Korea | Day 2 - Changdeokgung, Secret Garden & Insadong
My guesthouse had posted a photo of an apricot colored cherry blossom tree at Changdeokgung, a few days ago saying, “NOW”. This is pretty much why I went. I never found this tree. :( Maybe I was too late? I got to the ticket booth by 10:30AM and the 11AM tour of the Secret Garden was sold out and the next available tour was 1:30PM. It was a 30 min trip to get here and I didn’t wanna find something else to do and have to come back. So I bought the tickets and spent 3 (way too many) hours in Changdeokgung Palace. I think the last hour I just sat down. Overall, there’s nothing much to see. You’ve seen one palace, you’ve seen them all.
Overall, I felt unimpressed and under-stimulated. I started to get cold, so went to the cafe to get some hot chocolate and wait around until the tour.
One tip would be to stay at the back of your tour. I did this so I could wait for everyone else to vacate, and quickly take my own photos without a billion people in the frame. You will probably notice an ahjussi staying at the back of the group and hurrying you along when your group gets too far ahead.
Again...I felt like the garden was lacking a “WOW” factor and like I had wasted my whole day at the place with very unimpressive cherry blossoms. Maybe it might look better in the fall...?
After the tour was over, I walked back to Anguk Station (take exit #3 to get to the palace) and went back in to come out at exit #6, to get to Insadong. By now I’m starving since I didn’t eat all day. Mission: Street Food. Now. No photos of said street food, because I didn’t have the patience to take photos of it. I just wanted to get it in mah bellay. ^^ But I saw some drum dance on my way to get food.
As for the food, I ended up having: tteokbokki, a hotteok, a tornado potato, a long island iced tea (woo! felt that one even after eating all that food), and once I got back to my guesthouse, haribo gummy bears. Cause that was necessary... ^^;;;
On my way back to Anguk Station to head “home”, I stopped at a $10 everything bag store, and picked up a backpack. I didn’t get anything else because I couldn’t decide on a color or which style, from two other purses. And when I can’t decide, I will buy them both. But I’m trying to not splurge too much, so since I couldn’t choose, I didn’t get either. The bag on the left is the one I got yesterday in the Myeongdong Station, just before going out of exit #6.
And lastly, I had to get these two socks. Mostly because I need more long socks for my boots, since the small ones tend to “fall down” with these shoes. And I didn’t pack enough cause I knew I’d want to buy a bunch here. Both of these together reminded me of McDonalds. lol After paying for them, I THEN noticed a french fries one. -_- But I didn’t want to go back in to pay for another one. And of course, I needed to buy more chopsticks and spoons, because this is all I use now at home. But after putting my chopsticks (only had one pair) in the dishwasher, one mysteriously disappeared. :( And I could always use more spoons! Regular spoons are no longer the same.