August 18, 2006
Changdeok Palace and Seoul Wang Donkaseu
I recently met a friend of mine at Anguk subway station in Seoul. We went to Changdeok Palace (Changdeokgung) via exit 3. This palace is only for people on tours so you ahve to arrive at the right time (when an English tour is leaving). We didn't but we figured we'd try a Korean tour since we both speak a little.
Well our Korean wasn't good enough to understand the tour guide's speeches about the history of the palace and whatnot, but we saw the same stuff everyone else did and there are a few signs with English explanations so we had a fine time. The buildings a re a ways apart so we had to do some walking.
If you do care about understanding the tour guide, Lonely Planet Seoul says that Tuesday through Sunday English tours start at 11:30, 1:00, and 3:30.
Admission was cheap at 3,000 Won or about 3 dollars. I did notice some special tours that were 15,000 - I think they might cover more of the palace grounds, but even our cheap tour was about 90 minutes which seemed long enough to us.
After that, we went to the most famous pork cutlet (donkaseu) place in Seoul. It has been on every TV station in Korea (or so it seems) and is famous for having huge, delicious pork cutlets.
Well they were big. I didn't measure them, but I believe that they were the promised 21 cm. I can't say that the taste was any better than usual donkaseu however.
Finding this place will be a real challenge if you don't speak Korean. You'll probably need a Korean friend to help you out. I'm not going to go too crazy trying to teach you how to get there since it wasn't all that great anyway.
If you do speak Korean there's one near Hyehwa station (02-766-9370) and another one somewhere I've never heard of (Bang E Jum or - this will look funny if you don't have a Korean font installed on your computer - 방이점). That one is 02-420-9988.
Back at HyeHwa station, we decided to get something to drink since this is a rather busy area. There are tons of bars and coffee shops mixed in with the restaurants, shops, karaoke rooms, etc. My friend was rather upset that his Corona didn't come with either lime or lemon (the place didn't have either). I was happy that they gave me my green tea for free (since it wasn't on the menu).
All in all, it was a fun day. I definitely recommend Changdeok Palace. Walking around Hyehwa is cool. The restaurant is truly Korean culture (very popular with the locals) but size isn't everything and the pork cutlets just weren't that great.
Posted by James Trotta at August 18, 2006 4:21 AM