Day 2 of Seoul began at the Gyeongbokgung Palace. It was a particularly hot day, which made it a bit hard for Bridgette (who doesn’t do so well in heat) since the palace didn’t interest her much. Still, she’s pretty good about accommodating other people’s interests since we travel with others so often.
To escape the heat, we visited the museum next to the Palace for a short while. The coolness and darkness of the place became a napping haven for my dad. 🙂
For lunch, we walked over to the famous Tosokchon Samgyetang for their Ginseng Chicken. The line looks a lot scarier than the actual wait upon arrival.
The ginseng chicken was really delicious and did live up to its hype. However, we were super thirsty afterwards, so I do suspect that they must have added a lot of MSG to it.
The rest of the afternoon was spent at Namdaemun Market, where we got to hunt for bargains. Bridgette learned different strategies of bargaining from her grandparents, and it was fun to watch her try…and fail! She has such a positive spirit though that the rejections didn’t bother her at all. If someone said no to her, she’d simply thank them and move on, or she’d pay the asked price.
Funny story: there’s a sushi plushy that she’s been wanting to get for awhile. It’s been out of stock for months online, so when we saw it at one of the stalls at Namdaemun Market, she was absolutely elated! The price was lower than what saw online previously, so that made her even happier. Before she had a chance to jump on the purchase, my parents and Uncle James reminded her that she must bargain, so she did. When the sales woman said the prices are non-negotiable, Bridgette took out her wallet and was prepared to pay but my parents said she should walk away as that may make the sales woman more inclined to run after her with a lower price (another one of their bargaining strategies). Bridge was skeptical, but did as told, and nope, there was no sales woman running after her begging her to buy. My parents assured her that she will find other stalls selling the same plushy, so we moved forward. In the end, after hours of walking, we confirmed that there was no other sushi plushy for sale, so we all had to walk a looooong way back to that original stall to buy the plushy. I’m sure the sales woman probably had a smirk on her face when we returned, but I was honestly too tired to tell. 🙂
That night, we had a really delicious dinner of eel, recommended by my mom’s friend.
We definitely hit our 10K steps for the day and slept really well that night! Part III will have our final day in Seoul, along with my favorite Hello Kitty Cafe! 🙂
