Seoul Mates: Day 2 of 5

02 February 2012 - Thursday

Today Groundhog Phil saw his shadow and deemed that there would be 6 more weeks of Winter. That was an understatement.

We woke up to the coldest February in almost 65 years or since 1957; whichever source you believe, it was still -12/-16 degrees Celcius or single digits in Fahrenheit. Of course, we didn't know this when we woke up. Learning from Wednesday's chilly evening, we bundled up to brave the cold and headed out for our historical-cultural, 100% outdoor tour of Seoul.

Our first stop was the Lunar New Year Event at Namsangol Hanok Village in Chungmuro. We arrived early, so we wandered around in the untrodden snow.

Michele's 1st time in snow. wheeeeeeee~!!

Just one of many candid photos of Michele fascinated by the snow.

We made snow angels! Neither of us had made them before, so this was a fun experience.

Did I mention that it's -12 degrees Celcius outside? Our fingers could barely move to take pictures and our toes were searing in pain at this point. 

We decided to wait, warm up, and get breakfast at non other than a Paris Baguette. The bakery is very common in South Korea, much like 7-Eleven in America. They have little pastries and buns, so we grabbed some with coffee and thawed off.

According to the Tourist Information Center, the Lunar New Year Event was going to be on Saturday. I double-checked on my phone; the website definitely said Thursday. So much for that! Next stop: Gyeongbokgung Palace.

Michele rubbing her toes because they're numb & painful from the cold.

Gyeongbokgung Palace was bigger than I remembered when I visited in August during orientation. It was just as sunny, but frigidly cold instead of sweat-inducingly humid.

Greetings from the entrance of Gyeongbokgung Palace

I wish Chong Tours could give guests a historical background for every place that we visited, but it was better left to our imaginations. In other words, I have no concept of the historical significance of this Palace, but we knew that it was really, really important.

♥

A Palace right smack dab in the middle of the city.

getting artsy

Chongarazzi took some sneaky photos of Michele

Little did I know that she took some paparazzi photos of me ...

Me: Michele, start running around!

The grounds of the Palace went on FOREVER. We even stopped at a cafe just to sit down and regain feeling in our extremities and to mitigate the pain.

We discovered a more commercial area with Lunar New Year tents, displays, and hey -- free samples!

Some sort of traditional rice cake with peanuts & pine nuts.
We were starving, and it tasted delicious.

We look uncomfortable because:
1.) it's sunny 2.)  we're hungry 3.) it's so damn cold

In order to snag a sample of a traditional eggplant side dish, we needed to be filmed saying "delicious!" to this random dude with a camera. Michele said it in Japanese. The guy was not impressed by her language ability   =|

Year of the Snake

Also Year of the Snake

We were in a bit of a time crunch to get to our next destination, so we made moves.  We left Gyeongbokgung Palace through a different exit because after all of that walking, I wasn't going to trek back in the cold to where we began. As a result, we walked around aimlessly in the cold looking for the nearest subway exit, which was no where to be found.

COLD + TIRED + HUNGRY + LOST = this picture

We decided to postpone our tour of Seodaemun Prison. The place would soon be closed, and we still hadn't eaten lunch yet. We walked into this hole-in-the-wall ramyeon restaurant and ate some of the spiciest ramyeon's that I've ever had. If today was the coldest February day, then this was inversely the hottest food.

Spicy Ramyeon (람연)

Cheese Kimbap (치즈 김밥)

So we took a detour from our original plan and decided to hit up Dongdaemun Market for a bit of indoor bargain shopping.

For dinner, I was adamant about locating this soon dubu jjigae / stew (순두부 찌개) restaurant in Sinchon recommended by lonelyplanet.com, but it was nearly impossible to find. No, it was 100% impossible to find. We didn't find it. Instead, we walked into a random restaurant that served 순두부 찌개. While it looked good, I have definitely had way better in Korea (and America). Nothing special here.

Crab  순두부 찌개 

Tomorrow we would catch up with the itinerary and visit Seodaemun Prison followed by more bargain shopping in Hoehyeon.