Day 3 — Seoul, South Korea

 6/3/2024 Monday

Itinerary:

• Issac Toast
• Gyeongbokgung Palace
• National Palace Museum
• Bukchon Hanok Village
• Insadong
• Starbucks Reserve
• Cheonggyecheon Stream
• Olive Young
• Lotte Mall
• Myeongdong Night Market

We woke up early today as we were very jet lagged and slept early at 7pm last night. After getting ready, we went to Issac Toast to get our breakfast sandwiches. It was a short walk from our hotel and our first time there. They only sell 5 different kind of sandwiches and the price was pretty cheap.

We were initially planning to visit the Starfield Coex Library today but since we were still tired, we didn’t want to go too far today and were told by our hotel staff that the Gyeongbokgung palace would be closed tomorrow (Tuesday), so we decided to change our plan and go to the palace today. The hotel staff told us that the taxi would be only a bit more expensive than taking the metro, so we decided to take a taxi there. It was a short drive and we bought our tickets when we reached there. Kids under 18 are free, so we only had to pay for 2 adults. It was only 3000 Korean Won per adult and if you are dressed in traditional Korean costumes, you get in for free.

Since we reached there before 9am, it was quite empty and had only a few visitors, so we were able to take pictures without the crowd. By the time we were done, there were huge crowd as many visitors came with huge tour buses. We also saw the guard changing ceremony at 10am. Afterwards, we went to the National Palace Museum to watch the exhibition and the entrance fee was free. We stayed for a bit before heading to Bukchon Hanoi Village to check out the traditional Korean houses. It was a 20-25 minutes walk there.

We didn’t stayed too long and went to Insadong to have lunch and did some shopping there. The kids were getting tired and we decided to head back to our hotel and on the way, we saw a Starbucks Reserve and had to stopped by to have some drinks. We rested our feet and had our drinks before heading back. On the way, we passed by the Cheonggyecheon Stream and was told that it’s really nice at night. 

We finally reached our hotel and took a nap before heading out for dinner. We shopped at Olive Young again and went to the Lotte Mall near our hotel for dinner and shopped around there. Went back to our hotel for a rest before heading out again for the Myeongdong Night Market. The night market was packed for a Monday night and we just shopped around but didn’t eat any street food as we were afraid to get sick.