Seoul Trip – Gyeongbokgung and Lanterns

For the majority of April, I pretty much stayed in Gumi. While I didn’t have a lot on my plate, I also wasn’t feeling like going much anywhere. One weekend I was sick with the flu I caught from my students. The next weekend, I was trying to recover from said illness (I had a low fever for several days and no energy). Another weekend I devoted to chores that I didn’t get to do because of the illness. So April was pretty much a quiet month. Even so, I was making plans for the upcoming three day weekend and I knew I was going to spend it in Seoul!

And I’m doing it by myself. Talk about big-girl status. I travel to Seoul by myself back in March, but I met up with some friends once I made it to the city. This time around, it’s just me since they all went to different places for the holiday weekend.

Since it would have taken the same amount of time to get to Seoul, I took the the ITX train instead of the KTX. While the KTX is faster, it still would have taken over an hour to get to that station. Then another 2+ hours to get to Seoul. It just made sense to take the closer train and longer route as it is much cheaper. About $10 cheaper.

Once I got to Seoul, getting to my AirBNB took a while but in the end I found it. It’s small, but really I only need it to sleep in and store my things. And it was affordable, close to Hongdae and the subway station. Since I arrived on Friday night, literally just passed midnight, I changed into my pjs and climbed into bed.

Saturday I woke up early, my body used to its 5 am wake up call. I spent the morning relaxing, grabbing some coffee and food from the convenience store and getting ready for the day. My first task was to make it to Gangnam and replace my dying iPhone. I had originally planned on just replacing the battery, but I ended up buying the iPhone X. Afterwards was when my real Seoul adventure began.

I made it to Gyeongbokgung Palace around 3 in the afternoon. I had originally wanted to make it there by 2 when the changing of the guards took place, but getting the new phone setup, updating apps, and logging into accounts that I would need while traveling took quite a while. I may have missed the ceremony, but I got to see lots of other wonderful things. The palace grounds is huge and there are so many hidden space to sit down and take pictures. Lots of other guest were dressed in the traditional Korean outfits: hanbok. The reasoning is that you can rent the hanbok (which I plan on doing next time with friends) and you can visit the palace and other historical sites nearby for free. Plus, you can take really pretty picture!

I wondered around taking in all the buildings and taking loads of pictures. Near the end of my walk of the palace grounds, there was a performance of traditional music and dance. It was so wonderful to see and I was so glad I got to see it as I don’t think it’s a normal performance for the palace. I think it was park of the folk festival going on that weekend.

Afterwards, I got pretty hungry and need some much needed coffee. Many of the coffee shops I found were quite full, so I ended up at… Starbucks. Not the place I was looking for, but for my needs, it worked out. Not too far from the Starbucks is the Jogyesa Temple, a Korean Buddhist Temple. It was decorated with beautiful lanterns and many people praying. I didn’t stay long as there were many people there and I felt that I was intruding during their time at the temple as a tourist. Also, I was starting to get close to the Lantern Festival Parade, so I needed to find the street and hopefully stake out a good place to watch.

The street was pack, but I was able to find a spot need the end of the parade route not too far from the road. Though I had to stand most of the time during the parade, it was still so wonderful to watch. The lanterns were wonderfully made, so huge on top of cars and other small, carried by performers.