Seoul, South Korea

On recent trips we've used guidebooks to varying degrees, mostly to map out highlights of cities. They're still useful for navigating larger historical sites such as the Karnak Temple complex in Egypt. Heather also likes them for the historical context they provide. We're not really partial to a particular brand; it's more likely to be the most recently published one.

On this trip we had the Lonely Planet for Seoul and Taiwan, and an independent guidebook for Okinawa. We didn't use much of the Okinawa book (it covers the entire Ryukyu Island chain, of which we visited just the southern half of Okinawa Honto).

It took me most of the trip to figure out how to use the LP for Seoul. It's set up by neighbourhood, so you need to know what highlights you want to see (from other sources), and then use the LP to see what else is around the highlights. But you can't use the LP to figure out highlights (which is how I would have typically used it in the past).

Anyways for today (our last day touristing on this trip) we wanted to see the Seoul Museum of Art and Namdaemun Market. We planned out a nice little walking tour, including some places mentioned in the LP. They're not on 'top things to see' lists but were pretty cool.

First up was City Hall, just down the street from our hotel (we could see it from our room). It has a huge green wall, seven stories high, that was the largest in the world when it first opened in 2012. There's also an artwork that goes from floor to ceiling. It was interesting enough to see.

Across the street from City Hall is Deoksugung Palace. We lucked out that we reached there just after 11am and got to see the changing of the guard. They have a photo op with the guards before the change, then they clear everyone out and go through their ceremony. The sun was out and in the right direction for pics so took a bunch.

Deoksugung was included our combo ticket. We ended up visiting all the sites on the combo ticket except for two. Entry fees are pretty low (about $2 / site) so it was more about the convenience of not having to line up to buy tickets everywhere.

Deoksugung itself contains a handful of palaces and the National Museum of Art. The museum is separate admission (only $1 or something) so we bought our tickets and entered. The current exhibit, spread across the six rooms in the museum, was a retrospective on Chang Ucchin, one of Korea's pioneering modern artists. It was cool to see, and not that busy.

We were at our museum capacity for the day, so skipped out on the Seoul Museum of Art, which was next on our list. Instead, walked towards Namdaemun Market, and the start of Seoullo 7017. Along the way we passed by Sungnyemun, one of the Eight Gates of Seoul. We crossed the street to get better pics of the gate, and as I was taking my pics, Heather motioned for me to watch out for some people trying to walk by. Turns out we had stumbled into another ceremonial changing of the guard, and the 'people walking by' were actually the guards marching towards the gate! So took some more pics.

A couple hundred metres down the street was an access point to Seoullo 7017. It's a former highway overpass that was converted to a pedestrian walkway with plants and seating areas, sort of like the High Line in NYC. It's probably more interesting in the summer; when we visited it just contained large plant pots with burlap protecting the plants over winter.

Walked back along the path to Namdaemun market. They had a very helpful info booth in the middle. They gave us a map of the market and circled the alleys with food. There were a number of stalls selling hotteok, a very popular street food in the winter. It's a thick pancake with a sweet filling, served rolled up in a paper cup. We found a stall with a line-up and waited for our turn. The lady behind us was pleased that we wanted to try one each of the flavours (sweet potato and honey & seeds). They were excellent!

Next we searched out the restaurant alley and picked a busy one for lunch. The food was okay, although we were still a bit full from the hotteok. After we walked through a bit more of the market. It's more of a wholesaler market, with mostly clothing and bedding, and not as photogenic as some of the other food-based ones. Very atmospheric though!

We were getting tired so headed back to the hotel to pack up. On the way back, stopped by Koffee Sniffer which was an excellent little hipster coffee place.

Later in the evening I got an PSA alert in Korean on my iPhone. After translating in Google, it turned out the alert was just about the forecast for snow and a reminder to shovel your sidewalk. Not sure I'd rate that as important enough to push out across the entire mobile network :) Anyways we finished packing, the end of our little trip!