130331 Insadong, Gyeongbukgong

because someone was too busy to entertain me, i met up with daeyong and he brought me around seoul. but i got to have a short breakfast at a local cafe, and i cheated him into buying me a book and a pin. nwahaha. yippee~~

took a bus over, but i reached pretty early so i stopped at gwanghwamun to look around.

here's the sejong museum if you're interested. didn't manage to go in though.

there was also some daytime market going on but i didn't have enough time to stroll through.  the buildings are pretty modern, but there's some joseon statues in the middle of the street. pretty interesting.

on to meet my friend. it's pretty nice to meet up with an old friend that you got to know in a foreign land, and whom you get to meet up again in yet another foreign land.

so daeyoung brought me to insadong first - it seems like a place where youngsters hang out but it actually sells a lot of traditional korean stuff.

daeyoung still looks as bearish as ever

passed by a shop that has 신의 advert hurhur

at the top is where lovers write wishes on some tags and place them around.

there was a shop selling faeces-pancake / ddongbbang 똥빵 ... so we bought it to try. erhurhur.



went to a nearby temple to look around. not much.



 walked over to gyeongbukgong 경복궁 next. luckily, there was a palace guard changing ceremony just at the time we reached. nice timing~~

muahah i picked a handsome guard to take pictures with.

and then we entered the area.

wanted to follow the english tour but her accent was too difficult to decipher so ended up going separately. turns out that daeyong was a much better tour guide sinec he was here many times. heh.

here is where the ranks of the guards line up according to the labels on the stones.

and where the king sits~

where the king spends his time to read, watch the scenery etc (basically to pass his time)

and where the king sleeps.

and the queen chambers.

the rest of the buildings look more or less the same so i didn't take much more. wouldn't recognise them either even if the chinese words are different -_-

here's the backyard where there's supposed to be a lot more houses but due to a fire everything was burned down and now it's just an empty land.

and i'm standing in front of the pavillion where the king and his concubines/queen date.

and we're nearing the house where the president stays! just in front of the mountain. exciting.

the guards standing in the boxes are so amusing.

took a rest at the souvenir shop.

what! why are they selling merlion???

i find their touch screen vending machines pretty fascinating.

went to look around the little exhibition area too.

nuahahahah guess what we found! junki-ssi!

there's also some machines where you could take pictures of yourself and send to your email. whoo. this is how it turns out.

went to have dinner next at a market place. saw a cute kindergarten on the way.

and a little prince cafe!!! must come here next time!

so here's where we had our dinner - dokkboggi.

had some mandu and dokboggi meat, and the owner is so nice - i got free sikge 식헤 o drink. kekek.

stopped at a theatre to rest and chat, then went home for the day around 7.