Unhyeongung Royal Residence and Bukchon Hanok Village

27th Jan

One of the activities listed in the schedule was tour around Seoul and we were brought to visit Unhyeongung Royal Residence and Bukchon Hanok Village. Like always, the activities start at 2pm and end around 4pm (I have no idea why the activities are so short).

We had to take off at the Anguk Station and we arrived at Unhyeongung Royal Residence after we exited Anguk Station Exit 4. As we arrived, Mr. Kim, a volunteer cultural tour guide guided us around the palace and told a little history about this place. It was a residence of young King Gojong and his father, Heungson Daewongun, who acted as a regent until King Gojong was fully grown up. To cut the story short, this was a place where King Gojong (living in Norakdang outer quarters), his wife (living in Norakdang inner quarters), his father (living in Noandang), his father's wife (living in Irodang) and his servants, guards and maids (living in Sujiksa) stayed.

Sujiksa

Norandang

Visitors can experience wearing traditional Hanbok at a price of 3000 won and they can take pictures anywhere around this palace. They can rent a device that allowed you to listen the history of this palace in case you don't want a tour guide. Imagine wearing a Hanbok and the listening tools, you will be like time travelling back to Joseon period. Isn't it amazing??

Later, we were brought to Bukchon Hanok Village which is a few minutes walk from the royal residence. Bukchon meaning "North Village" is a more traditional village where it houses more than hundreds of traditional houses which are modified into a modern interior. According to Mr Kim, during the invasion of Japanese in 1910, many of the nobles had to sell their houses to the Japanese as they could not afford it. A construction company then bought big houses and divided it into smaller traditional houses so that the people could live in it. Due to the increased in population, the construction company had to build more houses (as in modern building) to accommodate the people and decided to demolish some of the traditional houses. However, 20 years ago, the city government made a policy to preserve the traditional houses by giving subsidies and providing loans to help people who wanted to build traditional houses. Thus, the value of traditional houses began to increase and thus the current look of Bukchon Hanok Village now.

Bukchon-ro 12-gil area

Gahoe-dong

The male roof is written 華 meaning prosperous, and the female roof is a spider symbolises fertility 

This village is filled with traditional craft work studios and is definitely the best place to know more about traditional Korea culture. Some of them are Dakjongi Doll Workshop, Han Sangsoo Embroidery Workshop, Sim Hwangsoo Hanji Workshop, Woodwork Workshop, Traditional Wedding Wrapping Cloth etc. This village also has a few shops for renting traditional Hanbok. I would definitely come back here one day to try some of these amazing traditional craft.

For dinner, I had Samgyetang, the famous dish I have been longing for quite a while. Though it is for a person portion, the food portion in Korea is really big that I shared it with my friend.

Samgyetang

They serve a whole chicken with glutinous rice filling the inner of the chicken. The chicken was soft and tender but not much ginseng taste, yet the taste was not that bad.


28th Jan

We had issue talk about "Education in Korea" today. Basically, it is just discussing about education issues in Korea and compare it with those of the other countries. The talk does not have time limit on it. It totally depends on how long we can elaborate the topics. As we woke up quite late, we ordered CHICKEN before the talk starts. This time we ordered chicken sprinkled with cheese powder and chicken with some kind of sauce with both of them boneless (as in they removed the bones). It was so delicious!!! It costs a total of 37000 won.

After the talk and the lunch, we continued with our plan that was listening to underground music in Hongdae. Due to misunderstanding, the underground music was not what we are expecting, as the underground music our OCs planned for us has to pay, while in reality we don't (what we wanted are just street musics). In the end, we did not go as the ticket was sold out and that I heard that the tickets are sold to the chosen one via in the internet.

So, we decided to have our dinner in Sulbing - a shaved ice dessert specialty restaurant. As we have heard for its popularity among teenagers, we were eagered to try it.

On the left: Strawberry Cake Bingsu
On the right: Chocolate Bingsu

Mango and Cheese Bingsu

These are definitely not their name. For a chocolate lover like me, I ordered the chocolate bingsu and shared it with another 2 friends as I definitely cannot finish it up by myself. Gosh!! They are so so delicious!! It would have been better if they have given more chocolate cubes XP.

Do you see the chocolate cubes? (Not the chocolate rolls)

Their shaved ice is different from the shaved ice (we called ice kacang in Malaysia). Their shaved ice is very fine and they are good in layering them (chocolate and ice) so that we do not only taste plain ice. However, it would have been better if they perfect it with chocolate syrup (so greedy XD). I also tasted some of the strawberry cake bingsu and the mango bingsu and they are both fairly tasty as well. Good food comes with good price. It costs 9000 won for the chocolate bingsu and 11000 won for the strawberry cake bingsu!!! They are so expensive that they worth about 5 plates of mixed rice in Malaysia if I ordered the chocolate bingsu alone.

After the cold dinner, we went to Noraebang, meaning karaoke. We went to a famous Noraebang in Hongdae, known as Su Noraebang and the interior is extravagant. It costs 33000 won per hour. As it was really expensive and I had no plan to sing, I did not join them and went back to the guesthouse. As they came back, they told me that the manager kept adding bonus time for them (if there are no customers) and that they only had to pay 24000 won as it was not the best room. So, they actually sang more than 2 hours with the same price. So, I actually regretted as it would have cost less than 3000 won per person (I wouldn't mind paying that amount just to listen to my friends' precious voice). It is definitely a best deal if you go with a group of friends.


29th Jan

Today, we had issue talk as well. The topic today was "Couple in Korea". It was really awkward as we are all single and we do not have much things to discuss about. As the topic ends really early, we actually wanted to continue with another topic on architecture, which the OCs have actually prepared. However, we decided to just spend our time playing pool and throwing darts in the guesthouse as most of my friends are going to Busan tonight. As I was afraid I do not have much money, I decided to reject their offer to go Busan.

Well, that's all about the activities I did these days. Will try my best to update and upload some videos.