South Korea Day 4 Palace and Prison

Changdeokgung Palace

Tuesday Sept. 10^th since we were going to be out all day touring we ate breakfast at Paris Croissant, as I was first to pay the cashier spoke to me in English. However, Lana was next in line and the cashier talked to her in Korean which was really strange since clearly we are not natives. The main attractions that was on the list for that day was we were going to the Changdeokgung Palace and Seodaemun Prison Museum. The Changdeokgung Palace was really interesting to see how the royals lived back in those times we got to see the main palace and the royal family residence.

Royal family residence

The palace and the residence were painted different colors from each other it seemed because then they could be easily distinguished between both of them. Then we were off to Bukchon to look at the older style houses with tiled roofs it was really fun to see the different style houses compared to in America.
We saw a place in Bukchon that people could try on Hanbok (Korean traditional clothing) except that when we went inside neither of the two ladies working spoke English but told us to sit so we sat and then they went on working. Then after we rested we went to have lunch at a local Italian restaurant. Once we were done with lunch we headed to the Seodaemun  Prison Museum  where I learned back when Japan  controlled Korea  the Japanese tortured and later killed Korean followers of the independent movement it was really chilling to see the stories of the survivors and the conditions they lived in. Next to the Prison we saw were two shrines and a garden but since it was raining we didn’t stay long.

Seodaemun Prison Museum

The next stop was Dongdaemun which was another shopping district and the mall we went in was filled with fabric and there were many other malls but we didn't allow for much time there. After Dongdaemun we decided to drop off our purchases for the day. Since we were doing really well on time with all that we wanted to see and decided to take a nap because we had been busy sightseeing everyday and didn’t want to get sick and not be able to enjoy the rest of the trip.

After the nap I wanted to this chicken restaurant (Jaksal Chicken) that is co-owned by a star in Korea and I had really wanted to try it. Once we found the restaurant and were going in we were awkwardly stared at by the people talking outside who showed us to our table. We thought they were workers but in fact were not actually workers it was kinda weird. Then once one of other co-owners took our order the other workers there really stared at the two white people eating chicken in the restaurant. Turned out that the reviews online were right in that the chicken was delicious and wanted to go back to try something else however there was no time. We really wanted to try real soju from Korea so we had soju and chicken but it had a different taste than I expected from the soju I tried in Taiwan. Then we headed back to the hotel and of course picked up delicious ice cream. However, when I was paying for my ice cream Lana was waiting outside and as I was finished paying an old man came up to her and proceeded to ask questions until I came out of the store another weird encounter in Korea. Then we went back to the hotel to get ready for our last full day in Korea.