Korea 2013: day 3-4

Day 3: explore Seoul
Had breakfast on the rooftop garden of our hostel today. Beautiful sunny morning! Then we started out early to visit gyeongbokgung palace (picture below). The palace grounds are huge with beautiful mountain scenery behind them. We had a group of 13 year old boys very excited for us to take a picture with them. Um, sure! We spent the rest of the morning wandering the grounds til lunch called. 

We traveled to a small neighborhood, close to the palace and found another restaurant with pictures and some English descriptions. Very helpful! Plus, it looked busy. So we walked in and realized it was maybe more traditional? We had to take our shoes off and sit on the ground. My body is not use to sitting cross legged for that long! But it was real good! I ordered a red bean gruel with dumplings. Yum! The server wanted me to add sugar to it, but I liked it better salted, so I tried to slyly swap it our when they weren't looking.

We returned to the room for a break and to figure out evening plans. We were meeting a friend of a friend for dinner. She had us meet her a Hanjeongsik restaurant, it serves a full-course korean traditional meal with an array of savory side dishes. It was amazing! But I really can't understand these portion sizes over here (picture below). We sat down at the table and they rolled over a table top that slipped over the table top in front of us. The entire table was FILLED with food. I ate and ate til I could eat no more and there was so much left, I felt bad! We also ordered an earthen jar of rice wine that you scoop with a big wooden spoon into a smaller cup. Super good! Our new friend, Annie, then brought us to Gangnum where we ordered another jar of rice wine. Most bars require you order food with drinks so we had to order more food! We got an egg dish that we could share, it was really good too but I didn't need more food! Gangnum was amazing to see at night, vibrant neon lights, similar to New York's times square, but still different.

Day 4: travel to Busan
This morning started rainy in Seoul. We took our time having breakfast and repacking the suitcases, it was time to check out of studio 41st. This hotel was wonderful and served us well, the staff was super friendly/helpful and amazing accommodations (kitchen, laundry and a computer in the room), but we were off to Busan! For lunch we just picked up a sandwich at Paris baguette (pastry shops found all over the place) and made our way to Seoul station, a main hub. We were taking the express train. If you ever find yourself doing the same, get the first class seat for sure. It isn't that much more and is so worth it, you are on the train for 2.5 hours. But the free wifi helps the time past!

We headed to the taxi stand after exciting the train and even though we had the hotel address in Korean we did not end up at our hotel. The cab driver got us to the general area but dumped us at a really posh hotel. I figured that would be ok cuz they'd have a concierge that could help and they did! The guy got us a new cab and told the driver exactly where to go and we made it!

There seems to be a lot less English signage here and just from being tired and needing a break from Koran food we ended up at the most American place they probably have here, a tapas bar. I gotta say, the food was tasty! Afterwards we walked around a bit and then stopped for some Turkish ice cream. Tomorrow we really check Busan out!