Seoul City Tour

HI GUYS!! It's finally 1st of September aka AUTUMNNNNN aka MY FAVOURITE SEASON OF THE YEAR!!!!! It also means that the Fall semester has started. I just had my first class at 9 this morning and since it was an intro class, it went for only 20 minutes. My next class will be at 5pm.... I know.... 5... in the evening....... so I'll probably kill some time by blogging about the Seoul City Tour!

Korea University organised a Seoul City Tour for exchange/visiting students on Thursday, 25th August. It costs 40,000won, which is about AUD$47?? This includes lunch, transport, and tickets for the NANTA performance. The itinerary was as follows:

9am: Meeting point at Nokji Stadium
9.45am - 11.45am: National Folk Museum of Korea, Blue House, Gyeongbokgung Palace
11.55am - 12.25am: Leave for Insadong
12.30am - 1.45pm: Lunch at Insadong
1.50pm - 2.10pm: Leave for NANTA theatre
2.30pm - 4.10pm: NANTA performance
4.30pm: Return back to campus

Meeting up at Nokji Stadium was a breeze, because it was only 2 minutes walk up hill from my dorms. I met new friends, of whom some of them are in my KUBA group :D I met April, who was from China, and also Miwa and Yuri, who were both from Japan. I also got to know that Miwa studied an Islamic Law unit back at her home university in Japan, which is sooooo cool! I didn't know Japan had those kind of courses. Anyway, afterwards we headed off to our first destination - Cheongwadae Sarangchae.

Cheongwadae Sarangchae / Blue House / Gyeongbokgung Palace / National Folk Museum of Korea 
First up, was the 청와대 사랑채 (Cheongwadae Sarangchae), which is an exhibition hall that promotes Korean culture (located on the first floor) and history of former Korean presidents (located on the second floor). We only had like 15 minutes for this place, so we only looked around the first floor. On the first floor, there were facts about different historical places in Korea, of which btw, some of them are on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. There was also an exhibition on Korean food. I was trying sooo hard not to drool because the food looked so good, even though they're not real LOL. They also provided kimchi recipes that you can take home!!!! Oh.. and did I tell you it's free admission for this place!

Back then, there were no refrigerators, so Koreans
used to store their fermented kimchi/soybean in the snow.

Can't remember the name of this kimchi, but it looks goooooood.

This is a typical Korean meal that is served, with main dishes and banchan.

Next was the 청와대 (Blue House), which is where the president lives. We didn't enter the place, so we just looked at the place.... from afar... with all the security guards..... at the gate....

Blue House, with the beautiful backdrop <333333

Afterwards, we headed into the grounds of the 경복궁 (Gyeongbokgung Palace). Gyeongbokgung is the largest palace that still stands today. And oh my god, even though it was really hot that day, I couldn't help but admire how beautiful this place was. I still can't believe how the palace grounds is preserved up until this day. Picture spam coming up!!

One of the buildings that has a library at Gyeongbokgung Palace

The ceiling of the library <333333

Library part one

Library part two

I just love this photo.
Lotus petals in the water, the building and the backdrop <3

Another photo that made it onto my instagram lol

  

  

The main hall of the Gyeongbokgung Palace.
This shot is from my GoPro, which is why the photo looks kinda odd.

I think we walked around for about an hour or so, and then we headed off to the National Folk Museum of Korea. We were so tight on time, we only had 10 minutes to look around. It was pretty much historical artefacts that Korean people used in their everyday lives. I remembered one exhibit that really reminded me of Deokseon's house. (Note: Deokseon is a character from a Korean drama called 응답하라 1988, or Reply 1988. If you haven't watched this drama pleaseeeeee watch it!!! It's one of my faves because the plot is all about families/friendships, and not necessarily your typical love story.)

Insadong / NANTA
We headed off to Insadong next for LUNCH!!!!! The food was soooo good oh my god. I can't remember what the restaurant name was, but it was a little cosy restaurant tucked away from the main street. And since I can't eat their meat, I opted for a vegetarian option. They gave me a bowl of leafy vegetables with soy sauce and gochujang (Korean red sauce). Anyway, the vege bowl wasn't the one that got me drooling, but it was the grilled fish, the banchan (side dishes, which included fishcakes, kimchi and ddeokbokki), and fluffy steamed egg pot. It doesn't sound like much, but it definitely made me so full until I almost fell asleep in the bus LOL. Sorry I don't have pictures though, but if you have me on snapchat, you would've seen the spread of food!

After the filling lunch, we went to the NANTA performance. NANTA is a comedy perfomance that uses rhythm and sound. I think all NANTA performances have the same back story, so I'll just tell you briefly.

Three cooks have to prepare food for a wedding banquet. Meanwhile, their manager puts his nephew on the kitchen staff, and he's not exactly the best person to be working in the kitchen. They have to work against the clock, and within this preparation time, a lot of incidents occur.

NANTA stage :D

I cannot recommend you enough to go and watch this show when you're in Korea, because it's suitable for people of all ages. And you don't have to worry about the language barrier, because they barely speak! And when they do speak, they speak in English! It's a super hilarious perfomance, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Also, I only had one photo for this because no photos/videos were allowed during the performance.

And that concludes the Seoul City Tour! It was a fun day, but I reckon it'd be better if we had an actual tour guide who could explain to us about the different historical places that we went to. For me, I managed to get some bits and pieces of information about these places through a Korean buddy, who was so very nice to explain about Korean history.

I'll blog about my dorm in the next post!!! :D