Fortress


Beware of Dino hahaha




 2 Pigs spotted hahaha



 

FINALLY!! After what felt like a two hour uphill hike (it was actually only 30-45 mins lol), we finally arrived at the Coffee Prince cafe!






Nice view from outside, where you can see the mountains and the walls of Seoul Fortress running along the ridgelines of the mountains / hills.







Had a Green tea latte 


Photo timeeeeee
















My princess was filmed here too!





Apparently, Brilliant legacy was filmed here too. One of the lead's house I believe. Too bad I din't watch it!

BRILLIANT LEGACY





Seoul Fortress



On our way back


Just so it was, this day so happen to be the day of Starcraft 2 quarterfinal match. Geoffrey and me like SC2,so we were interested to go and watch the match. However, the boss (Sis) doesn't like it .So, we had to spent a lot of effort to persuade her (having the need to let her decide what to have for Dinner that day)
So, in the end after much effort by Geoff and me, we manage to go to GOMTV to watch SC2, partly due to finishing our places early.








To show off to our friends!!!




Dinner at Coex Mall

Budae Chiggae





sausage was nice!




Thats the end of day 12 of our Korea's trip!!!

~ Korea Trip Jun 2014 ~

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