Exploring Seoul Day 4 - Of hanoks and closed shopping malls

For our second walking tour, we booked the a tour of the Bukchon Hanok Village. I think this place does not require an introduction since almost all the Korea tourist brochures feature shots of this place. We met our guide at Unhyeongung where we found the rest of our tour mates. This tour was much better than our tour the previous day. Our guide was absolutely wonderful and gave us a very good overview of the traditional Korean houses and why they were built this way. She also shared some personal history since her father is originally from the North. I think the psyche of the Koreans is something outsiders really can't understand if you don't have relatives stuck in a place which is so near yet so far. 

We spent quite a bit of time at Unhyeongung, since the Bukchon area was made up of mainly private homes and you can't just enter the houses to take a look. While there were visitors it was really just a handful of people so we could really take our time looking at the sights and taking photos. I would highly recommend you to book the Seoul City Tour for this place. When we finally made it to Bukchon, it was overrun with tourists as expected. Luckily our tour was on a weekday so while it was crowded, a weekend crowd would have been worse as even the locals also go to Bukchon now. As you walk around you will actually notice that a lot of the doors/ gates have notices which tell tourists not to knock or peer into the houses since people are still living there. Our guide was telling us that some people have actually moved out as they couldn't get a good rest cos of all the crowds.

Some clear shots of Bukchon without the crowds

Can you see the noticed on the door? It tells you not to knock or peep into the house

After our tour, we walked around the area for a bit and found a lonely Totoro enjoying the sun.

Since it was our second last day, we decided to venture to Dongdaemun to take a look at the supposedly massive shopping that goes on there. It was however a failed plan. When we went there, NOTHING was opened. I have no idea why but ALL the shops were closed and it looked like a dead town. There was one shopping mall which was opened but I was really looking forward to the wholesale shops. I wasn't expecting to shop up a storm in Dongdaemun but I was disappointed that we missed the buzz of the place. Instead, we went back to Myeongdong and wandered around soaking up the atmosphere.