Good evening everyone!
After exploring Changdeokgung Palace and strolling around the streets for the first two days, my boyfriend really felt the jetlag and we slept in the next day until 1PM. This never happens, as my boyfriend always wakes up early and is not really a person to sleep in (contrary to myself, I need at least 10 hours of sleep or I will be very very grumpy.)
So we decided to keep it at a slower pace and visited the National Museum of Korea which of course is located in Seoul. What is really really amazing: Almost every museum in Seoul is free of charge. So you can just go there for free. I wish we had that in Germany too! I love to educate myself and would spend rainy weekends a lot more often in museums if they were free or at least cheaper. Also, the National Museum of Korea has a lot to offer; It’s not just a big museum but also has a park nearby, a pavillon and architecture to explore. If the weather is too bad for going around town this would be my main recommendation 🙂
As it was already too late for breakfast.. had to breakfast in our room as I cannot work before I didn’t have my tea. Don’t talk to me, like ever, before I didn’t sip my tea. It’s an unspoken rule that all my friends know of.
Entrance to the National Museum is on the left with the park nearby being upfront.
Pavillon in front of the National Museum where we rested for a little bit.
The view climbing up the stairs near National Museum; you can see Namsan Hill (which we climbed on day 6) and Seoul Tower!
Chinese pagoda (or something like that) inside the museum. I really liked how they mixed paintings, crafts, armory, weapons and replicas of places. If you are interested in Asian history or art this might be for you!
On day 4, my boyfriend decided we should go shopping. Which surprised me a lot, because he really does not enjoy to shop. As I stated already in my previous post it was actually meant as a birthday gift! 🙂 So we went to Myeongdong which is famous for being a big shopping are with lots of shops, cafés, malls and restaurants.
What I love about Korea, is that every shop has it’s own theme and they really really are showing it. Like here, all the shops don’t only look cute inside but even have a more appealing outside! We don’t really have those fancy stores in Germany so I really like that concept. It’s also easier to spot shops in the mass.
The shopping district has more wide and more narrow parts, this was one of the smaller side streets. As you can see, it definitely helps in Korea if you can at least read Hangeul even if you don’t know the meaning of a word, only 50% or even less also has a Roman description like „coffee“ or „shop“. When we arrived at noon it was fairly empty but around 2-3PM it got extremely full as you can see here. It was still not as cramped as Japan.
These things. My boyfriend was so intrigued by them! We saw a lot of younger girls and boys walk around. We found out that they actually fill them with ice cream! (Now that I see the photograph, it also says „Ice Cream“ in blue letters on top of the store. Didn’t quite notice that when we were there.
I really wanted to get one of these disney themed caps, so cool!! They were too expensive though, not gonna spend 40,000Won on a cap. Maybe I should go now and have a look again as lots of places have sale atm…
Myeongdong from above; shot from a mall nearby. If you didn’t already notice there are a lot of free or inexpensive spots where you can see the city from above (which is not hard when half the city is made out of skyscrapers.)
What I bought I already told you in my first haul post; I also got a dress and a cardigan 🙂 We had a nice dinner and went home as shopping was just very exhausting. Stay tuned for posts on exploring Gangnam and hiking up Namsan Hill! 🙂
Have a nice weekend everybody! (^__^)/
Sam
