The next day we met up with an acquaintance of Jenna’s, Damin Kim, and she showed us some of her favorite parts of Seoul. It was nice to be free of luggage and have a great night of sleep.  We walked through the city center though Gangyeongjeon, the National Palace Museum, up to Gagyeonjeon, Hyangwonjeong, Amisan, Gyeongbokgung, and to the National Folk Museum.

From there, we went to Insadong shopping area a place with small vendor-type shops. We had a nice lunch there with kimchi, bibimbap, and Korean pankcakes.  It was quite a treat because Damin was able to translate everything for us and get just the right things. She showed us how to mix the different bowls of food.

After that we were in search of an HP computer charger for my brother’s laptop. We journeyed through some worn down areas to arrive at Yongsan Electronics Market where it had an extensive range of electronics. It was huge.  The area had so many buildings that were wholesale-type shops full of boxes and boxes of all kinds of electronics. Instead of seeing people carrying groceries, you saw all ages of boys and men carrying bags of electronics, from computers to remote control cars to motherboards. There was a man on a scooter driving around with four or five computers. We were exhausted because our sleep schedule was still off. The group went back to the hotel for a quick nap, and we ended up sleeping four hours. Oops. We decided to not waste the night completely and went to check out an area that had a lot of night life called Sinchon near Hongik University. We started off getting “drinks in a bag” from a truck. Then we listened to a band play in the street for awhile. People were everywhere. As we walked through the neighborhoods, it was great to take in the signs and lights people watching. We found a restaurant full of Koreans that was half outdoor with a fondue-bbq style of cooking. We sat down and didn’t even order. They started bringing us all kinds of dishes and food. We ended up eating liver and what we think were intestines. We threw in a pepper that wasn’t pierced and later it ended up in a grease pepper bomb that hit our waitress in the face. She got frustrated, but we sucked up to her so much that she liked us by the end of it. After that we found a pub to hang out for awhile. We were all wide awake, so we ended up staying out until 4 AM, and there were still tons of people out and about.

The next morning we slept in a bit then headed out to Changdeokgung, the Palace of Illustrious Virtue, Lonely Planet’s #1 Korean top experience. It had royal family living in it well into the 20th century. We also visited the king’s secret garden where I had very high expectations of it to look like a garden in France. It was pretty much a planned out forest with some ponds and neat little buildings along the way.

From there we walked through Bukchon Hanok Village and had tea and rice puffs from a peaceful place. We sat on the floor and had a nice view of the city. We continued to walk through the village, and Damin found this amazing place down the back of an alley. It was the best food I’ve had here yet. We had a medley of Korean dishes. After that we walked through a modern neighborhood packed with night life called Itaewon. It was more upscale than the night prior.