Seoul 6D5N: Bukchon Hanok Village

Direction to Bukchon Hanok Village from Samcheong-dong (三清洞):

Still remember the restaurant we went to for lunch? I mentioned it in my previous post titled "Seoul 6D5N: Samcheong-dong (三清洞)". Ya, you are right, it's the restaurant located on the left side of the photo attached below. Right beside it is the cafe that we went for hi-tea. See the staircase with a red arrow at the bottom right of the photo over there? That's where you'd start your "expedition" (Ya, we spent like half an hour or more than that to reach the Village because there was lack of signage and, all the intersected roads are like a maze again) LOL...

Went up along the stairs until you reach a high-ground then turn left, and look for this scene, or more importantly, the signage:

Then follow the track and walk all the way up hill.
If you have no idea which way to go, again, follow the crowd.. LOL

Please look for this sign, the Village is just around 5 feet from here.

~~~ May I present to you the Legendary Bukchon Hanok Village ~~~

TADA~~~

TBH, nothing much to see lar. It just basically this street with a row of houses on both sides. I think those houses have been in existence since long long time ago, given the construction design, I'd say during the old empire time? But there are still people staying there, and there are posters asking you to keep your voice low to avoid causing disturbance in the neighbourhood.

After taking few shots with these houses as background, we went into one and paid a visit. It's free, mainly because the owner/vendor are selling souvenirs in there. 

This was the one we visited.
See? So modern already, with a digital lock there. Haha..

We really took our time and wandered around and around and around until everyone left. Haha.. Guess why?

To take photos lar.. Abuthen? Haha......
I like this shot so much that I set it as my FB profile pic XD
Didn't manage to rent the Hanbok (traditional Korean dress) though 'cause it was quite pricey~~~
Else, this shot would have been more perfect XD

That's all from Hanok Village. Haha.. We actually wanted to visit the observatory deck to see the view from the above but who knows, the place was like a haunted house, dark and no one around. Even the houses nearby also were all silent. We afraid that it was some scam or something so we quickly left the place and headed back down. Along the way, there are some modern houses and shops too.

Is it some sort of apartments?

I like some of their designs, quite mature looking, but very pricey ~~~
All around KRW 100k +/-

That's all for now.. Haha.. Is it a bit disappointing? Like, you might have high expectation for this Hanok Village but seems like it has nothing much? (No offence to anyone here please) I know right... Oh well, there are more to come, just stay tuned! :D
* In case you have not read about our Seoul 6D5N itinerary, please click here :D

Seoul 6D5N: Samcheong-dong (三清洞)

Direction to Samcheong-dong (三清洞) from The National Folk Museum:

Just walk across the street from the Main entrance of The National Folk Museum.. Haha.. Then turn left and walk along the street.. You would see a lot of creative art displays, such as this:

Haha XD

Basically, we just followed the crowd (again~~~) where they came out from, then we went straight into that direction. We were kinda blur as we had no idea where we were (even though we had a map with us!!) We kept on exploring and wanted to find where exactly is this Samcheong-dong when the fact is, the whole area right opposite the Museum is already the Samcheong-dong! Zha-dou~~ LOL

Few photos taken while we walked along one of the streets:

You are right, it's a sloppy little hill..

If you could notice, there are staircases in between the buildings,
which lead visitors up into another shops located further in.

Ok, enough with street photos, there was this shop that we had our lunch. We were so lucky to have stumbled upon this shop while we were unbelievably famished walking all the way up the hill. Not only the food was super filling and spicy (it was too too too spicy for me though.. Until the extend that I couldn't stop the mucus from running down from my nose and the boss was staring at me with a concern pair of eyes when I literally couldn't stop pulling out tissue papers from her tissue case.. LOL), the staffs were friendly too (they are well-versed in Mandarin), and most importantly, the shop was just nearby the entrance to the Bukchon Hanok Village. 

The uncle over there is the owner, who can't speak English nor Mandarin.
But he was also the one pointing us the direction to Bukchon Hanok Village on a street map. *salute*

The bottom row was a-la-carte.. We chose the one on top. With the same price (KRW 8,000 per person),
a set of dishes was shared by my Jimui and me. Really worth it!!
I especially love their spicy stir-fried baby octopus, the one which made a scene out of me!! LOL

Actually, the whole tranche of streets intersecting each others are like a maze to me lar. I didn't really take much photos 'cause our focus that time was to look for the Bukchon Hanok Village. I did record some short videos though, would upload it perhaps? Hmmm..

After coming back from Bukchon Hanok Village, we had our high-tea session at 王嘉茶, one of the places that you might want to take note 'cause the entrance to the Village is right beside this Cafe. Probably one of the reasons we chose this cafe to refuel ourselves too :D

Top left: Mango Ginseng Yam Juice (KRW 6,500); Bottom left: Caffe Latte Hot (KRW 5,000)
Top right: Blueberry Rice Bread (KRW 1,500); Bottom Right: Green-rice Rice Cake (KRW 1,200)

Nothing better to do, so took one photo of Korean-generated receipts.. LOL

Actually, there are countless of shops selling varieties of DESSERTS!! Ranging from waffles, ice-cream, our kind of "ice-kacang" which I have no idea what they call it there, Korean-style snow flake, and many more that you could think of~~ But we were too full for that, first, and secondly, we were running out of budget. Haha.. 'Cause we allocated portion of it for our coming destination - Insa-dong!! Haha..

Oh well, that's all for now. Will update about the Bukchon Hanok Village in my next post. Stay tuned! * In case you have not read about our Seoul 6D5N itinerary, please click here :D

Seoul 6D5N: The National Folk Museum of Korea

We just followed the crowd and exited from the backyard of Gyeongbokgung (景福宫). We followed the garden trail and it brought us straight to The National Folk Museum of Korea. The entrance is free!

Photo taken right after we exited the palace, over-looking it from the outside.

The building on the left is The National Folk Museum.

If you'd like to have a "tour guide" showing you around the museum with some stories/histories, you may refer to the following "time table" whereby, they allocate different time slots for different language mediums. As we were rather rush for the day (few more destinations awaiting us !!), we opted to tour the museum on our own. No worries, there are English descriptions everywhere, you'd have no trouble understanding any particular piece of antics.

We were lucky that the day we visited, there was this special exhibition being held:

My Jimui said it's a common rule that no one is allowed to take photos in a museum, but there were still numerous of tourists doing it. So.. Erm.. I took a few lar.. Haha.. Not gonna show here though, visit it yourself to find out lar XD 

After nearly an hour, we completed the tour and headed out to take some photos. There is this Stone Garden right outside of the museum, consists of 12 Stone Animal Gargoyles representing 12 Chinese Zodiacs, each with a square piece of stone at the bottom of the Zodiac, with years of born crafted on it.

A defocus shot practice again :)

Me, standing behind the Monkey Zodiac (my Zodiac) pinching it's ear.
Ya, monkey is some what naughty a bit wan lar.. Oopss :p

Before leaving The National Folk Museum, we went and took photo in front of a palace that has been barred from entering. Not sure what palace is that though ~~

Was it my eyes? Or the sun was too bright?

On the way heading to Samcheong-dong (三清洞), there are few other stone sculptures alongside the pathway within the museum's compound as well. 

See? Not necessarily must go all the way to Jeju to see him :D

Dolhareubang

"Dubbed as Eseokmok, Museokmok and Boksumori, Dolhareubang, a stone sculpture known as the stone grandfather, can only be found in Jeju Island. Dolhareubang was place outside of town gates to drive off evil spirits as a type of shaman's totem pole."

Dongjaseok/Bucksu/Muninseok

"Dongjaseok is a modified version of a deity statue in a temple or a statue to be placed in front of a tomb. It is an object of worship and is believed to have a protective power."
"Bucksu is a type of Korean totem pole placed at the entrance of a village or a temple to indicate the boundary or to protect as a guardian deity symbolizing the folk religion."
"Muninseok is a stone statue of a scholar to place in front of a tomb for protection. It wears an official's hat while holding an official's plaque and it is always placed in pairs."

That's all for now. Enclosed here the MAIN entrance of The National Folk Museum of Korea (which we actually exited from there pulak.. lol..). 

By walking across the street, you'd find Samcheong-dong. Will update it in a separate post. Stay tuned! * In case you have not read about our Seoul 6D5N itinerary, please click here :D

Seoul 6D5N: Gyeongbokgung (景福宫)

According to my Jimui, this is one of the places that we must visit as a tourist, else it's such a shame to tell people that we have visited Korea. Haha.. Beside this place, of course there are few others lar, which I'll subsequently update in separate posts :)

We woke up at 7 something in the morning, had our breakie and arrived there around 9 something via train. 

Direction to Gyeongbokgung (景福宫) from Myeong-dong:

1. Take Line 4 in the direction to Chungmuro (refer figure 1) to

2. Transfer to Line 3 in the direction to Euljiro 3(sam)-ga station (refer figure 2) and
3. Get down at the 4th station,  the Gyeongbokgung (景福宫) station.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Once you disembarked from the train, you would see this.
(Don't ask me what's written there as I've forgotten my Ancient Calligraphy) lol

Feeble attempt at getting an illusion-like space photo?

Panorama view :D

The ticket for Gyeongbokgung (景福宫) is KRW 3, 000. If your intention is just to take photos, then you may visit the place on your own. However, if you would like to know the story/history about the place, then perhaps you may wanna join some tourist groups as they offer separate/customizable package for tourists (just like my Krabi trip, we engaged with tour agent for specific tours only, eg: 4-island hopping tour and jungle-trekking tour). 

Photo taken before we entered the palace :D

For us, as we were quite last minute to engage with the agent to book any tours already, so we deliberately walked/strolled around the place and maintained not more than 20-feet from the tourist group that was happened to be there. LOL (saved money eh? :p) The bonus to us was, the tour guide was conversing in Mandarin via a loud speaker :p

Few different shots of my defocus attempts:

A nice background for portrait shot, which I did for my Jimui XD

Thinking wanna buy new lens.. But.. Hmm..

There really are countless of great background with strong cultural essence and ambience for great portraits, really ~~~

The Empress Dowager's private palace.

The entire Gyeongbokgung is really damn huge lar TBH, only managed to share a few photos here ya. You must really visit the palace yourself to see how huge the compound is, we really lost our way know? Then we decided to just follow the crowd lar, which led us to The National Folk Museum of Korea. Haha..

Here, gonna end the post with a side-diagonal view of the Emperor's study hall:

Should have taken this shot from a lower angle? Hmm...

Anyway, stay tuned for more updates :D
* In case you have not read about our Seoul 6D5N itinerary, please click here :D

Seoul 6D5N: N-Seoul Tower

It's a blessed that our guest house (Namsan 3) is located at a strategic place, whereby, it's near to Myeong-dong, Myeong-dong station and N-Seoul Tower :)

Just need to walk all the way up along the slope and you would see this:

P/S: If you still not sure which way to go, follow the road where you see a lot of people coming down from. Haha..

After "a few" steps of staircase, TADA:

A lot of branded cars here oh ~~
They have electric charging stations here too.

Nice right? :D

We went there quite late, around 8.30pm, and it took us 1 hour to queue for the tickets (our queue started right at the entrance). If you start your queue from this point the photo was taken, then I reckon it would eat up approximately 2 hours or so :/ That's why, you may wanna go early, perhaps during evening? 

Anyway, the fees (round trip) for cable car to N-Seoul Tower is KRW 8500 per person (I forget the price for single journey though, sorry). There are people who prefer to climb all the way up to the tower via staircase also, and I salute them, really! 

After N-attempts, finally a shot that satisfies me :D

There is this directory on the floor right in front at the foyer:

Actually, there is this Teddy Bear Museum which we didn't manage to pay a visit because it was too late when we reached there. I don't know why they didn't show it here though~~

After strolling around at the top of the tower, we went to this Food O'clock for dinner:

Actually, the price is considered reasonable, given that this is a tourist spot!

I actually ordered the cheapest one, Pork and Kimchi Stew. Super spicy ~~~
As for my jimui, she ordered Spicy Beef Soup.

Do you think it's possible for a place like this not to have the "Couple Locks" thingy? After dinner, we went strolling around the sky deck and saw countless of couples taking photos there and locked a lock there to symbolize their eternal love for each other.

Was practising my defocus skill XD

There are plenty of other restaurant/cafe at the top too, as well as few souvenir shops and a Teddy Bear Souvenir Shop. Before we made a move, of course lar need to take one night view photo from top of the tower right XD

Breath-taking eh? :D

Oh well, that's all for N-Seoul Tower. Stay tuned for more XD
* In case you have not read about our Seoul 6D5N itinerary, please click here :D

Seoul 6D5N: Itinerary

When did we book the ticket again? Was it last year? Or early this year? Time flies wey ~~

At first, we were so worried and panicked because there was this MERS thingy happening in Korea and we didn't know if we needed to cancel or postpone our plan. However, God has shown us mercy and we managed to proceed according to our initial plan after Korea declared to be safe from MERS. It was such a relief seriously. God, I love you! :D