Across from us, there's a kimbap store and so this morning we decided to go and have kimbap for breakfast. This is a common breakfast choice amongst Koreans as it's quick and not messy.... most of the time. We didn't really know what to order, and we didn't mind, so we just randomly picked on, and it turned out to be quite good! We also order a bowl of juk (congee, sounds the same as Cantonese). The juk was a little bland, but still good.
right: in the blurry background is N Seoul Tower on NamsanOur first stop today was Namsangol Hanok Village, where historical houses were rebuilt or moved to to form a small village. There we can see the Korean way of life in a realistic surrounding. We took the subway and ended up making a big detour to find Namsangol, but it was a pleasant walk. We passed by the time capsule, that was set up on the 600th anniversary of Seoul.
"... 600 (items) representing the citizen's life and look of Seoul were placed in a capsule and buried. It will be opened on November 29, 2394, the 1,000th year since..." Seoul was named the capital.
below: time capsule - doesn't look like much does it...
Very interesting... too bad I won't be alive then to witness this ceremony!
We then walked through the traditional garden with lots of beautiful trees and serenely designed
waterfalls and streams. Really a great 
place to just take a stroll when you have time. I hear that many Koreans walk through Namsan Park and also all the way up to Namsan Tower in the Spring when the cherry blossom trees are in full bloom! -- I'll save that for my next trip, have to go in the Spring!left & right: photos by eve wu
There's a cultural centre and etiquette school in the Park and we took a stroll around. You can take tea ceremony classes and learn about a traditional wedding ceremony. Unfortunately I didn't read about the traditional wedding ceremony until now as I am writing this post... hahaha I am referring to the brochure that I picked up but didn't look through. Ahhhh.... oh well, another thing for me to do when I go back, and I really don't mind it's such a nice place here.
There were many school groups that came to Namsangol Hanok Village, and we even saw a group of kindergarten-aged children all dressed up in their hanboks on a school trip! Kiyopida!
above: photo by eve wu
left: this girl posed so nicely for me I had to take her photo...
right: doesn't this kind of remind you of Lee Hyori and Park Yejin? Hehehe....
right: doesn't this kind of remind you of Lee Hyori and Park Yejin? Hehehe....
below left: students on a field trip, love how when they are just standing, they still look so cool
below right: my apple a day, with some kindergarten kids in red
below right: my apple a day, with some kindergarten kids in red
We saw the traditional pots of gochujang (red chili paste) and ganjang (soy s
auce), supposedly there's a lot of technique in building the ground on which these pots sit on. There are layers and layers of rocks and pebbles and sand and cement to make sure that the right conditions for fermentation to take place. It seems like such a weird thing to discover... like how did the first person think of it??While walking around, we saw a group of French tourist trying on Hanboks, and although initially we didn't plan on it, I convinced Eve to try it. We bought our tickets and waited for our turn. It was all kind of chaotic as there was only one dresser and she was running the show. I think she was slightly overwhelmed so she just started dressing people and pushing them to take photos together even though these tourists didn't know each other. Good thing we stepped in and told her.
above: Korean bows are simply pretty
As we were waiting, Eve said, I hope I don't get the one with the big fake hair, and guess what, that's exactly what she got! The hanbok that she chose was one that had to have the big fake hair... it's the queen's hanbok.... so I called her Eve Mama.... Her royal highness Eve.... hehehe... but it was fun!
We had to stick to our schedule that day as we wanted to go to a vacation palace to try out free Oriental Medicine clinics by "Royal Doctors".... so we quickly made our way to Anguk station, which is close to Changdeokgung - the palace that we would go to later on.
Walking around we found a restaurant that served Chinese food. If you've seen Korean dramas, you'll know that for Chinese food, they eat Jajangmyun, chambong, sweet and sour pork.... similar to what we find in our own Chinese restaurants in HK, Canada and elsewhere. But
actually I'
ve never heard of Jajangmyun until I watched Korean drama, at first I thought it was a Korean dish.... :POne of the dishes on my wishlist for this trip was to try jajangmyun, cuz it always looks so good in dramas. We ordered one jajangmyun, chambong and a sweet and sour pork (Eve wanted this, is it cuz of Coffee Prince?).
The jajangmyun was good, but Eve found that it wasn't as tasty as the ones in Taiwan, the chambong was GREEN! Not what I've seen in dramas, but it was good - SPICY, but good, and the sweet and sour pork, I found to be more sour than usual, but the pork was good, not too much flour to coat it, so it was yummy! We were soooo full after the meal, especially since all the dishes were so big! I was afraid we wouldn't be able to finish the sweet and sour pork, but we did!
We walked the short distance to Changdeokgung, which is a lot smaller than Gyeongbokgung, but here the palace was built in a very beautiful area, there are mountains surrounding the palace and there's even a "Secret Garden" in the back that has many beautiful trees and flowers.
We were interested in securing a spot for the oriental medicine clinic so that was the first thing we seeked out. We wanted to make sure we knew the location, only the first 10 foreigners will be seen, and a total of 40 patients will be seen in a day...... The clinic was scheduled to start at 1:30pm, but we arrived at 12:30pm because we thought we might have to line up and things like that... hahaha... we didn't want to miss out because we had made this trip solely for this purpose! But Changdeokgung is not a tourist hotspot, so compared to Gyeongbokgung it's way more quiet and we didn't really have to worry about not getting a spot.
left: a magpie (a symbol of luck/good things to come)
middle: historically, civil and military officiers lined up according to their ranks, civil officers on the left, military on the right, the higher your rank, the closer to the throne
right: there are nets used to prevent birds from building nests in the beautifully painted roof
middle: historically, civil and military officiers lined up according to their ranks, civil officers on the left, military on the right, the higher your rank, the closer to the throne
right: there are nets used to prevent birds from building nests in the beautifully painted roof
below: finally a better photo... although the focus is on the building in the back... :P
We ended up walking around to see the throne room and things like that. Took some photos to kill time, but it was such a sunny day that we were getting kind of hot... Eve found a natural air conditioner by sitting in the shade on stone walls... nice and cool!
When we returned to Naeuiwon (Royal clinic & dispensary, above photo) there were a few other visitors waiting. There was also some activities set up to let visitors grind herbs and wrap their own pouches of herbs to be used as deodorizers (you can hang them in your closet/car/room to get rid of smell) - I saw some star anise in there but can't recognize anything else.... :)
We were also offered some herb drink, but for those not used to the bitterness of oriental medicine, I don't think they enjoyed it... the funny thing is that everyone took a big cup full of the herb drink! For me, it was ok, actually I think they added a lot of sugar to the herb drink, as it was nice and cool and sweet.
When it was time to see the doctor, everyone got really excited. We had to fill in cards, and everyone was shouting at the girl passing out the cards... we all wanted to get a card to fill in our name and age...
Once we filled out the card we entered the room where the doctor will see us. We got a translator to help us communicate with the "Royal Doctor" who spoke only English. They look so young though, not at all what you would expect a Royal Doctor/Oriental Doctor to look like, but it's the same in HK, there are more and more young Chinese medicine doctors now. He asked us if we were feeling ill or had any problems, and then he took our pulse. From our pulse he's able to find out if anything is wrong inside our body. Very much similar to Chinese medicine.
Eve was given a clean bill of health, but the doctor could tell that I get stressed easily and that my pulse was weaker than Eve's, something about the strength of my pulse.... anyways I got some medicine that he prescribed.
For me this was an interesting experience to have in Korea, although I would have lik
ed it to be a bit more in depth.... but Eve was very happy, she's never been to a Chinese medicine doctor, so this was her first experience with oriental medicine. Glad she enjoyed it!We made a quick stop at Dongdaemun's Doota, bought some gifts and then made our way back to our hostel. At Doota, I waited for Eve at a Swedish cafe, and I really like the concept behind it. The cafe also sells handmade books, and this is one of the quotes on it's wall... ...
As it was around 4pm when we were done at Changdeokgung and Dongdaemun, we decided to walk along Cheonggyecheon stream back to our hostel and then go to jjimjilbang!
After arriving in Korea and speaking to some of Eve's Korean friends, we found out that jjimjilbangs are actually not as popular as we thought. But we still went! :)
Eve did some research before hand and we decided to go to the more expensive one
(KRW10,000 per person) at Yongsan called Dragon Hill Spa - it's supposed to be newer than the others that we found and we don't have to carry cash around with us for food and other services, each guest gets an electronic key and pay when they leave Dragon Hill Spa.We got there and were lost for a while trying to look for the spa, once we found it, we went in and paid the entrance fee of KRW 10,000. We then had to place our shoes in lockers on the ground floor and then take an elevator to the women's area. Men and Women have separate bathing areas - let me clarify for those who don't know what jjimjilbangs are, they are bath houses, but they are not seedly places like those in Hong Kong or Taiwan. Traditionally, women scrub and bathe themselves at these bath houses and that's why Korean women are known to have such soft and youthful looking skin. The reason why I wanted to go was because there are usually scenes in dramas where friends or couples will go to relax and chat, and they wear those funny towels on their head! Eve wanted to go to try the Sikhye which is really good!
But let's go back to our experience in a bathe house... it was our first time, and we were totally lost as to the actual steps to take, do we bathe first, scrub first, or go and sit in the jacuzzi? Also they had standing showers, but then also places that you can sit down and scrub yourself, but can't you scrub yourself standing up? hahaha....
but it's kind of fun, like when you're a little kid and you fill up tubs of water and just dump it over your head.... hehehe, that was a good feeling!
After trying out all the different temperature hot tubs, we put on the spa's guest uniform - t-shirt and shorts, and then headed to the common area, which is really a large open floor where people can sit and chat or lie down and take a nap (some even sleep over night). We rolled up our towels to make princess leia buns... hehehe and we bought a jug of sikhye and some hard boiled eggs.... hehehe we tried to crack them on each other's head, but you actually have to use A LOT of force to be able to crack it..... and sometimes it still doesn't crack! (Jen and Eve, doesn't this remind you of Yoo Jaesuk on Family Outing and how he tried to crack the stick with his head... LOL)
As it wasn't winter, so the floor wasn't heated, but in some parts of the floor there are heated areas.... it's really nice to sleep on there, but after a while it made me sweat...
Total steps walked: 20,412 steps
Some funny/random shots of the day......
"Harte" (Heart)
above & below: eve and her expressions while waiting for me to test the lighting...
that's why I keep a blog... :)
No comments:
Post a Comment