KOREA TRAVEL DIARY DAY 1&2: Changdeokgung Palace & Gwangjang Market.

I finally finally moved into my dorm in Korea and now the dust has settled a bit. I had the craziest two weeks with travelling to Kyoto, Osaka, spending one week in Seoul with my boyfriend and teaching German for 4 days in Yongin. I intended to write this post yesterday but life got in my way and now it’s already past 12AM but I have to get at least the first post going. I think I’ll split this into 3-4 parts since I don’t want to stretch it too much but I also don’t want to overwhelm you guys with pictures.

But let’s start at the beginning which would be a week with my boyfriend in Seoul. It was so awesome that he flew 9000 kilometers to see me and he was SO happy to see me! You probably could totally tell from our faces. We found each other instantly at Incheon Airport which was great and then spend almost an hour searching for our hotel… apparently it was in front of our noses the whole time but we just did not see it because Seoul is full with buildings.

Our hotel The Manu was almost in front of Seoul station which was really convenient for travelling around main Seoul. I would definitely stay again as the accommodation was really nice, the staff was friendly and we could even watch the latest movies for free in English on the TV (which we needed as my boyfriend was super jetlagged and could not really sleep.) If you ever go to Seoul and want to explore the main centers this might be a good hotel for you as it is very close to the two main subway lines 1 and 4.

So after check-in at 2PM we already had our first experience with Korean food (as spicy as expected) and explored the area around the main station in Seoul. Since there is a Lotte Outlet and a Lotte Mart this is an excellent spot for shopping adventures and the cosmetic floor left me just in awe since it was overflowing with everything. But I should learn soon that that’s the standard here in Korea. 

We didn’t really set to do anything on the first day; we were just too excited to finally be together in Korea so we hopped on the subway the next day and see where we ended up. Of course, we took a completely different road than expected but it turned out to be great because we stumbled upon Changdeokgung Palace.

Walking along the main road this beautiful building just pops out of nowhere. Since we were not finding our intended destination we decided to pay this beautiful palace a visit.

There was a lot to see inside and we were surprised how little people there were! Maybe 30 visitors but since it was a huge place we walked there almost by ourselved which was really lovely. I highly recommend to visit this place if you come to Seoul 🙂

I found these stairs to be very symbolic of Seoul… since there are stairs everywhere. Everywhere!! It is incredibly hard to find elevators or anything else than just stairs. I could not have get my super heavy suitcase to the hotel or even my university if I didn’t have my boyfriend with me .____. (As you can see, my bob is already almost shoulder length. Thinking about cutting again or letting it grow.. my hair grows just sooo fast!)

It’s a really quiet place and my boyfriend and I found it to be perfect to get into the city and do something after having a 10+hour flight (he, it only took me and and a half from Japan woho~)

So sad this picture turned out so blurry, it looked fine when I checked… loved the ceiling, such an amount of detail in there! I am in general a sucker for good architecture.

Afterwards we checked out the neighborhood and found a district with a lot of small cafés, restaurants and shops that sold handmade goods! 🙂

As it was getting dark (around 7PM) we were trying to find Gwangjang Market which is famous for selling very cheap food.

And food it was! Food everywhere. Unfortunately, the variety of dishes that you can actually eat there is kind of limited to about 10 dishes which we found a bit surprising as we thought there would be more variety. We ate a little but found it too expensive so we had actual dinner in a restaurant nearby.

Back at Seoul station. I love Seoul at night, it’s just the right amount of light and everything sparkles (In contrast to Japan where there is flashing light everywhere.)

So far for our first two days in Seoul. I already love Seoul way more than Tokyo for some simple reasons: It is not as huuuuge as Tokyo is (you don’t need to travel half an hour or longer from one city center to the next..), transportation is a lot cheaper and the streets are wide, you actually have space to walk and don’t need to bump into people all the time. I feel really really good living here, that’s a relief! Please stay put for my next Korea travel diary!

Would you prefer all posts about Korea in a row or should I put some reviews in between, what do you think..?

Hope you enjoyed this post, more to come! Have a very happy start into the week! <3

Sam