kimchi land day 2 - Gyeongbokgung palace

we must be pretty tired out the day before for we slept in late till 10+am. tsk tsk.

today, we have a pretty packed day so we better be in on our way soon!

taking the subway, gyeongbokgung station is just a few stops away.

we reached in a jiffy and headed off in search of our lunch place.

at the station. station walls mimicking the palace walls..

lunch was at tosokchon which is near the palace. 

we had trouble finding it for awhile and need to queue up before we can get seats BUT it was all worth the effort.

the samgyetang (aka ginseng chicken) is worth all the trouble!

even for someone like hubbi who doesnt really fancy soupy stuff and chicken of all meat cleaned up his bowl..

we love how the rice was inside the chicken - sticky in texture like glutinous rice - and soaking up all the good flavor of the soup! yummeh!

we were horrendous when we saw the queue which saw around 20+ pax in front of us.

but surprisingly the line moved pretty fast and we were in after 10-15mins.

and once we entered the place, we knew why. the place was pretty big hence the faster turnaround of guests.

the place layout was similar to housing of older days where it was divided into different rectangular sections.

we got ourselves a table in 1 of the sections soon and the menu was pretty simple.

either you choose the normal samgyetang or you get the black chicken version.

we opted for the "mainstream" safer option obviously.

after the satisfying lunch, we made our way to the palace.

to the boys, the place was nothing much but space for them to run around.

to the man, the place was as interesting as maybe a Myanmar palace to me....

i guess if you have no interest in the history or culture of a place, the historical sites just dont speak to you. 

to me, i was of cos happy to see the scenes all so familiar to me from korean dramas unfolding in front of me. heheh.

juxtaposition of the modern (skyscrapers) and history (palace)

a view of where the king held sessions with his 臣子 in the past (left and top right)
and a peek at the interior of their "house" (bottom right)

still, much as i found joy reconciling the place from drama scenes to reality, we were all ready to leave after an hour plus here. LOL.

we are ready to move on to the next destination: samcheongdong.

which has to be the loveliest of all places in seoul, no kidding.

even the husband can vouch for that.

more on samcheongdong soon....