South Korea Day 2 National Palace Museum

Sunday Sept. 8^th started later than we had planned as we planned to get going around 8 am but since we got back really late on Saturday we slept in until 10 am on accident. As we were getting ready we both heard a noise coming from our door and sure enough the cleaning lady came to clean our room. She was just as surprised as we were to see her so she then apologized and left to come back later. We were gone for the day but the weather in Korea was different than I expected compared to Taiwan because it was not as hot everyday it was comfortable, however I still brought along my raincoat, umbrella, fan, and hat because I never knew what the weather would bring.

Today we started off at the National Palace Museum of Korea which was really interesting to see the history of the royals in Korea. Since Gyeongbokgun Palace was right next to the museum we took pictures of the outside but did not tour as we were touring another palace another day. Then we were going to King Sejong who was the fourth king of Joseon but we spotted a waffle stand which is in many Korean tv shows and just had to try it, turns out that it was really good. Once we got to the King Sejong Museum it was connected to another museum of Admiral Yi Sun-sin who was a Korean naval commander it was really interesting to learn the history of both. Once we were done with the 2 museums we headed to Insa-dong to buy traditional gifts once we got there it was about lunch time and Lana spotted a stand that sold Gaeran bbang an egg bread that was really delicious and cheap. 

We decided once we were done looking around Insa-dong we were going to find Sungkyunkwan University which is the oldest university in Korea. However when we got to the correct subway stop the map didn’t even have the university listed so Lana asked a couple of different people but neither of them knew how to get there either. We then resorted to searching online for the correct way to go we even got on the wrong bus because it said the university. However once we started walking in what we thought was the right direction we saw some police officers and I decided to ask them where Sungkyunkwan was and it turned out we were close. When we were walking to the university we saw a convenience store and decided we were going to buy ice cream just like in the tv shows and it was better than what I have expected. Once we found the university we had just enough time to take pictures before they were closing at 6 pm for the day. Then we took a bus back to our subway stop so we could say we conquered how to ride a bus in Korea.

Back at the right subway stop I have always wanted to try ddeokbokki which is a spicy rice cake, I liked the spicy flavor but not the texture. The next stop was Dongdaemun Market which is another shopping center but by the time we found it they were closed for the day. We then looked around Dongdaemun more and came across a Korean BBQ place that was on our bucket list to try and we ordered Samgyeopsal (삼겹살) which was pork strips that we grilled and was really delicious. But since we didn’t know how to use the grill the waitress came over to help which was really helpful. Then we headed back to the hotel since we had another full day planned for Monday.