Three days in Seoul

I wasn't really sure what to expect from Seoul. Friends who have visited have generally liked it, but having not travelled much in Asia and never in winter it was an unknown quantity.

First impressions were good as I sailed through immigration, using the special Olympic lane but not really needing it. Then it was a wait for my bag and a fight with the cash machine - totally different from UK ATMs and initially not giving me money. But obtaining a bus ticket and finding the airport bus was easy and my guesthouse had given me clear instructions for finding them. In fact the manager Jenny came to find me as she was worried I'd got lost!

I stayed just a stone's throw from the Changdeokgung Palace, one of several palaces of the Jeosun Dynasty (approximately 1400-1900) so that was my first stop on a brilliantly clear, frozen morning. Recent snow still lies on the ground in Seoul but they do an excellent job of clearing it up so it's not in anyone's way. The palace, a huge complex of buildings begun in about 1400, looked very pretty with snow on the roofs and icicles on shaded eaves.

Changdeokgung main gate

The ticket included a tour of the so-called Secret Garden, a vast landscaped area behind the main palace of trees and (frozen) ponds and lots of pagodas and pavilions. Our very earnest guide was informative as she led us through the garden, which was very peaceful despite being in the middle of a large city. Afterwards I explored more of the palace, coming across a raccoon which appeared to be living in one of the old underfloor heating systems. That was a surprising extra!

From Changdeokgung I wandered through the old district of Bukchon, where lots of old houses are preserved. Lunch was the Korean staple of bibimbap, basically a bowl of vegetables and rice with a fried egg on top. It comes with lots of little dishes of kimchi (pickled veg) and I also got a small bowl of miso soup. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to pour the soup over the rice so didn't. After a fortnight of NZ food prices it was great to have such a substantial meal for a little more than £5.

The second palace of the day was Gyeongbokgung, previously the main palace of the dynasty. In style it's much like Changdeokgung but is bigger and sprawlier and worth the visit if only for the extraordinary main throne room and the large pavilion behind. There were lots of groups of young Koreans - mostly girls - dressed up in the colourful silk traditional hanbok dresses taking pictures of each other.

I saw more palaces and the royal shrine on the third day (a tour of the De-Militarised Zone taking up day two) although by the end of a wander around Deoksugung Palace I was a bit palaced-out. They're all fairly similar, although I found something in each one which made it worth the trip - a spectacular throne room, or particularly nice decorations. As I'd bought the combination Royal Palaces ticket it didn't cost me much extra; in fact I thought the combination ticket at a total cost of 10,000 won (about £6.50) was a bargain.

Old and new

 Day three's rough aim was to have lunch at Korea's largest market, but it was so very bitterly cold I ended up in a dumpling restaurant at the edge of the market instead and stuffed my face with a mixed dumpling selection, just the thing to line the stomach when it's sub-zero outside. In the evening I went to Gwangjang Market which was within walking distance of my guesthouse - and covered - for a look at their eatery rows. The choices were primarily dumplings (darn ...), variations on things done with offal (not my favourite) and mung bean pancakes.

I opted for the pancakes, but managed to find a stall where you could only get takeaway. Or maybe I needed to sit and then order to eat 'in' at one of the benches next to the stall. In any case the lady was most miffed after wrapping a pancake up in foil to have to unwrap it, stick a quarter of it in a paper cup, and hand me the cup along with the rest of the pancake in a plastic bag. I ate it standing up and it was good but not quite the relaxing meal I'd planned!

Overall I liked Seoul. It's a peculiar mix of the ancient and traditional and the modern. The former is represented in the palaces and old hanok buildings dotted around, and in the many street food stalls which can be found on even the poshest shopping streets. The latter is represented by free wifi everywhere, a clean and efficient metro system, and a craft beer and coffee culture embraced wholeheartedly by the young. It's a big city and I only really scratched the surface, but I feel it might be better explored in spring on foot than in the depths of winter.