Grad trip - Day 2

The jellyfish is back! This post is about my Day 1 out of the 12 days grad trip in South Korea! ^^

It is a long post, but if you are interested to read about my experience, please do so. :)

Day 3: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/05/grad-trip-day-3.html
Day 1: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/06/grad-trip-day-1.html

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Day 2: Palace and Park visits

Sleeping in an accommodation facility is definitely not as nice as your comfortable warm bed. Initially, we planned to wake up at 8am for the day’s activities. However halfway through the sleep, I saw the day was extremely bright and was like woah! It’s 8am already!? To my surprise, it’s only 6+ am in the morning. Ah, So during the near-summer period, Korea has early sunrises and late sunsets. A nice observation to start the day. =P After waking up at 8+, we had our breakfast of triangular gimbap and bread. My unwrapping skills suck, as my seaweed seemed to be separated from the tuna mayo rice content itself. It is still a nice cold snack though.

Around 9.30am, we headed off to the Gyeongbukgong palace. Originally, I had planned to go to the Deoksugung palace, but SY suggested that the G palace has a higher popularity. True enough, after reaching the palace at about 10.15am, you can see a big crowd of tourists at the palace entrance! The station and area is built with a taste of culture, with the station passage made of rock blocks, red walls like the ancient dynasties, while the staircases feel quite old too. The air is of course cold as usual like the previous day. XD The Seoul National Museum is just beside it, but we chose to visit the palace first.

There were lots of tourists, but surprisingly a lot of Koreans visited the palace too! There is an ongoing event (probably cultural event), and thus we obtained our tickets at 1.5kW instead of the usual 3kW. The palace was used in the Joseon Dynasty, but was destroyed by the Japanese during the 16^th century invasion, and the finally re-constructed in the 19^th century after 200+ years of being demolished. The place looks rather grand though, with the traditional empire gates at the entrance and architecture you see in movies and games. I found the design extremely similar to Chinese dynasties architectures’ too, there must be a relation between the two areas during the past era, hmm. The outdoor area of the palace depicts the organization of the past dynasty royal housing. So there is one of the main throne area, surrounded by some smaller ancient houses with a similar design, acting as guestrooms for lower rank people and guests. Some of the resting spots and pavilions have water surrounding them, and there are of course big gardens that act as a leisure area. The view is simply beautiful. Of course, this tourist attraction will have some of the plants being beautified, but I am guessing that the organization of the architectures should more or less be the same ya?

A large portion of the time is spent in admiring the scenery and taking photos, while SY is guiding me in the nice views that could make up nice pictures such as trees, ponds, etc. The water has a lot of lily pads! In SG GBTB, there is one water area near the Satay By The Bay has quite a lot of lily pads too, but the density of the pads in this palace is even higher. XD An ahjuma was also sitting by that pond, painting a picture of that view. I swear her drawing is much nicer than lots of artists today. There is a library in the palace that keeps the records and rules of the past dynasties, not sure if they are originals or copies. The whole place looks ancient, the furniture is very traditional, and the layout is simple and neat. To go in, you will have to take off your shoes (just like any other Korean homes) and move around silently. Tables and chairs are provided for you to read at your leisure, but you must not take the items out. There is a sensor detector at the entrance of the library. How does this traditional sensor detector look like? Well, it is actually similar to the ones we see in shopping centres. That item is indeed an odd-one-out feature from all the items in that library. XD Just like other libraries, this one also has a café, selling some traditional royal tea set consisting of small cakes and tea.

The walk continues, and we entered an area with guards at the entrance. That is when I realised that we were looking at the Blue House, which the South Korea president stays in. Not bad, they allow tourists to take a picture at some picture spot. The place is naturally heavily guarded, as even in the middle of the road, there is also a guard post there. Behind the Blue House is a mountain, and I don’t think that area is accessible to the public? After the short visit, we went to rest at some benches under the tree and observing the people. In some Korean dramas, we see the young actors dressing up in Korean traditional costumes and acting as members of the royal family, but their too handsome / pretty faces make the whole scene look really weird. In real life, there are really Korean couples / siblings dressing up in these costumes (some even nicer than dramas) taking pictures of themselves in this traditional place, and they look really splendid. J

After the palace visit, we went to the museum which provides free admission. ^^ The museum features the items and costumes used in the past dynasties. So there were items such as royal seals (interestingly with animals as holders), scrolls of names in events, sample of uniforms across various ranks. They also showed the potteries and home decorations used as the civilization becomes more modernized. An interesting thing shown is that in the past, the kings had 12 side dishes for every meal, and they could choose the dishes out of almost a hundred dishes! Wow, that’s an incredible amount of variety! I am pretty sure many SG people who had never travelled to Korea will know about at most 5 to 6 Korea side dishes. Pretty cool eh? XD There’s also a dark area that acts as a film lounge, where the various palaces in Seoul is introduced, showing the various sceneries, mountains and history. I was also a bit surprised that Hangul exists for only about 200+ years, but that should not be unexpected as you can still see Chinese characters in some of the older shops in Korea.

The next part of the museum features some of the scientific discoveries and inventions made by Koreans in the dynasties. A featured item is the water clock, which uses the concept of gravity, balls, water and complex kinetic movements to get a chime. There is even a video showing how the water clock works, which I am almost completely lost after looking at it. XD The clock is built under of the orders of king Sejong, and then subsequently built by a scientist scholar. Another invention is an astronomy rock, where past Koreans used that to observe the stars. I have no idea how that works though. =/ The museum’s craft shop is quite bright, and they sell a lot of souvenirs relating to the palace and culture in the form of keychains, mini royal seals, shirts, paintings, etc.

That’s for the morning. We headed back to our accommodation area at around 2pm, and get a nice lunch in another family-style Korean restaurant. This time, the menu had English words, and we chose to have some pork loach sweet potato cutlet, and sharing of spicy fried dumplings. At that time, we didn’t even know what loach is, and just ordered it. YOLO in Korea. =P The Korean restaurant is quiet, with an ahjuma watching some English show (lolwut) with Korean subtitles. The lighting is nice, the place is comfortable, and not long after the side dishes are served. Being the mountain tortoise I am, I have almost no knowledge of other side dishes related to Korean except for kimchi, seaweed and ikan bilis, and thus was amazed by the side dishes served! There were kimchi (classic), radish (in white blocks), and caramelized onions (sliced onions like the ones in SG, thrown in some sweet sauce). Looks very nice, and tasted good too!

The main dish came afterwards, with some salad in mayo and sweet sauce, rice, two hash brown bites, and a really big serving of the cutlet! The cutlet is really special. One would expect that the cutlet is simply a piece of meat, breaded with flour and then deep fried, leading to a big tender piece of meat should the frying process be perfect. This is not the case for our cutlet, it was actually minced pork mixed with loach, with a generous layer of sweet potato stuffed in the meat. Delicious! The spicy dumplings are not spicy, and personally I feel SG fried dumplings with ginger are nicer. =P A very hearty and filling meal, and each person only paid $10kW! ($12+) With the unlimited serving of side dishes and water, I must say this price is much more worth it than SG. With that serving size, our meals could easily cost up to $15, and we even have to pay for water. =/ Oh! The family style restaurant prices are nett, meaning that you won’t have to pay for additional taxes / charges as all these are included in the menu prices. SY mentioned that if tourists visit SG, they will be extremely surprised that they have to pay extra fees for the meals in restaurants. I agree with his point. =P

After lunch, SY was very tired and wanted to go back to the accommodation facility for a short nap. I spent my time doing the futoshiki puzzles I had brought to the trip. Nearing to 4.45pm, we set off to the Han River (short for Hangang) Park from the Yeoinaru station. It is a very crowded place, with small street stalls consisting of food and clothing. Before we entered the park, there were a big bunch of ahjumas handing out brochures. At first I was given one and I replied thank you, then a second one came along and gave me one more, followed by a third, a fourth, and WOAH why are you ladies spamming brochures on me!? Literally they are just like clearing their brochures onto my already filled hands! I missed out one of the brochure as I didn’t even have the fingers to take the brochure from the ahjuma. SY was laughing that I was being mobbed by the ahjumas, and that was when I realised he was also carrying about the same stack of brochures as me. =P The brochures were related to food delivery services, with a large amount relating to chicken and its derivatives. I am guessing that if a person wants to enjoy the Han River view but yet lazy to walk out to the area for meals, he could simply call the number and get his food served. Pretty convenient in my opinion!

The Han River is filled with many activities! What greeted us was a group of people sitting at the staircase entrance, looking at a Mario-cosplayed Korean, doing simple juggling and entertaining the crowd. Halfway through the performance, he asked for a kid and a teenager to watch and copy what he does, such as moving blocks and showing poses. They were pretty good sports, and tried their best to perform the actions. Some of them are not easy, such as holding three consecutive blocks, and then swapping the middle and one of the side blocks without letting any blocks fall. Amazing. The teenager was asked to choose a prize (angpao v.s. lollipop) after the game, and naturally he chose the angpao which turned out to be a lollipop too! Everyone laughed, and the Mario actor rewarded him with 5kW for being an excellent volunteer. =P It is quite cool to see how entertainers in Korea perform as compared to the SG counterparts. There were also other entertainers in the park, which mostly consist of teenager bands and buskers. There was a busker which played English songs, a hip one in my opinion.

There’s a I SEOUL U slogan sign clearly seen from the entrance. Honestly, I don’t know what does that mean, but there is apparently a lot of people taking photos with that logo. We walked around the park, admiring the scenery, the large number of Koreans having picnics on their mats and tents, the activities people do, breathing in the fresh air, etc. Walking along ECP on Sundays can be very heartwarming, as you see families and friends enjoying themselves and chit chatting from the hectic everyday lives. It is similar in Korea, except that their air is cooler and there are more people gathered at the park. The Han River doesn’t have a park BBQ facility for some reason, perhaps they do not have this culture unlike SG? However, they have this really large rubbish fenced up facility that collects all the rubbish of that Han River section. This continued until 6.50pm, after passing by some of the ferries (for pubs and food), bridges and quieter grassy areas. There were quite a number of small attractions near the ferry, such as whiter cherry blossom trees and a heart-shaped passage. SY said he was rather tired as he was not very used to walking so much, but asked me to try cycling for an hour for the Han River cycling experience. It’s 3kW for an hour, and 5kW for 2 hours. Having a limited time, we booked for an hour. The ticket seller is able to speak English, which is great! Should have this kind of convenience for the two days. =P

There is this convenient part where picking up and leaving off your bikes are at an open space near the shop, and thus there is no need for you to walk to some crammed area just for choosing the bikes. The position of the bicycle handles are somewhat curved towards you, unlike the horizontal handles perpendicular to the bicycle main bars. The lock at the back of the bicycle is also a 2-sided thing, unlike the 1-sided stands for SG bicycles. At the start, I was not very used to this orientation, but it was better soon after. =) We cycled for an hour, including making a wrong turn at a junction and ending up right below the LG building. It’s a tall building, and nice in my opinion! SY was more worried about the overpaying fee. For some reason, the bridges there do not have any lights except for the standard white ones. SY was kind of disappointed with the absence of night lights, but still managed to guide our way back to the bicycle shop without paying an extra fee. J The conclusion was that Jeff had chosen the wrong part of the Han River for a visit. Ah ok, the lights may be a disappointment, but I am definitely with the experience at that park. Nearing to 8pm, the sky was completely dark, but there are still buskers and young people enjoying their activities in the tents.

SY wanted to try some rice cakes, so we ordered a bowl that costs 4kW. The ahjuma put the serving of rice cake in a transparent plastic layer, followed by placing it in a plastic bag, The rice cake has a chewy texture, with a slightly spicy but yet sweet sauce. While sitting down at some resting spot along the street, we saw many couples walking, and food delivery personnel rushing up and down. A lively atmosphere. The rice cake is very filling to the point that we didn’t want to eat a proper meal for dinner. As such, we went back to the GS25 store near the accommodation facility, and had some lighter meals. SY had a small bento, while I had a hot dog bun with egg and potato salad base. We also had an Oreo Cornetto at 1kW each (1+1 offer). A nice rest at the convenience store after an evening exercise is really enjoyable. =P After dinner, we went back to the accommodation facility to wash up, and packed our luggage for the next day’s departure. The night remains very cold, but thankfully Chloe’s house provides a lot of warmth. XD

That’s the end of day 2! J

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If you would like to read more on my experiences, you may click on the links below :)

Day 3: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/05/grad-trip-day-3.html
Day 1: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/06/grad-trip-day-1.html