South Korea was the third country I visited last year, but it wouldn’t be the last. South Korea is known to be a place of stark contradictions, where ancient temples are located amongst skyscrapers, and where the busy city streets each have their own patch of serene nature within. It is a place that screams coexistence between tradition and technology. South Koreans are quite accommodating; as a tourist who almost always had no clue about anything, I got a lot of help from locals there which I’m greatly thankful for. I traveled to South Korea with a group of friends who are also first-timers in going there. Navigating was not difficult since a lot of the signs are in English as well as they are in Korean. Their currency is Korean Won and their transportation systems are flawless. Buses and trains are inexpensive, yet very clean and punctual. They have four seasons, and we visited during the fall.
We stayed at a hotel in Myeongdong, which is known to be the center of tourism in Seoul. Myeongdong is one of Seoul’s main shopping districts with both local and international brand outlets, ranging from mid-to-high class. It is famous to tourists for being the center of fashion and sight-seeing. Our flights touched down at night so all we did when we arrived was check in at our hotel, the exploration started the following day.
The next day, we first roamed through the shopping district before getting on a train going to the Olympic Park. Olympic Park is a huge leisure facility where historic remains from the Baekje era are displayed alongside sport stadiums, an eco-friendly forest, a lake, and spacious grass fields. Because of its massive area, with a rough estimate of three hours to explore, we decided to stroll around only one area of the Park. It’s the area with the giant cat statue, where a lot of scenes from Korean dramas are shot. The whole vibe was so refreshing, there were people riding bikes, walking dogs and having picnics. We spent the afternoon there and went back to Myeongdong once it started to get dark.
We ate street food for dinner. Apparently, Myeongdong isn’t only famous for its boutiques, but as well as its heavenly food stalls. We tried a little bit of everything from stir-fried and black bean noodles to grilled squid and lobsters to banana pancakes and fresh pomegranate juice. We were in absolute street food paradise and once we traveled back to our hotel with happy tummies, we were ready to call it a night almost immediately.
The next day was deemed the palace day since we decided to visit some of the famous palaces in the city. It is definitely one of the things I’m most amazed by the most, that they purposely maintain the beauty of such historic places even in the midst of the whole modern civilization surrounding it. There are five grand Seoul Palaces from the Joseon Period, these palaces are mostly reconstructions since the original ones were destroyed by the Japanese invasion back in the 16th and 20th century. The first one we visited is the Changdeokgung Palace, which is the east palace and is the only one with a decent number of surviving pre-20th century structures. Next, we went to the Gyeongbokgung Palace, the most expansive out of all the five palaces. Although it was not something we participated in, it was fun to see other tourists having their Hanbok (traditional Korean attire) experiences, looking fresh out of an episode of Jumong (lol). After leaving the palaces, we roamed around more shopping districts and had authentic Korean barbecue dinner before finally calling it a night.
This ends the first part of my South Korea blog. Stay tuned for the next part coming really soon.
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