Today we walked in the opposite direction than yesterday to find some breakfast. We discovered that we have a Paris Baguette Cafe just around the corner. After a couple of sandwiches and some juice, we stepped into the subway, heading for one of the palaces. Since our finish friend from arrival day lived close to Gyeongbokgung Palace we chose that one. If I’m reading Wikipedia correctly it’s also the oldest and largest one, so I guess it seems like a good choice 🙂
When we arrived we walked into a guard change (I suppose). Ceremonial with drums, music, shouting, and flag-waving. Like the thing we do at the royal castle in Stockholm. It took about ten minutes after which we bought tickets and entered the palace.
To me, most of the buildings look alike, but especially the first one was really impressive. We walked around and looked at the architecture and environment.
I’ve been wearing my Swedish scout-t-shirt and my necker. However, because it’s so hot it’s uncomfortable to wear the scarf around the neck so it’s hanging from my belt. The fun thing with bringing it along is that you get recognized by other scouts, both Swedish (who also recognize the t-shirt) and other nationalities, which can start an interesting conversation whenever. Especially at this kind of tourist attraction.
When we had walked through it all we found a café in the museum that was just outside the palace, to get something cooling to drink while waiting for Vilja to join us for lunch. In the cafeteria, they had a pretty cool “painting”. It displayed different figures by “lifting” squares.
We met up with Vilja and a guy who stayed at the same hostel. He was from Marocko, but lived in France, except for the last year which he had spent in Japan just working at different jobs and exploring the country. Now he was on his way back and did a few stops along the way.
Anyhow, they had gotten some recommendations for places to eat so we set off towards some food streets. We found the small alley and went looking for the option “number 2” as it was listed on their map. A rather small ( 20 spaces) place with no information in English and the woman who seemed to run it didn’t speak any either, as far as we could understand.
Good enough they had pictures and I could use Google Lens to try and translate what we were looking at. We ended up ordering four different things and shared them among us. Two kinds of dumplings, one with meat and one with kimchi, some omelet with oysters, and finally some sort of pancakes. Different for sure but it was okay.
Afterwards, we split up with them heading back to their hostel and me and Jonas looking for another café. It’s quite hot outside so an AC-controlled environment and something cool to drink are preferred to walking outside 🙂
We tried to set up a shared album via iCloud so Jonas easily could share his pictures with me, but it seems to be hard without an Apple device. We headed back to the hotel and explored the different floors. There is a rooftop with seating, though it feels like it’s a bit too hot outside at the moment to use it. Just beneath was a bar which we probably will look into later on. Seems quite nice.
On the second floor was a lounge and a laundry room. Probably gonna try and get some done before heading to camp, I’m going through one or two t-shirts a day and underwear in the same tempo.
We decided to take the rest of the afternoon off and just relax. I finished my digital business card which you can find at bman.link and started the first part of this post.
South of the river
We realized that we only had been north of The Han River so tonight we looked for something south of the water. Jonas found three artificial islands that we headed for. Subway, again, took us eight stops to the Express Bus Terminal Station, from where we walked north through a couple of residential areas and landed on the south beach of Hangang, as it’s also called.
We found Sebitseom, the floating islands of Seoul. Apparently the world’s first floating structure with buildings that can float on water. We walked around the small islands and ended up at one of the restaurants. Of course a higher price range but not too bad based on the location down on the water with a view over the sunset. We both chose pizza for dinner and it was delicious.
When just sat in the restaurant talking about a lot of stuff while the darkness rolled in over Seoul and the lights came to life. We left for a walk along the beach before we headed into another residential area. Some of them had fences and even guards. One had what looked like a huge parking structure underground. Buildings up to 40 stories made quite the impression and it was rather cozy in the parklike areas between the structures. Even though it got a bit dark sometimes.
We found our way back to the subway, bought some breakfast for tomorrow, and headed back to the hotel. Early morning since we are being picked up at 7:50 at a nearby subway station for a trip to the DMZ. Exciting!
