My impromptu adventure in Korea continues!

Day 2 started with a simple breakfast at cafe Tous Les Jours, this awesome little cafe on the same street as our hotel. The pastries looked so good and the cafe was just so adorable, we couldn’t resist.

For this day we had planned to visit some of Korea’s most famous palaces and shrines, which are conveniently located pretty close to one another. We hopped on a local bus which dropped us right in front of our first stop – Jongmyo Shrine

Jongmyo shrine is one of Korea’s most important shrines because it enshrines kings and queens of the past. I loved how beautiful and green the shrine was. Look at those beautiful maple leaves, summer was in full swing! We even got to see the shrine cat.

We then decided to walk over to the nearby Changgyeonggung Palace, which was a really bad idea. It was an uphill walk in the sun and with my sister’s injury, we had to make a few stops. Our final stop was at this cute place called Cafe Nieun where we bought a drink. So pretty!

Finally, we then reached Changgyeonggung palace. At this point my sister really had to stop and fix her bandages so we took a little break while exploring the palace grounds. This is the slightly less famous of the 2 big palaces in Seoul, and was pretty clear of tourists – perfect to take aesthetic shots.

while we were staring at the interior of the palace a random dude approached us and told us the significance behind the painting above the throne. Apparently, the sun and moon represent the King and Queen. There are 5 peaks and large conifers that are characteristic of this type of painting.

After slowly exploring the grounds we then decided to grab lunch on the way to our next stop. By this point I was really craving chicken so I searched the local Naver app (which is pretty easy to use if I might add) and stumbled upon this place called Ojoogine. They gave us some sort of chicken stew for two and Y’ALL IT WAS SO GOOD. This was easily one of my favourite meals of the trip.

After lunch we headed to our final destination of the day, Gyeongbokgung palace, which is probably the most famous palace in Korea. It was the main royal palace for a very long time. There were many who had come here in hanboks to take photos against the royal backdrop and mountainous views.

Very sadly, much of the palace grounds are actually reconstructed structures as much of the palace was destroyed by Imperial Japan during the early 20th Century. Still, the grounds were lovely and are slowly being brought to life again.

By the time we were done it was getting dark and we decided to head back to Myeong Dong to decide what to do about dinner. This is when we discovered the local night market! We were still pretty full from eating an entire chicken for lunch so we just had some grilled meat and watermelon juice and called it a day.

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