Looking back, I really did a lot of this to myself, but we'll get there soon enough. The first stop of hte day was to the Gyeongbokgung Palace, the old seat of the emperor in the Joseon times. This is one of two main palaces within the city, and I started the day thinking I'll do both in one day. The Gyeongbukgung is laid out with one main central series of courtyards, shrines and buildings, all designed in the now familiar, but never not pretty, dark brown/red wood, and primarily green based pigments for painting adn carving. As the Chuseok Holiday weekend basically carries through to Monday, it was free entry and the place was packed. In a good way. A good mix of locals getting in touch with their own history, and a whole lot of tourists, including many more than I would have expected dressing up in the traditional Chuseok dress.
There is pretty good signage leading you around the grounds in a thoughtful manner, and information boards that explain what buildings are what, though some are a bit more ornate in design where you can kind of guess which ones are more important or meaningful. On the exterior of the main series of courtyards is a really pleasant ground, with mountains behind it, filled with pagodas, little structures, two beautiful lakes and a few other buildings. On the whole Gyeongbokgung combines a palace ground of great importance and legend, with a super walkable, lovely park right next to the financial heart of the city.
This trip took me to a part of Seoul I hadn't been to before, as it sits to the North of where my AirBNB is and the neighborhoods I have been to so far (Yongsan, Itaewon, Hongdae, Gangnam, etc.). It houses a lot of the more significant palaces, temples, grounds but also the financial and business center of the city. Right outside the main gate into the Gyeongbokgung grounds is a large Champs Elysee-esque road with office buildings on every side. Given it was a Sunday on a Holiday weekend, the office buildings were closed and empty and made it all feel a bit sterile, but at least I finally got to see this part of the city.
Near the palace was the Jongyesa Temple, one of two key buddhist temples deep in the heart of the city here. Jongyesa is an active temple that was having a celebration at the moment, which enlivened the setting with more noise, music, color and people. There was really nice incense being lit and wafting over the groudns, and just a very peaceful yet celebratory tone.
From there I walked further around the area towards a what was supposed to be lunch at a Kalgukso (soup) restaurant, when I realized that the walk would take me past one of the sites I had on my docket for tomorrow, as well as the shopping district I want to mill aroudn in on Tuesday. It became clear quick that I would be spending a whole lot of time here the next three days, but also it might be worth switching things up a bit. There are a couple sights that are very much not in this area, and a few restaurants aroudn them that I wanted to do, so that is when I called the fateful pivot to switch the other palace tour to tomorrow (that palace needs a reserved tour booking), and visit the National Museum of Korea, and a famed korean BBQ spot Mongtan, today.
After a fairly stress-free trip through the metro over to Mongtam, this is when the day got turned on its head a bit. Mongtan had the long waiting list and the guy telling me they're booked for the rest of the day. I didn't understand this because he said he couldn't put me on the lsit for tomorrow, but each day the restaurant is open until 11pm - so how could they be filled up for the day if they only do walk-ins? Anyway, I left a bit annoyed, but undeterred. But then I came to the frightful realization after walking about 15 minutes in circles that all the nearby restuarants are closed. It's not surprising, this is not a super popular area of the city to where they would get a lot of tourist traffic. In the end, I decided that I would add one of the great pasta's to my upcomign Mysterlee trip (a lot of the other brewery options were closed for Chuseok) and walk the 45 minutes to the National Museum.
The walk was fine, and I passed aome coffee shops on the way, of which I ordered a iced latte from one of them that tided me over for a bit. The National Museum sits in teh south end of Yongsan Park, and has a nice open architecture that gives you a good view of the park behind it. The building has a musuem housed on one side of the open atrium, a Children's Museum (unsure what that means) on the other side along iwth a performance space. As it was Chuseok weekend, there were festive performances taking place that enlivened the scene a bit more. Again as it was Chuseok it was free entry, and the museum was a good level of crowded.
The museum was great, three floors with a specific purpose on each, a very easy to follow path to see all of it (one of my biggest pet peeves are museums laid out where it requires a lot of retracing steps to see everything), and signage in English everywhere. The ground floor is a Archaeological walk through Korea from the paleolithic age through the Joseon dynasty. It focused most of its 15 or so exhibit rooms on the period from about 100 AD through to the Joseon's, a period of Korean culture forming across separate tribes that were rarely unified on the landmass that we now know as the Korean Peninsula.
The second and third floors are around art that Korea is known for, from early metal work, through Buddhist art and sculpture, to Jade art and jewelry, to a large section of White Porcelain pottery and art that became synonymous with the Joseon people at that time. What's interesting is that a lot of this type of art was shown in small doses on the ground floor in the walk through Korea's history so there was a link that was expanded on in full in the top two floors. The only part of the museum I didn't really spend time in was their half floor that was exhibiting art from other Asian countries, including China, India, Japan, and most ironically a guest exhibit on Mesopotamian Art that was donated by the Metropolitan Museum from New York. Unsurprisingly, that exhibit was packed with locals. I guess for them getting non-Korean stuff in the museum is a bonus.
From the museum, and one more waiting game with Kakao (generally in Seoul I've found it takes 3-5 attempts to actually land a taxi to accept the request), I headed back over to Mysterlee to finally have some food and a few brews. The food was actually very good - their pasta was basically purely Italian, but had some Korean ingredients and vegetables in the ragout. It was excellent, if not exactly what I expected to be eating during my time in Seoul. It was a nice hit of nostalgia though as when growing up during our trips to Europe, at some point around the halfway mark like this roughly is for my trip, I would want a bit of food to remind me of home and forced us to go to McDonalds or something like that. This is far more elevated than going to McDonald's but the same held true.
The time at Mysterlee also let me recalibrate the itinerary for the final two days in Seoul given the audibles of today. The only real uncertainty is dinner tomorrow, as I have a few options of all places that don't take reservations. The only real worry is that if my primary and secondary choices are like the Mongtan's of the world and laugh off even joining the waiting list.
Dinner was at the Gwangjang Market, a lively fresh food and craft market during the day, that turns mainly into a food market at night. The main walkways within the market have traditional restaurants to the sides, but a slew of stalls in the middle where you sit on benches adn the food is cooked in front of you, if not already prepared. The offerings generally come in three types, one type of stall is seafood focused, another is pork focused (trotters, pork head slices, pork stew, sausage) and the third is desert and korean pancake focused. The palce was still humming when I arrived at 9pm and left around 9:45.
I had both the pig head slices which were incredibly tasty, if I'm sure incredibly fatty and unhealthy. Then went to another one of the pork-based stalls and had a delicious pork stew, with braised pork pieces in a rich, spicy sauce that is taken out of the large cauldron, then further flash cooked on a pot with added onions and peppers. The end result is something pretty great. All the stalls also serve either beer, soju or maekgolli, all for 5000 won each (roughly $3.50). I had maybe a third of a bottle of Soju at one spot, adn then two thirds of a bottle of maekgolli at the second, and left Gwangjang market a very content man.
After dinner, I headed back towards the Gyeongbukgong Palace area, into a winding alley that lead to the Cobbler, a craft cocktail join that had a 7-group waiting list. This was better than the other well reputed craft cocktail joint that was ten minutes away that had a 40-group waiting list. That place closed at 2am and it was about 10:15 so I'm really wondering if groups 25-40 are just fooling themselves.
Anyway, after about 20 minutes I got seated at the bar at The Cobbler, which is built to mimic kind of a log cabin like feel, with strong smells and visuals. It was a really pleasant spot to grab a drink. They don't ahve a set list to pick from. It's one of those spots where you tell them what type of stuff you like, and they'll pick something to give you. For me, I first started with a twist on a Campari, that switched out one ingredient for a local Korean liqueur, then a fairly traditional (but excellent tasting) whiskey sour, and finally a smoked old fashioned where they smoke it right in front of you with a smoker contraption. All three were great, and for Seoul at least not super expenisve. Overall, it was a pleasant time at The Cobbler.
The night then turned into something unexpected from that point on when I, on a lark, decided to just open up Uber when Kakao T wasn't getting me a car. And what do you know - the damn thing worked. Now, it isn't like in the US where you are getting a random person driving - it is integrated with the Seoul taxi service, but Uber got me a taxi in about 4 minutes and one where I can still pay them through the app. This is a game-changer - of course something I wish I knew earlier. This is what I get for just blindly accepting some hearsay around Uber being allowed.
Anyway, the Uber took me back to Itaewon - and while Faust was closed, the area was about 80% as crowded as it was the past couple nights (this still being a holiday weekend for locals), and I wanted to give Cakeshop a try. In the end, I guess I would say while it wasn't as nice a sound system or mystical a place as Club Faust, the set-up was a bit better with better drinks and a more intimate setting where you could see a bit more. The final end to a great day in Seoul was being able to order an Uber home. I say I'm sad I only realized this Uber thing today, but if anything I'll have the luxury of it for more than half of my time in Seoul.
