Our time in Vietnam was all too short as we prepared to begin the long journey back home. Now that the work portion of Liz's trip was over, the plan was to spend a couple of days in South Korea's capital city of Seoul which neither of us had visited before. We were flying on Korean Air for the entirety of this trip and both of us had separately transfered our flights in Seoul while previously heading to Vietnam. Now we would be able to experience more than just the airport as we dedicated three days to exploring this massive metropolis. Seoul is obviously much too large to see more than a fraction of the city in that short span of time, however we did our best to hit a bunch of its highlights by visiting various palaces, shrines, and museums along the way. Korea sometimes gets overshadowed by the neighboring countries of China and Japan despite having several millenia of its own history and contributing all kinds of pop music, electronics, and automobiles to the rest of the current global culture. Liz thought that there was a good chance that her work in the field of eSports would take us back to Seoul at some point in the future when we could hopefully see some of the things that we missed on this trip.
The first order of business was traveling from Ho Chi Minh City to Seoul itself. We had a morning flight on Korean Air which lasted about five hours, with the flight once again being about the best experience I can remember an airline providing. Because we were moving east across two time zones, this meant that we lost two hours and it was already late afternoon by the time that we touched down at Incheon Airport. Seoul's main airport is situated on a small island some 30 miles / 50 kilometers west of the city's downtown area and it is unsurprisingly one of the busiest airports in East Asia, significantly larger and carrying more travelers than Ho Chi Minh City's Tan Son Nhat Airport. Maybe it was the time of our arrival at a non-busy moment in the afternoon, but I couldn't help but note the contrast between the insane crowds holding up my arrival in Vietnam and the non-existent queues in Seoul when we had to pass through customs. Everything was handled in a manner of minutes with quick efficiency - much faster than the long line that we had to wait through upon arriving back in the United States a few days later!
Once we had made it through customs, we grabbed a quick bite to eat before taking a train for the long ride into Seoul. These trains departed about every 20-30 minutes and took about an hour to reach the metro system in downtown Seoul. It was already getting dark outside (with it being December 2nd on the calendar) and the climate was much, much colder than it had been back in Vietnam! We were definitely experiencing a bit of climate shock as we had jumped from a sweltering summer heat into a chilly winter atmosphere. The train ride was pleasant enough and gave us some nice views of the coastline at times before it dove underground as we approached Seoul proper. Somewhat amusingly, there was a video playing on the train explaining why some disputed islands in the Sea of Japan should belong to South Korea and not Japan, which kept repeating every 10 minutes or so. Then we had to ride on the metro to the station closest to our hotel and of course my suitcase's handle broke in the process so I had to carry the thing up several flights of stairs, argh. With that said though, we did make it to our hotel eventually:
We were staying at this chain hotel named the Shilla Stay which was located about two blocks north of the Jong-Gag subway station. This hotel was definitely not as fancy as the Bach Suites Saigon where we had stayed in Vietnam, which was understandable since we were paying for this one rather than taking advantage of a work trip. For that matter, Seoul is also a much more expensive place to visit as compared to Ho Chi Minh City. We had mostly chosen the Shilla Stay due to its location which placed us in easy walking distance of many of the historic attractions in Seoul's downtown. The room that we had up on the 12th floor was certainly comfortable enough, if very small by American standards. The lobby was decorated for Christmas, as we continued to be surprised by how prevalent these holiday signs were in Asian cities, and at one point some people in big blowup costumes came walking past us. We didn't know what that was about, probably a holiday party of some kind.
Once we had checked into our hotel and gotten settled, we headed out to explore the area and get some dinner. It wasn't that late despite the darkness outside and we figured that all the restaurants would be open for business by virtue of this being a Saturday evening. My suggestion was that we walk about half a dozen blocks south to Myeongdong Street which is a major shopping district in Seoul. We crossed over Cheonggyecheon, an urban park space running along side a small stream of water, and detoured around some kind of political demonstration which was making a lot of noise and had a sizable police presence watching the protesters. A little past that, we came across the LOTTE department store which was a massive commercial building with shopping stretching up to the 15th floor. It was also bursting with festive decorations including a truly massive Christmas tree that had to be roughly 50 feet / 15 meters in height. All of the white lights made the place look truly pretty; it would have been tranquil without the crowds milling around and the heavy traffic passing by.
Liz insisted that we take at least a few pictures of the two of us - just to show that we did actually visit these places. 
After gawking at the department store for a bit, we crossed over the busy road and entered the pedestrian space of Myeongdong Street. Myeongdong is known for being one of Seoul's main shopping, parade route, and tourism districts as well as being one of the most expensive shopping streets in the world. The place was absolutely packed with people on this night, with lots of food vendors offering even more things for sale in between the traditional stores lining the sides of the street. As the pictures might demonstrate, it was quite cold this night with the temperature hovering just a bit above the freezing point and everyone bundled up for winter. (Again, very very different from the experience in Vietnam!) We looked at the various street foods as an possibility for dinner but preferred a sit-down option out of the cold air. That's when we spotted this place:
Mikado Sushi was a rotating sushi restaurant where customers grab the various dishes right off the conveyor belt. I had never been to one of these before, still not having visited Japan as of 2023, and Liz always raved about how much she enjoyed them when she had spent time in Japan. It turned out to be a great place to get dinner, both relatively inexpensive (by Myeongdong standards at least) while also being absolutely delicious. And yes, we were aware of the irony of going to visit South Korea and then getting Japanese food, of all things. We made sure to eat dinner at a Korean restaurant the next night to avoid being true philistines.
The eastern end of Myeongdong Street had a seemingly out of place landmark: a church known as Myeongdong Cathedral. Officially known as the Cathedral Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, this building is a Catholic church which serves as the seat for the Archbishop of Seoul. It was constructed at the tail end of Korean's dynastic period between 1892 and 1898, then later served as a focus for opposition and protest groups against South Korea's military rule in the 1970s and 1980s. When we visited, the steps leading up to the cathedral were blanketed with these small white flowers made out of plastic, each of which was holding a tiny electric light inside. With hundreds of them gathered together on the hillside, the effect was strikingly beautiful while also feeling bizarrely out of place given the shopping commotion taking place a stone's throw away on the other side of the street.
Myeongdong Cathedral looked to have been designed with a traditional Gothic cruciform shape in mind, though constructed out of brick instead of stone. Information about the church that I found online stated that the cathedral has a height of 23 meters / 75 feet with the steeple in the front rising to 45 meters / 150 feet. The building was unfortunately locked for the night and we weren't able to find a way inside, therefore our pictures were all taken from the exterior. Even knowing that this cathedral was located in Myeongdong, it was a surreal experience to find this place packed directly in the middle of such a busy shopping area. It was starting to get late and we were tired from a long day of travel so we began the 30 minute walk back to our hotel:
These were a few more of the bustling street scenes that characterized the shopping district in Myeongdong. While the main street held mostly fashion and other clothing stores, the various smaller side streets tended to be packed with all different kinds of restaurants. We quickly lost count of how many places looked like they would be good places to get dinner due to an absolutely overwhelming number of different choices. We finally extracted ourselves from Myeongdong and headed back north again to our hotel, passing over Cheonggyecheon once again heading in the opposite direction. We would have walked along the waterway for a few minutes except that it had started raining and the precipitation along with the cold temperatures made staying outside not a lot of fun. It was still peaceful along the canal though, especially given the context of being surrounded by so many enormous buildings on every side.
We were up early the next morning to take advantage of a full day of sightseeing. It was another cold morning and we started out by grabbing breakfast at this chain restaurant named Paris Baguette which had assorted sandwiches and hot beverages for sale. The overall setup here was novel for us, a Korean spin on a traditional French cafe, not something that we had experienced before. Paris Baguette was good enough and conveniently located enough that we would get breakfast here again the next morning before doing our next day of touring the city.
The plan for today was to walk in a big loop around the northern side of Seoul's downtown, stopping along the way to visit several of the former royal palaces and other historical sights. We began by walking several blocks from our hotel over to Gwanghwamun Square where these pictures were taken. This is a relatively recent public space that was only opened in 2009 as part of an environmental redevelopment of Seoul. The square featured a large statue of King Sejong the Great who ruled back in the 15th century and is considered to have been one of the best rulers in the nation's history. King Sejong was particularly noted for being the inventor of Hangul, the native alphabet of the Korean language, which didn't become widely adopted until after World War II. There was hardly anyone present in the square this morning due to the cold temperatures and the fact that it was still early on a Sunday morning, leaving the wide open space to the two of us and a handful of joggers.
At the northern end of Gwanghwamun Square sat one of the former royal residences of the Korean ruling family, Gyeongbokgung Palace. The original version of this palace was built by the Joseon dynasty starting just before 1400 and it was the seat of Korea's government for the next two centuries before being destroyed in the Japanese invasion of 1592-1598. We were entering via the southern Gwanghwamun Gate, the largest and most famous of the various entry points. Gwanghwamun Gate was famous enough to become a symbol of Korea's royal family and the wider nation itself, the same reason why it has gone through multiple periods of destruction and rebuilding. In fact, this version of the gate only dated back to 2010 as nearly the entire Gyeongbokgung Palace complex is a reconstruction project sponsored by South Korea's modern government. Due to its symbolic importance, Gwanghwamun Gate appeared to be a popular place to take formal photographs as we saw what appeared to be a wedding party in traditional Korean dress taking some photos. This was a good time to do so as there were few tourists around and the weather was bright and sunny (and cold!)
Passing through Gwanghwamun Gate led us into this courtyard where we were able to consult a map of the palace complex and purchase the inexpensive tickets needed for entry. I mentioned above how Gyeongbokgung Palace served as the royal court for Korea's government during the 15th and 16th centuries before being destroyed by Japanese invaders. Afterwards, it sat abandoned for nearly three centuries before being reconstructed at great expense in the late 19th century as a symbol of the rising power and influence of the Korean nation. Unfortunately for the palace, history repeated itself as the Japanese once again invaded in 1910 and turned Korea into an effective colony for the next 35 years. Gyeongbokgung Palace was completely torn down a second time and replaced with the massive Japanese General Government Building, its location intended to serve as a reminder of Korea's subordinate status. And then the city of Seoul was extensive fought over during the Korean War which caused further damage to this historic site which couldn't seem to catch a break. Only a handful of the buildings here survived all of that conflict with the rest being modern reconstructions like the aforementioned Gwanghwamun Gate.
This building was one of the few to have survived, however: Geunjeongjeon Hall. This was the audience hall where the Korean king formally granted audiences to his officials, gave declarations of national importance, and greeted foreign envoys. This version of the hall was constructed in 1867 and somehow managed to survive the Japanese occupation without being torn down. Geunjeongjeon Hall was constructed mostly out of wood with highly detailed ornamentation and carvings everywhere. The color design on the interior was particularly striking, with an eye-grabbing assortment of shades of green and red and blue. I can't say that I had ever seen this kind of pattern anywhere else with the presence of all that green really standing out. The exquisite attention to detail continued around all four sides of the exterior as we managed to capture in pictures like this one. This whole place was highly impressive and definitely conjured up the feeling of visiting a historical East Asian royal court.
Behind the formal audience hall of Geunjeongjeon was this smaller building known as Sajeongjeon. It was used as an executive office by the king to hold meetings with government officials and carry out daily business that didn't require the pomp and circumstance of the larger hall. Even without speaking Korean or knowing much about the history of this palace, it was obvious that this was a more casual setting for the monarch to hold court. Then there were two separate side buildings, Cheonchujeon and Manchunjeon, which the signs at the palace explained were places where scribes worked to carry out royal orders. These were also restored to look the way that they would have appeared in the late 19th century and appeared quite small, with room for writing desks and not a lot more. Then there was also the gift store nearby which was worth capturing in a picture, with its modern appearance contrasting with the restored historical buildings elsewhere.
Nearby was this building named Gyeonghoeru Pavilion, another one of the very few original buildings to have survived at the palace complex. It was used as a hosting place for state banquets and sits on an artificial island constructed in the middle of a lake. We were not able to get as good of a view of Gyeonghoeru Pavilion since the entrance to this structure was completely blocked; from what we could see, it looked as though the building was in need of further repairs. It's also worth noting that the water in the lake had almost completely frozen over and there were fallen leaves resting atop the ice; have I mentioned yet that it was cold during our visit to Seoul?
These pictures depicted one of the less famous buildings in the palace complex, an administrative building named Heungbokjeung Hall. The reconstructed hall had been designed for functional purposes and lacked the ornamentation of the royal reception rooms though it still looked quite elegant with its simple wooden framework. This was one of the most recent additions to Gyeongbokgung Palace at the time of our visit, only having been finished in 2017. The restoration project was still unfinished at this point in 2023 with a projected completion date in 2029. It was hard to believe that most of these structures were only a few decades or even years old as opposed to having sat here undisturbed for centuries.
This was the final major building to have survived the Japanese occupation, the delightful small structure named Hyangwonjeong Pavilion. This two-story hexagonal pavilion was built in 1873 and stands on another artificial island in the middle of a lake, albeit one much smaller than the one housing Gyeonghoeru Pavilion. Apparently the bridge was originally located on the north side of the little lake, then moved to the south side after the original was destroyed in the Korean War, only to be moved back to the north side again where it currently sits thanks to the modern reconstruction project. Hyangwonjeong Pavilion was breaktakingly pretty on its small island platform (which I would have loved to cross over if the bridge hadn't been gated off), with the ice coating the lake making this a near-perfect late autumn scene. All that it needed was some snow falling to look like a winter wonderland. If you'd like to see what a professional photographer can do with this setting, try checking out this image that I pulled from Wikipedia to get an idea of how beautiful this pavilion could be.
As we were getting ready to leave, we passed by this tall structure which is the National Folk Museum of Korea. Located at the eastern end of the Gyeongbokgung palace grounds, this muesum is dedicated to telling the story of traditional life in Korea and dates its opening to 1993. We probably would have skipped this museum in favor of seeing other attractions which were more interesting to us, however it was a moot point because the museum was closed this day by virtue of being a Sunday. We walked through the exterior courtyard which contained a smaller children's museum along with a street which had been designed to resemble something out of the 1950s. Whatever was going on there, it was all closed to the public today.
The plan at this point was to walk eastwards and pass through a historical part of Seoul known as Bukchon Hanok Village, hopefully picking up some lunch along the way. This looked pretty straightforward on the maps that we had, but it turned out to be tough finding the place in practice as we wandered around on some residential back streets. After about 20 minutes we were able to ask directions at a store and were pointed to this narrow staircase that led upwards to the historic village area. It turned out that tourists typically enter Bukchon Hanok from the opposite direction, starting in the east and walking west instead of going in reverse as we were doing, which explained why we had some difficulty finding an entrance. From this higher vantage point, we could see the palace complex where we had just been to the south along with steep hills to the north. This part of Seoul felt more like a small town than a city and it's one of the most expensive places to live as a result.
Once we were atop that hill, we entered the excusive neighborhood of Bukchon Hanok Village. Due to its close proximity to Gyeongbokgung Palace, this neighborhood was traditionally the residential quarter of high-ranking government officials and nobility which allowed many of its historic buildings (traditional Korean houses are known as hanoks) to survive to the present. The area was given the formal protection of the Korean government starting around 2000 and since then has become a major tourist attraction. Walking through Bukchon Hanok Village felt in many ways like stepping back in time, passing through the narrow alleyways between houses that in many cases were 200 or 300 years old. There were lots of other visitors here (almost all of them walking in the opposite direction, heh) and enjoying the juxtaposition between traditional and modern elements. We also took some pictures of ourselves standing in front of the massive historic wooden doors along with this selfie of the two of us that came out looking unusually good.
These are some more pictures that we took while strolling through various parts of Bukchon Hanok Village. I'll note that we saw several stores that were selling or renting hanboks, the traditional dress worn in Korea, and a handful of the tourists that we encountered were wearing these, possibly because it made for better pictures when posing in the village. Bukchon Hanok Village is also a completely residential neighborhood - people currently lived in all of these houses we were passing! (And they pay a lot of money to do so.) There's been a good deal of friction between the tourists who keep flooding through Bukchon Hanok and the residents who just want to be left alone in peace. The crowds weren't that bad on this cold December morning but I understand they can get pretty crazy during the summer months. We had been hoping to find somewhere to eat lunch and kept failing to find anything other than a series of coffee stores, something that made more sense once we realized that this place genuinely was a residential neighborhood.
Two more quick anecdotes based on stores that we saw upon reaching the eastern end of the village. One was an art studio that had these beautiful prints of Bukchon Hanok; we really wanted to purchase one of them but I argued that we would have to carry it around for all of the rest of the walking that we were going to do this day. I took down the artist's information and have since tried to order online but everything was in Korean with no translation option, whoops. Then we came across this store called the London Bagel Museum which was inexplicably packed with people. All of the other stores were closed or had barely any customers and this place had a line out the door and around the block. We had so many questions: why was this store so popular? Why the "London" bagel store, London isn't known for its bagels, that's New York! What in the world was a bagel "museum"? What was happening here?!? 
We kept walking and walking without finding somewhere to eat lunch. Apparently this part of Seoul was designed to cater to a working lunch crowd and most everything was closed for Sunday (except that ridiculous bagel store). Eventually we found our next attraction for the day, another palace, and had to keep going because we still hadn't come across a restaurant yet. There turned out to be a cafe nearby, thank goodness, and we were able to get a salad for Liz and a noodle bowl for me. We had already done a ton of walking and this cafe had accessible wi-fi so Liz told me to take an hour and go explore the nearby palace grounds while she finished up eating and enjoyed a rest. That made sense and I did my best to hurry through the next part of the day's activities while exploring solo.
My target was Changdeokgung Palace, another former royal residence in Seoul known more informally as the East Palace. Most of the buildings here were again reconstructions as this palace also burned down in the 1592 Japanese invasion and then was rebuilt and damaged once again during the Japanese colonial period of the early 20th century. Changdeokgung Palace was the main palce of the Korean ruling family from about 1600 until 1868 when the Gyeongbokgung Palace that we had seen earlier in the day was rebuilt. In other words, this is generally seen as the second-most famous of the various historic palaces scattered across Seoul. I was entering the palace through the towering Donhwamun Gate, the current version of which dates back to 1608 and is the largest of any palace gate to be found in Seoul. The other buildings in these pictures were government offices of different kinds, all of which were modern reconstructions which were only added in 2005.
Passing through the gates brought me into an interior courtyard where a number of other tourists were snapping pictures. Once again, the palace complex seemed to be a popular place for wedding photography as I saw another couple in traditional dress taking pictures with the royal buildings in the background. The path soon led me to a wide courtyard with the imposing Injeongjeon Hall standing at its head. This was the throne room for the Joseon Dynasty for more than two centuries and used for major state occasions including the coronation of a new king and receiving foreign envoys. The grand hall was burned down several times and this version of the structure dates to 1804.
This was the view up close and looking into the throne room of Injeongjeon Hall. I was struck by how similar this looked to the corresponding throne room over at Gyeongbokgung Palace which used a lot fo the same design elements. Those mingled colors of green, red, and blue with the green predominating were repeated here, along with some of the same ornamentation on the wooden planks that made up the building's construction. Injeongjeon Hall looked a bit newer than its peer though, including having electric lights on the ceiling, despite the fact that it was actually the older of the two structures. I think that the reconstruction at Gyeongbokgung Palace was designed to capture an earlier period than the 19th century captured here at Injeongjeon Hall. In any case, this was a beautiful and impressive building that felt distinctly Korean in nature.
As in any palace complex, there were plenty of side buildings and administrative spaces that lacked the grandeur of the formal throne room itself. I passed by a number of these places, doing my best to experience what they had to display and take some pictures while still hurrying to make it back to Liz within the hour. There was another throne for the monarch in one of these buildings, another example of a more informal receptional hall where the daily business of running the nation could take place. One of these buildings also housed the king's bedchamber (although as usual the structure I was seeing was a modern reconstruction after the original burned down). I continued to be impressed by the gorgeous painted wood that ran across the underside of these roofs. They had a consistent design across both of the palaces I had visited today and I'd never seen anything quite like it before. The non-reconstructed buildings had to have taken ages to paint those designs by hand without the aid of modern technology.
These pictures were taken of Changgyeonggung Palace, which is technically a separate palace from Changdeokgung although it overlaps with the other palace on the same overall complex. I did have to purchase a separate, albeit inexpensive, admission ticket for entry into Changgyeonggung to walk around for a few minutes and take these photos. Like the other palaces in Seoul, the Japanese tore down almost everything at Changgyeonggung during the early 20th century and built a zoo here before the buildings were reconstructed in the last few decades. What was most notable to me was the way that this spot looked out over the rest of the city to a greater extent than the other palaces I had been visiting. The traditional buildings seemed to flow into modern high rises with only narrow streets separating them from one another. It was the old and new Seoul standing side by side, the past meeting the present here.
As I started to reach the back of the palace complex, I came across this small body of water named Chundangji Pond. An informational sign stated that this was used as a rice paddy and mulberry field back in the 19th century, which seemed to have existed for the amusement of the king and queen. Today it was a quiet part of the palace grounds ringed by trees and with a tiny island in the middle of the waters. I was visiting right at the transitional moment from autumn into winter, with a handful of trees still shedding their leaves but the weather chilly enough for the lake surface to have partially frozen over. And, luckily enough for me, there was a heron walking around on the surface of the ice! I dug out the big lens for our camera and zoomed way in to take some wildlife shots. Liz said afterwards that this was the one thing that she wished she'd been able to see on the palace grounds. I had to take this encounter as a sign of good luck.
Finally, tucked away in the rear of the palace grounds was this building, Changgyeonggung Greenhouse. I wasn't able to find much information on this place online but it had to have been created for the royal family to enjoy warm weather plants that otherwise wouldn't have been able to grow in Seoul's climate. The greenhouse must have been built originally in the late 19th or early 20th centuries though I wasn't able to determine if this was the original building or a modern reconstruction. It was a bit uncomfortably warm inside given the need to wear heavy coats outside, and I didn't stick around for long given that I had a rather lengthy walk to make it back to where Liz was finishing up lunch. I jogged the whole way back and made it with a few minutes to spare on the allotted hour. The only thing of note that I missed in the palace complex was Buyongjeong Pavilion, which was off in a side area that I didn't have time to see. It looks quite lovely in the stock images that I found online.
That was not the end to our sightseeing day but it is the conclusion of this individual page. This portion has already run on for too long and this is a natural transition point before we switched over from visiting palaces to visiting shrines and museums. The next page wraps up our time in Seoul and this vacation trip more generally - stay tuned.
