On Friday night, we rented a traditional Korean guesthouse, a hanok. The entire house was ours for the evening!
A bit worn out on traditional Korean food and also incredibly lazy, we decided to go the other end of the spectrum for food on our way back from Gyeongbokgung: beer and chicken, Korea’s other love.
After lots of beer and lots of chicken, this thing with the face masks happened with all of Marie’s spare free face masks.
We also got some Baskin Robbins, which is home of pop rocks in ice cream and intricate little ice cream cakes that blew our minds. Perfect ice cream stars, little bees, monsters, bows, and colorful cakes filled a freezer in the front of the store.
After our traditional Korean Baskin Robbins, we promptly fell into a sugar coma back at our hanok and fell asleep.
The hanok itself was very cute – polished wood floors, private courtyard, and freshly-baked bread in the morning for us when we got up. They also made their own yogurt and jams and had a ton of teas.
In the morning, we went for a walk around Bukchon. People don’t come out before ten unless they are old people who walk along the Han River with foreigners in pajamas who have jet lag, so we walked the quiet streets without having to worry about being run down by a car.
Bukchon was hilly and labyrinthine and filled with traditional crafts, other hanoks, and tea places.
After leaving our hanok at 11, the day accidentally became a crafty day of Korean things.
First, we tried our hand at Korean knot-tying in one of the places in Bukchon. The lady had infinite patience with our stupid foreign faces and I’m still not sure if we succeeded or if we were really ok at tying the knots on our necklaces.
She was probably just being polite, but our necklaces turned out ok, I think!
Then, we headed back to Insadong for Hanbok photos – pictures in traditional Korean dress. They’re really popular with Korean girls and couples, and many catered to foreigners, too. For a nominal fee, they let you dress up, take a professional photo of you (or your group), and do your hair and makeup.
They had a ton of little stages you could go and take your own photos on, too – complete with fans, swords, and other props
Most of the Korean groups were focused on being cute in some way, usually facilitated by selfie sticks or photographer boyfriends, but we took those props to a whole new level.
After several hours of chaos in the hanbok studio, we checked in to our hotel (headed to Jeju on Sunday for real this time, unlike my lie in yesterday’s blog post), and then we hit up the Hello Kitty Cafe in Hongdae before calling it a night.
