Royal Palace Roulette // Eating Insadong et al // Namsan Sunset

"So what are you up to today?"

It's breakfast time at the hostel on my second day in Seoul and I'm sipping coffee and nibbling toast while playing twenty questions with a haggard-looking Canadian seated across from me.

"I think I'll head to Jongno, try to see the palaces," I reply. "What about you?"

"Ah yeah, I saw those yesterday," he says. "I might go to the Trick Eye Museum. But you know, I'm finding there really isn't that much to see in Seoul."

"Oh really?" I say, conjuring a mental picture of my absolutely packed Seoul itinerary. Methinks someone lacks imagination...

To be fair, the guy quickly established himself as a terminal case of foot in mouth disease. In the following five minutes, he managed to ask our gracious and patient hosts pretty much every single question I had been instructed never to ask of the locals - what the North is like, did they know any refugees, whether the impending summit would officially end the Korean War, and even whether the Dokdo islands properly belong to Korea or Japan (seriously, don't ask).

Still, he brought up a fair question - just how much is there to do in Seoul? Well, here's a visual metaphor for how my second day went. Below is a bowl of bingsu - a Korean dessert made of silky shaved flakes of frozen condensed milk, topped with sweet red bean paste and ground nut powder.

It's insanely delicious, like the heavenly offspring of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and vanilla ice cream.

Having had this delectation recommended to me by a friend, I found a Sulbing (a chain purveyor) and confidently ordered one... only to realize that, like most Korean food, they're designed to be shared amongst a small group of people rather than eaten alone. I noticed the girl behind the till watching me with a smile as I attempted to consume as much of it as I could before it turned to mush.

This is as far as I got.

So there you have it - on my second day in Seoul, I decided I wanted to see all five of the royal palaces. By the time the sun set, I had just barely made it to three. Not that much to see in Seoul, huh?

[PART ONE: ROYAL PALACE ROULETTE!]

1. Deoksugung

"And now, the captains will undergo password verification before the key is exchanged."

While the narrator could just as easily have been describing the process of logging into a smartphone app, this was an explanatory note to the pomp and circumstance of the guard changing ceremony at Deoksugung Palace, which I stumbled onto immediately after surfacing from the subway. Other conspicuously modern inclusions: a deliberate and extended pause in proceedings during which spectators were specifically encouraged to take selfies with the stony-faced guards.

Deoksogung proper is a small but unique palace, combining traditional Korean architecture with some less conventional Western-style buildings thanks to its being the nexus of ambassadorial activity for some time. The signs kept referring to it rather dismissively as a "backup palace," though I quickly learned that instead of meaning this place was an afterthought or a spare, it had more than once become a place of refuge for the royal family after any number of catastrophes, from fires to invasions to assassination attempts.

A shameless sightseeing selfie in front of the main hall and courtyard, where officials and nobles would gather for official business.

With my appetite for palatial splendor whetted, I followed the main road for a mere ten minutes by foot, passing political rallies in the median which featured synchronized flash-mob-like dancing for some reason, in order to arrive at...

2. Gyeongbokgung

Sprawling, well-preserved, and featuring perhaps the second most beautiful palace garden in Seoul (more on that later), the only sight Gyeongbokgung offers more fascinating than its great halls and pavilions is that of visitors walking around the historical site in traditional dress, or "hanbok."

The simple but stunning robe-like dresses were both standard courtly clothing circa the heyday of these palaces and remain special occasion wear today (worn especially during the New Year's celebration). Walking up and down the small streets next to each palace (but especially Gyeongbokgung), you'll find them chockablock with absolutely nothing but hanbok rental shops.

Why? Besides being instantly gorgeous, actually pretty comfortable, infinitely Instagrammable, and allowing you to briefly pretend you're a Joseon era princess out for a stroll, renting and donning a hanbok at the palaces comes with a special perk: anyone wearing traditional dress can enter any of the royal palaces in Seoul for free! For the budget-minded among you, it's actually more expensive to rent one for the standard window than the combination Royal Palace Pass (~15,000 won vs 10,000 won), and rental periods only last between 2 and 4 hours, making hitting all the palaces before return time quite the sprint. Nonetheless, this option seems wildly popular amongst Korean visitors, and the entire palace was essentially transformed by it into one big hanbok photo shoot.

Levels of seriousness in this endeavor varied widely. I saw teenage girls in hanbok flanked by 3-5 person makeup, hair, lighting, and camera crews, eagerly shouting directions to their photographers even as they posed. I saw countless girls modelling for boyfriends armed with complicated multi-lens cameras. I saw entire gaggles of middle school boys and girls in yearbook-esque rows, dressed to the nines and dabbing in unison with each camera flash. I saw whole Korean families, from grandfathers down to barely ambulatory little grandsons, all dressed as princes and princesses, officials and scholars, palace guards and ladies-in-waiting, posing for family portraits.

As a foreigner, I was at first incredibly skeptical of bloggers and travel guides which encouraged non-Korean visitors to try out this experience. The risk of committing some terribly offensive act of cultural appropriation by donning the hanbok had me checking, double checking, triple checking, and quadruple checking that this would in fact be something okay for a foreigner to do. Even up to the moment when I walked into a little hanbok shop west of Gyeongbokgung, I was half expecting the staff to ignore me or to politely tell me this was not for me. Instead, as soon as I ducked inside, the excited proprietor came right over to help me pick out a skirt, a jacket, and some accessories. Five minutes later, I had been promptly Joseon princess-ified.

As I walked to the palace, I kept second-guessing myself. Couldn't they easily have rented me one even though it wasn't actually okay? What if the thing about getting in free was only a rumor or only applied to Koreans and I would seem disrespectful and entitled just marching in the front door? Yet when I approached the ticket office to check, an ahjussi in uniform cheerfully waved me towards the main gate, and suddenly there I was in the main entrance plaza, trying to get a decent selfie by propping my phone up discreetly on some steps and setting a timer.

It did not work very well. Note especially how I've deftly managed to highlight how my hanbok is a little too awkwardly short for me.

Okay, I thought, I'll just keep to myself and take a few pictures and then run right back to the shop and return it. Nobody will even notice I'm wearing it.

Then a small group of Korean girls approached me to ask enthusiastically for a picture with me.

Okay, I thought, maybe it's one of those things the younger generation is fine with but the older generation maybe isn't so much.

Within twenty minutes of my arrival, I had been flagged down twice by little old halmonis and halabeojis who gave me thumbs up signs and kept repeating "예쁜!" ("Pretty!")

Eventually, in the face of overwhelming evidence everything was just fine, I relaxed and got around to enjoying myself, getting into the spirit of the photoshoot atmosphere.

Better.

I eventually even worked up the courage to ask some fellow tourists to take some photos of me in front of one of the most striking pavilions.

Best!

Eventually, though, return time loomed large and had me dashing back to the rental shop like Cinderella to her pumpkin carriage.

After some scrumptious stopoffs in and around Insadong, I made it to a third palace just in time to watch the last tour of its must-see secret area depart without me. Though I spent a little time looking around, I decided to save the rest for tomorrow. Bright and early the next morning, though, I picked up right where I left off with...

3. Changdeokgung (with Secret Garden tour)

Step foot inside Changdeokgung having come straight from grander Gyeongbokgung and more singular Deoksugung and you'd be forgiven for thinking it more of the same - with palace architecture impressively uniform, down to the colors and the patterns of the painted illuminations on each ceiling, it's hard not to focus on the similarities from first glance. But the true beauty of Changdeokgung - the beauty people come from all over the world to see, snapping up with the enthusiasm of BTS fanclubs limited spots to limited guided tours that are the only way to see the palace for most of the year - is the so-called Secret Garden, these days locked behind an extra gate and an extra entrance fee.

Having nabbed a spot on an early tour, I spent the next hour and a half or so hiking through the massive, immaculately manicured park, led by one of the most delightfully snarky tour guides I've ever met. Her first words to us:

Hello, and welcome to the Secret Garden tour at... which palace? (after total silence from all attendees) Wow, you don't even know where you are? Gosh, let's start slow... 

Top six anecdotes:

1. The Secret Garden is only called that because of a misunderstanding - in Korean, the word for "garden" and "office" (as in a place you work) were/are the same, so while the place was originally built as a quiet retreat in which the king and his officials could decide state matters and contemplate policy, it quickly became known for its natural beauty and, as it began to be used for leisure and state visits as well as work, the original meaning of the name ("The Secret Office") fell out of usage.

1. The king used to go boating on the pond with his officials, during which they would compete to compose poetry on the fly; officials who choked and couldn't deliver a compelling verse in time would be "exiled" to the central island as a punishment, in cheeky imitation of the then-common practice of banishing one's political enemies to remote isles.

1. The three buildings in the background (see picture above) are the royal library, a royal study for a studious crown prince, and a "book-drying" hall for all the new legislation and historical records to spread out in while their ink set. The gate between these buildings and the pond features three doors - one large one which only the king would use, and the two flanking ones which his officials would use. The officials' doors were deliberately built to be half height so those passing through them would have to do so either on their knees or in a deep, reverent bow.

1. Elsewhere in the garden stands what is now a de facto shrine to one king's cat, whom he loved so dearly he would hand-feed it from his table even at state banquets where such behavior was unheard of. When the king died, the cat refused to eat any other way and eventually died from hunger. This was considered a touching and admirable act of loyalty and piety on the cat's part, so a little memorial stone was erected for it. The orange cats which wander the palace grounds to this day are supposedly descendants of that king's cat.

1. A nobleman's house erected as an act of filial piety by the crown prince offered a few fun if seemingly sexist riddles. Why is the gate to the men's quarters higher than the gate to the women's? Because men needed to be able to ride horses through theirs without conking their heads. What is the little stone mound in the men's quarter's for, and why isn't there one in the women's quarters? Answer: it's used for dismounting from horses. Why is there a little door too small to walk through between the women's quarters and the men's? Answer: because while the lady of the house was expected to make the proper amount and kind of refreshments for her lord's guests when they arrived, she wasn't allowed ask the lord how many guests there were or enter the men's quarters empty-handed to check herself, so she would instead open this little door and count the number of pairs of shoes lined up outside the hall to gauge numbers.

A hanbok-clad princess demonstrating the Joseon shuffle on the prince's stepping rocks.

1. In the deepest part of the garden are clustered several remarkable buildings. First, another study pavilion for the crown prince, outside which a set of oddly-spaced flagstones were placed to teach the young prince how to walk in the noble courtly way, hopscotch-style. Second, a series of carved rocks through which a stream flows in later summer; poetry drinking games were likewise played here by floating cups of wine down the stream, and the king once ordered his mother's royal litter-carriers to train for making the two-day journey to Suwon smoother by trying to keep the thing level while parading around these rocky waterfalls. Third, the king's rice paddy, used for ceremonial purposes to keep the nobility connected to the farming class and encourage a good harvest.

Feet aching, I pressed on to the final palace I would visit, a.k.a...

4. Changyeonggung

Spot the monkeys!

Don't let the brief time I spent at this palace fool you into thinking there's not much to see. As the long-running residence of the dowager empresses, queens, and royal concubines, Changyeonggung bursts with exactly the kind of history which sometimes feels ommitted from the stories of the other palaces: women's history. For my part, I made a beeline for two particular spots.

The first was once the residence of Lady Hyegyeong, of The Memoirs of _____ fame. The memoir, a striking and nearly unique example of womens' writing at the time, documents the vicissitudes of court life all while dancing around the real issue she wants to address : the controversial execution of Crown Prince Sado by his father, who ordered him locked in a rice chest for over a week until he starved to death. While the memoir persists, however, Lady Hyegyeong's residence is no more, either accidentally destroyed during a Japanese invasion or purposefully destroyed during the Japanese colonial occupation, when the entire palace was deliberately desecrated by being turned into a zoo.

The second is a peculiar pavilion tucked deep in the furthest corner of the palace at the far end of a long, thin lake; designed and built by a French architectural team, the pavilion was created to house a dowager empress and was the first glass building ever erected in Korea.

Having only omitted seeing the royal spirit tablets at Jongmyo Shrine to round out my tour, I considered myself content on palaces and called it a day.

[INTERLUDE - SEOUL JUKEBOX]

There seems to be music playing constantly almost everywhere in Seoul - here's what I've heard the most:

• Wanna One, "Boomerang"
• BTS, "Fake Love"
• Michael Bublé, "Haven't Met You Yet" (seriously, like five times in five separate shops - is Michael Bublé a thing here like he is in the US only at Christmastime?)

[PART TWO: EATING INSADONG ET AL]

In between my palace hopping, I took the opportunity to stop along the way at everything from Michelin-starred restaurants to quiet cafes to bustling markets to main street chains in order to liberally sample as many types of Korean food as I could lay hands on, including:

Seolleongtang at Imun Seolleongtang in Insadong. Trying to find this Michelin-starred shop was an exercise in ignoring my instincts and ducking down a bunch of tiny alleys I would never in a million years follow if they were in New York. The payoff for faith, however, is huge, as the seoulleongtang (ox bone soup, featuring glass noodles, rice, and shaved beef) is divine. The broth is mild but silky smooth, and with the addition of spring onions, salt, and pepper to taste, I had no trouble finishing it to the last drop.

I was introduced to many Korean restaurant conventions here, many of which I had read about but not internalized, such as:

• Unlike American restaurants which have large, varied menus (the Cheesecake Factory's novella-length one comes to mind), traditional Korean restaurants tend to focus on making one kind of dish really well; if their menu offers more than one thing, they tend to be variations on a theme incorporating the same central ingredient or dish. Hence, a seollangtang restaurant called "_____ Seollangtang."
• There are buttons at the table with which to call waitstaff, who will generally wait for such a page or a confident "cheogyo!" ("Excuse me!") before coming over to serve you.
• Koreans on the whole don't drink a ton of water while eating - it's much more common to drink after the meal to avoid indigestion - so don't be surprised if you only get tea to drink or if your water glass quickly runneth dry.
• The kitchen staff will sit in full view of the customers performing various kinds of food prep, from chopping vegetables to plating kimchi. It's actually pretty cool seeing how stuff gets made.
• Speaking of kimchi, kimchi! Usually cabbage slathered with hot red chili paste and fermented. It's served with pretty much everything, and I managed to eat about half a square centimeter of it before almost choking to death because I cannot handle my spice at all. Yes, it was embarassing.
• You take your bill to the front cash register to pay. When you do, hand over your bill and your form of payment while supporting your right hand with your left at the wrist or elbow - it's a sign of respect! Also do this when accepting your printed receipt and/or change at the end of the transaction.

Patbingsu at Sulbing in Insadong. Previously mentioned - see post intro.

Mandu-guk at Gaeseong Mandu Koong in Jongno. Mellow and delicious dumpling soup. This famous shop is run by an elderly woman originally from the southern part of North Korea who fled to Seoul during the war. As such, the dumplings have a distinctly Gaseong regional flair. Larger groups can enjoy hotpot; solo travellers can look wistfully on as larger groups enjoy hotpot.

Needless to say, I liked it.

Bindaetteok at Gwangjang Market. Every part of how these delicious pancakes are made is weirdly mesmerizing - the gyrating machines which grind the mung beans into a silky liquid base that fountains off the round grinding dais in a solid curtain down to a waiting pail; the machine-like 8-sign handmixing of this paste with green onions and other ingredients by stooped ahjummas in tennis visors and floral aprons; the practiced spooning of the batter onto piping hot fryers inch-deep in bubbling oil and the flattening of these mounds into near perfect circles as if by magic; the scoop of the tongs rescuing them, the quick double swipe of a long pair of kitchen scissors which cuts them in half, and then the waving hand of a barker as she gestures you to a seat at a small metal counter just barely off the main aise of the market and serves it to you, along with a little metal dish of freshly chopped onions in a sweet soy dipping sauce.

Gwangjang itself is equally arresting - the first moment I rounded a corner between two ten-story superbuildings and saw the first bustling alley crammed with customers and merchandise, I was literally stopped in my tracks. I'm not sure I have the grammar to do it justice, but here's a long list of nouns, adjectives, and adverbs:

Corn on the cob, watermelon, dragon fruit, mango, dark cherries in cups labelled 5000won; seas of shoes - mix and match? 3 for 2, 7 for 4?; chocolates; face masks; commuter backpacks in stylish tweed and heather grey; socks depicting sweet friendships between animated ducks and bears; handbags, jackets, blankets, scarves; striped cotton dresses, loose linen overshirts, hanbok embroidered with glittering thread; pictures, postcards, journals, paper, fans, keychains, phone cases printed with maps of the stars; orange bubbling cauldrons of tteokbokki; fried dough parcels shaped like corn oozing sweet egg custard; every vegetable known to man in a light tempura batter; bulging handroll gimbap with pickled everything sticking well past the ends; white-haired, one-eyed, smooth-talking salesmen armed with tour guide microphones and a stare like a helicopter searchlight saying "you, yes you, come take a look;" salmon butterflied and laid out flat on beds of ice; deconstructed crabs in neat and separate bins; shrimp and squid and mussels and snails and live octopus kneading their tentacles against the walls of plastic cafeteria bins kept cool by frozen waterbottles stall owners drink from as they thaw; and through it all, a constant stream of people, circulating around each protruding leg and aisle off the central junction like oxygen through a giant, breathing body.

Etc, etc, etc. Long after I felt stuffed, I kept nibbling on my pancake and crunching away at my onions, if only for an excuse to people watch the other bindaetteok eaters like me - mostly young couples out for an afternoon together and old ahjussis brandishing newspapers and pouring each other copious servings of makgeolli.

Black bean and sesame smoothie at Banjak Banjak Bitnaneun in Insadong. Which basically turned out to be more patbingsu, but when it's 86 degrees outside who's complaining? Also came with its own little set of sweet banchan (side dishes) including crunchy rice puffs and a nice cuppa.

[INTERLUDE: IN A STATION OF SEOUL METRO]

Spotted in transit:

• Adorable animal mascots meeting grisly and graphic ends in PSAs about proper subway ettiquette and CPR technique.
• Song Joong Ki in a perpetually looped ad in which he enjoys the products of a rice cooker and, noticing the camera suddenly as if caught with his hand in the cookie jar, cracks that trademark Descendants of the Sun smile of his.
• Wanna One repping Cheetos fried chicken, because of course, take something delicious and distinctly Korean and coat it in the grossest manufacturing byproduct American snack food has to offer. Massiseoyo.

• Every billboard taken up by happy birthday ads paid for by kpop idol fan clubs.

[EPILOGUE: NAMSAN SUNSET]

Already exhausted but eager to end my third day in Seoul in style, I set my sights as high as they could go - on top of Seoul's needle-like Namsan Tower. After a bit of a white-knuckle cable car ride up Mount Namsan to the tower's base, I decided not to test my queasiness with a further ascent and instead perched on the mountaintop observation deck, watching families all clad in one color pose for portraits and young couples canoodling while signing and adding a "love lock" to the tower's ever-growing collection.

The climb to the elevator to the cable car station.

The cable car route.

Namsan Tower!

On top of the world!

The view in the other direction.

Love locks, meant to "seal" one's love forever and always.

My favorite one just said the person's name, the date, and "here ALONE and happy."

As the sun went down over the Seoul horizon, I was reminded of a time not so long ago when I sat on the steps of Sacre Coeur in Paris watching the sun rise and feeling like the world was bigger than I'd ever known it to be before.

* * *

Phew, this post took me a while! By now I am cozily ensconced in a guesthouse on Jeju Island and I still have the last day of my Seoul wanderings to document. The Jeju weather (noncommitally rainy for the next couple days) threatens to scupper all my hiking plans (aka 80% of the reason I came here to Jeju in the first place), but my loss may be your gain if you're digging these posts and want to see more of them, as I may just be stuck inside tomorrow with little else to do but park myself in a cafe and catch up...