April 1, 2019 A day in Seoul, Korea

Today we are going on  a Highlights of Seoul tour. 

We will visit the Gyeongbokgung Palace, have a Korean style BBQ lunch and then walk through a traditional Korean neighborhood.


http://www.royalpalace.go.kr:8080/html/eng_gbg/data/data_01.jsp

Incheon skyline

Seoul skyline

 Our ride to the Palace took about 30 mins and we got there in time to enter the complex and then walk to the entrance to get ready to see the traditional changing of the guard.

It was impressive to see the soldiers change their positions with the music and drums.

Once it was over we were taken to see the many buildings in the castle

 

 While walking we observed groups and pairs of women and girls wearing traditional Korean dress. Some men dressed in traditional dress too.  Later we saw a store that rented the clothing for the day.

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Some of our group posed with the women for a photo and we decided to do so too. We asked one group and they were more than happy to let up take a photo with them.


Next stop was the downtown where we got off the bus and walked to our restaurant. The custom was to take off our shoes and put them in the shoe rack and then enter.
We were seated at tables of 4 with the grill in the center of the table. Since we were a large group two tables were pushed together.
The meal was pork with rice and other side dishes. One person at a time could grill their meat. 

The food was very tastyand the experience was great.

Afterwards we had some free time to walk the pedestrian mall and shop before gathering to go to our last stop.



We drove for about 5 mins to another part of the downtown and got off the bus. Our guide led us up a narrow road (large enough for one car to pass) to show us the older tradition style homes of Korea. The homes were very nice. When we went down another road to go back to the bus we saw the dress rental shop.

Back to the ship in time for tea/coffee and rest before dinner.
It was a very nice day.