Hey Hive!
So if you missed the last few posts, I've been sharing about our first trip to Seoul back in Nov 2022! We were waiting post-covid for everyone to go on their holidays before taking a big one and we finally decided to go on our honeymoon! It's also our first time experiencing Fall so we were double excited!
Last week, we got through a pretty rough end of a day when we made some bad decisions and got caught in a rainstorm. After we left COEX in Gangnam thinking the light rain had cleared up, we got caught in very heavy rain for almost half an hour and were drenched. We went to a nearby mall, got some snacks and returned to our hotel to dry off.
Anyway, the important thing is we learned to always check the weather from then on. No more gambling on nature for us that's for sure. On to the next day!
13 Nov 2022. Sunday.
After what happened the previous day we wanted to have a relaxing day, so we decided to try the hop-on hop-off bus in Seoul! Turns out the bus stop is quite near our hotel so it was just a short walk to the station where they'll pick us up.
The bus station was at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza which is this really huge building that looks like a spaceship. We had some time to kill before the bus was to arrive so we went to this underground area underneath the spaceship where they had some colourful structures on display.
I'm not sure if this is a permanent feature or part of an exhibit but I like that they used these colours to contrast all the neutral greys.
There was also this heart shaped structure cascading going down the other staircase which made it look like a bleeding heart.
The Seoul City Tour Bus was the one we were going to take and shortly after we took some photos, it arrived!
There were three different routes the buses could take: the Traditional Culture Course that would just hit the tourist spots in the main part of the city, the Hangang/Jamsil Course that would bring you across the river and the Night View Course.
There was still lots of things for us to see in the city and we mainly wanted to go check out some markets so we were going to take the Traditional Culture Course.
The bus arrived early and wouldn't leave for another 15 minutes so we had time to go sit in the cafe for a bit since it was cold out.
After a while we boarded the bus to make sure we could get good seats. Thankfully it wasn't raining so we could sit on the upper deck of the bus.
There were quite a few other tourists on board so it was lucky we came early.
Once the bus was full and it was time to leave!
We enjoyed the view of the city from the top of the bus.
We saw some nice autumn trees on the way as well.
I'm not 100% sure but I think this might have been the first time we ever took a Hop-On Hop-Off tourist bus. It was a nice relaxing way to see the city though.
This seemed like an older neighbourhood with classic shop houses.
Then we came to the modern area with high-rise office buildings and huge sculptures.
In some ways we saw how Seoul was quite similar to Singapore in that sense. But it did some more compact.
We did come across some areas we had already seen from our first day here.
I'm not sure what that building is but it looked like a museum of sorts.
Our first destination was the Gyeongbokgung Palace since that was the other palace we had yet to visit!
No public vehicles were allowed to enter the palace grounds so we were dropped at the bus stop and had to walk in.
We saw lots of nice autumn trees on the way, including this one with strikingly red leaves.
Tbh I think we got a little lost because we walked the wrong way so we ended up following the general crowd along the border the of the palace.
After a while we finally found one of the entrances and thankfully they let us buy tickets on the spot there. We were afraid we would have to walk all the way to the main entrance and queue up for tickets since there's always a crowd there.
A very kind lady staff helped us with our tickets and let us in.
But this was definitely the side entrance since it wasn't as grand.
It didn't matter though because we were in and we didn't have to queue up so we were very glad. It even looked pretty empty here and there were so many nice trees.
We took some time to sit and take photos.
The sun wasn't out but it was still nice to look at the fall foliage since this was our first time experiencing Autumn.
There was a building in the middle of a small lake that looked really special. It must be important since it's surrounded by a moat.
I wonder if that was where they would have royal meetings back in the day.
We walked a little before we encountered the other tourists about. I'm not sure whether it was because it was a Sunday but this palace seemed a lot more popular than the first one we visited.
We saw a lot of people dressed up in hanbok (traditional Korean wear) here and were thankful that we had chosen to do that earlier in our trip at a different palace so we wouldn't get photobombed.
The weather was also not the best for photos so we were extra thankful we did our hanbok earlier.
The architecture looked more or less the same as the other palace as well.
It did look nice all the same though, but we definitely felt out of place now that we were in modern attire.
It definitely seems more fitting being in a palace like this dressed in hanbok.
One thing we didn't get to see in the other palace was the inside of these rooms though, so I guess that's new.
We arrived to one of the main gates, or at least it seemed that way from the number of people coming in and out of it.
We could see inside to the throne room but couldn't cross over into it of course.
It did look very regal with very intricate designs, from the throne itself to the beams supporting the very magnificent-looking ceiling!
From here we could see just how crowded this place was, and just how many people were in hanbok.
Here's what the throne room looked like from the side.
And this is what the main gate looks like from the front!
Seems a bit odd to end with the main entrance but we'll get more into Gyeongbokgung Palace next week!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #244 (Seoul): Going on Shopping Seoul Sojourn with Foodie Delights 🛍
