Putting our Soles to Seoul
Arrival
Our plane landed without too much issue at 4:30pm. And, getting through customs was a breeze; we were out by 4:50. It did take us a minute to locate an ATM but with some won (Korea’s currency) in hand we were able to get our T-money cards (for public transportation) pretty quickly and load them up with a starting balance.
All the blogs I had read mention taking the train from the airport into Seoul, but because of where we were staying, when we pulled up our navigation app (Naver Maps, since Google doesn’t work well in Korea) we saw we could take “limo bus” #6011 without any transfers. So, while it was more expensive than the aforementioned train, at 17,000 won each (still cheaper than our 15 min Uber to the airport in Portland mind you) we opted to take advantage of the zero transfers and took the hour long bus into town.
It was actually pretty nice; they put our bag below and the seats were spacious and comfortable, similar to a charter bus we see in America. While the drive was long, I’m pretty sure the first 20 minutes was just driving around the airport to the other more crowded terminal. Glad we had gotten our seats already!
The bus ride itself was smooth and scenic but by the time we got to our stop it was starting to get dark. We walked the few blocks to the hanok where we were staying, Rakkojae Seoul Main Hanok (a traditional Korean home we had decided to stay in rather than a hotel, it was definitely a splurge item on the trip). Upon arrival they gave us a tour of the 140 year old home that has been converted into multiple guest rooms today. They even gave us a welcome tea with traditional Korean cookies!
We did have to put a pause on the tea because we had to run out to get dinner before it got too late as most places nearby seemed to close around 8. After the long flight we weren’t really feeling up to the whole restaurant thing so we opted to have our first Korean meal be from 7-11. Woo. We got some samgak-gimbap (triangle rice ball with filling, similar to onigiri in Japan), tofu sushi, and a “tourist must try” labeled banana milk as well as other goodies to welcome us in. The banana milk is a staple of a lot of K-Dramas we’ve seen, so I would have gotten it even without their prodding!
After eating we wandered the dark, quiet streets briefly, and then went back to our room to enjoy our welcome tea before showering and calling it a night.
Day 1,
Monday September 22, 2025
Yay jet lag, at about 5am we decided it was late enough to get out of bed. Our hanok provided breakfast to our rooms but it wouldn’t be ready until 8. So we took a leisurely morning getting ready and drinking coffee, and Angela tested out one of the provided sheet masks. I was not about to pass up a free Korean skin care sample.
Korea, nor Asia for that matter, aren’t exactly known for their “breakfast” foods. But, when our breakfast did arrive it was fabulous, it included some noodles, soups, and of course kimchi. It had so many great little side dishes (“banchan”) and was very filling.
After eating we decided to wander towards the nearby Gyeongbokgung Palace. Unfortunately being before 10am most of the stores and coffee shops along the way were still closed. But as we made it to the east palace wall we saw that the gates were open so we wandered in. While we didn’t check out the folk museum itself, we explored the surrounding area which opened earlier than the palace and was free. We really enjoyed the life size model of a street from the 70s-80s that they had on display. Although it did feel a little apocalyptic and frozen in time as we were the only ones there at the time.
Near the folk museum there was a self service ticket gate into the Gyeongbokgung Palace itself so we opted to head in. Knowing that the changing of the guards ceremony started at 10, we meandered our way towards the main gates. Since we entered through not the main entrance at the back we got to explore several of the beautifully painted buildings basically by ourselves before people started to make it back there. As we neared the main gates however we did start to see the crowds of people.
The Gyeongbokgung Palace has a policy where if you dress in the traditional hanbok, you get free admission into the palace. This meant that there were several hanbok rentals nearby and all sorts of people dressed up taking photos. It honestly made for a really cool experience seeing all the “bell dresses” as Andrew called them amidst the colorful palace buildings.
Admiring architecture is hard work, so after we were hot, thirsty, and palace-d out we swung into a convenience store for a snack and drink break and then headed south. We made our way towards the Insadong neighborhood, a fun shopping street that kind of reminded me of the Alberta Arts District in Portland (but at a much, much, MUCH larger scale).
It was nearing lunch time and we wanted to keep it light so we kept our eyes open for something that might satisfy our needs. Down a random side street under a bright yellow sign we found an all vegan Korean restaurant. It was perfect way for us to let our stomachs adjust slowly. And we got to try two dishes we were eager to get while abroad, jjajangmyeon (black bean noodles) and ttoekboekki (spicy rice cakes)!
After lunch we found ourselves in this outdoor mall spiral and decided to explore all 4 floors of shops. We even came across some fortunes telling machines which I had remembered seeing while researching so we each decided to get one. There were three options, you could choose based on your zodiac, your horoscope, or what we did where you rolled some yut sticks and the number facing up is the machine you pull from. You put you money in the machine and it would dispense a red ball that you then got to smash with a hammer to reveal your excessively long Korean fortune. We had fun translating them with our super accurate translation apps.
After perusing a few more shops and buying some cute Korean made tops we decided we should go back to our hanok to rest our feet for a bit.
While resting at the hanok, we remembered they have hanbok we could wear around the property, so we decided to put them on for a fun photoshoot. Not as colorful or fancy as the ones we saw at the palace, but still fun!
Since we don’t have a lot of experience with Korean food (I feel like most restaurants in Portland are fusion) we decided to book a food market tour at the vibrant Gwangjang Market.
I’m so glad we did. We got to the meet location early and so we decided to wander a little, and the market was huge and crowded. It was overwhelming just looking at all the venders, so we retreated to our meet spot and waited for our guide.
Our food tour** took us to several different stalls where we got to sample, gimbap, ttoekboekki, mung bean pancakes, 3 types of dumplings, lots of banchan (mostly fermented side dishes), yukhwae (beef tartare), bulgogi, two types of alcohol including makgoli a tasty rice wine and soju bombs, and twisted donuts for dessert. We did have the opportunity to try san-nak-ji, or “moving octopus” but not being much of an octopus fan in general I opted to pass on the squirming limbs. Overall it was an awesome experience.
**Note, Andrew is a vegetarian, but while we were in Korea and Japan, since so much of their food is fish based, Andrew allowed himself to try local cuisine without stressing too much about if it was or had meat. I want to point this out in case you were hoping for vegetarian restaurant recommendations. It’s possible to find vegetarian, I mean we stumbled across a vegan place for lunch, but their definition of meat is often different and rather than have it be an extra burden on our trip we enjoyed the local cuisine as it came.
Something interesting we learned from our guide was that Koreans use metal chopsticks because the common folk were copying the nobility who originally used silver chopsticks to test for poisoned food but eventually just became the fashion to show off their wealth.
Something else I wanted to point out that came up on our tour, in Korea they often assign an English word for a food based off of what an English speaker may already be familiar with. For example yukhoe, a traditional Korean raw beef dish in English is called “beef tartare” because that is what it most resembles to English speakers, and so it gets the idea across which is really all that matters.
After the tour our guide suggested a nice river walk along the Cheonggyecheon Stream. It was lovely, but honestly it was a little too crowded for my liking. We made it back to our hotel tired and very full.
Day 2,
Tuesday September 23, 2025
Not being a huge fan of big cities, we planned an excursion outside the city for our second day: a hike up Bukhansan National Park to Seoul’s highest mountain- Baegundae Peak (836.5 m / 2,744 ft).
Because most other developed countries are miles ahead of the US when it comes to public transportation, we could easily take the metro to the base of the mountain. When I say easily I mean that in terms of infrastructure. Practically speaking, our morning started off trying to swim upstream against the sea of people, mostly students, going the opposite direction as us. We were ‘salmoning’ the whole way and it was endless. Seriously It was like an exaggerated cartoon as we struggled to get past the crowds. To make it more cartoonesque, I swear everyone in Seoul only wears neutrals – navy, tan, gray, black and white. (Everyone except the older ladies, or aunties, at least).
We had two subway transfers to the UI line that would take us to the mountain. While waiting for our last subway at the station, a station attendant clocking us as tourists heading to the mountain came over to chat with us to make sure we knew where we were going and tell us about the mountain. We had opted to book a guided tour for the hike so we didn’t really need the extra information, but it was sweet.
After our long crowded ride on the subway we eventually got to the end of the line where we would be meeting our guide. There were six of us counting the guide, Lee.
After Lee bought us gimbap from a local shop, we did unfortunately end up getting in one car during our trip, but it wasn’t our choice! We were so close to no cars on the trip. Dang. Our guide hailed our group a couple taxis to take us from the metro station up to the visitor center at the end of the road, saving us probably 40 min of walking up the sidewalk along the road.
As soon as we stepped into the groomed forest, we were greeted with a wall of cicada hums. It’s been a while since I’ve heard those! While the plants and noises were different, the lush greenery and rocks also oddly reminded me of Oregon (with the exception of those cicadas).
Lee kept us at a steady pace up the mountain being sure to check on us frequently since it was a lot of up. It was nice to have so much time in nature and to chat with a local. We learned a lot of interesting and mundane cultural differences.
Maybe a third of the way up we passed a small temple covered in cute toad statues. Apparently toads mean good fortune, so this temple must have been very well off as they had hundreds of the little statues.
The hike was a lot of up, but it came with plenty of beautiful views. I kept being scared they would disappear on us before we made it to the top, but fortunately they persisted the entire day! Our guide said it was clearer than usual and you normally can’t see as far as we could so we felt very lucky.
Most of the climb was a combination of stairs made of rocks and actual stairs. Although towards the top, our guide Lee had described it as a “rock scramble”. I would describe it as climbing the side of a large boulder with occasional iron handrails, but I guess “rock scramble” works too, it had just made me picture a more post landslide terrain full of lots of little rocks which was not the case.
The top offered stunning views of the massive city of Seoul. Seriously the city was so big at first I thought we were looking at multiple cities! After some photos at the tip top by the flag we enjoyed our gimbap lunch near the summit with several other weary climbers. We always joke that you hike so you can enjoy food with a view, and this nailed it. There was even a stray dog that managed to find its way up past the “rock scramble” to try and beg food off all the hikers!
On the way down we stopped at a rest area to play a Korean board game, yut nori. It was very simple and a lot of fun so we later bought a version for us to bring home.
After successfully making it down the mountain back to the parking area we meandered our way over to the nearby Buddhist temple. Lee pointed out some of the symbolism and showed us around before we all made our way back to the subway. (Another 25 min of steep downhill walking -my knees! Glad we hadn’t walked up that part).
Back in the city we meandered our way back to our hanok and had to reward ourselves with some coffee and bingsu nearby (Korean shaved ice, which is honestly almost more like a shaved ice cream?). Asian desserts are the best.
We made it back to the hanok with enough time to shower before our preordered dinner was delivered to our room. We had pre-ordered vegetarian bibimbap at the hanok and it was a perfect meal after a hard days work.
Recharged we ventured back out heading towards Myeongdong. Mostly wanting to go to one of the larger Daiso stores to buy the Korean game we had played on the hike. This Daiso was a shock. A massive 10 story dollar store full of people swiping up items left and right. We were swept up in the madness and ended up spending quite a while looking through all the doodads and even bought ourselves a packable backpack and enough stuff to fill it up, including the game we had actually come for, although we had almost left without it as it had taken 3 passes on the “party” floor to find it.
After escaping Daiso, we decided to make our way towards Namsan Park since it’s a classic tourist spot nearby. You can walk to the top of Mt Namsan, and had we not climbed a mountain already that morning we may have done so, but why climb when there’s a perfectly good cable car happy to take you up? (spoiler alert, we did not listen to our own advice in Miyajima, Japan a week later).
The Namsan tower is at the top of the mountain, and the plaza at the top definitely gave similar vibes to the Seattle space needle. But unlike Seattle, the park at the base of the tower came with awesome views of the city.
After wearing ourselves out we made it back to the hanok for our latest night out yet. Will we finally sleep until our alarm the next day?
No. The answer is no.
Day 3,
Wednesday September 24, 2025
There are so many more areas to explore in Seoul, but we don’t have endless vacation days or budgets so we limited ourselves to 3 days in the big city. A nice sampling, or at least that’s what we thought. Not being huge fans of big cities we had also purposely short changed our days in Seoul. But I’m happy to report, I would love to come back and explore more of Seoul in the future! For being such a huge city, I was surprised at how much I liked it.
Checkout was 11, and our train to Busan left at 1 with the travel time to Seoul Station it made sense to explore in the am near our hotel and checkout right at 11. Any additional time after that we could explore near the station.
After breakfast at the hanok we made our way to nearby Jogyesa Temple. It was charming and nice to notice various elements of the temple after having gone to one with Lee the day before.
We still had time before we needed to head back to the hanok and since most of the shops were still closed anyways, we walked over to the Changdeokgung Palace. Lucky us, it even happened to be a random free entry day! I’m glad we made it because it was interesting to see how it compared to the other palace. For example it seemed like it had more western influence on the interiors even though the original palaces were constructed within 10 years of each other (1395 versus 1405 for this one, although both were reconstructed at some point or another). Unfortunately we didn’t have time to explore the highly rated secret garden (well I should say we didn’t want to pay admission to have to rush through it).
After grabbing our bags from the hanok we made our way to Seoul Station where we would catch our bullet train (KTX) to Busan. We had been hoping to store our bags in a locker at the station and explore a little nearby, but all the big lockers were full and so instead we ended up spending way to long trying to figure out what to have for lunch and eventually settled on a smorgasbord of pastries and savory breads we were unable to finish. This is a judgement free zone. How else are we going to know which pastries we like the most?! Also we brought the leftovers with us on the train for a mid-ride snack.
Fortunately by the time we were done eating we only had 20 minutes to kill so we waited for our train to arrive and started heading south to Busan.
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