Saturday May 17th, 2025
As for the past two days we have had a later start to the day meeting at 9.30. The extra sleep has been helping us all keep up with the busy schedule and lots of walking. The weather today was thankfully mostly sunny and got a cloudy later towards the afternoon, and only started to drizzle once we got back after the day ended thankfully. We first set off for Bukchon Hanok village which was a 40 minute bus and metro ride away. Bukchon directly translates to ‘north village’ where many high ranking officials and other important people had lived. During Japanese occupation a wealthy Korean businessman bought a large plot of the land as to preserve the culture and houses as the Japanese were trying to erase it. The village area was quite small itself but has very cute small streets and alleys lined with older traditional houses. There were full coin machines that gave our fortunes which was fun to read and translate.
After visiting the village we made our way to a buddhist temple where we could watch a sutta which is the buddhist version of a sermon and translates to ‘well spoken’ as we watched the monks and other citizens gather to listen. The master monk who leads the sutta earns his role through being a monk for minimum 30 years. The whole area had strings of lanterns with wishes on them hanging above the entrance and main area. They were very colorful and provided shade and beautiful scenery. The temple was very pretty and had 3 huge gold buddhas and very colorful intricate designs on the inside. I liked seeing how all the locals would gather and listen as the master monk spoke and played calming music.
We later stopped by Isadong which is a more expensive shopping area filled with vintage, small shops, and vendors. We visited a few vintage shops where the owner who was an elderly lady helped pick out items for us and tell us what was good or not, she was the sweetest lady and tried to help us a bunch. We briefly walked around before heading to lunch which was an all vegetarian meal. I got the kimchi bibimbap that had an egg on top, it was very good and served in a hot pot which made some of the rice and egg crunchy and yummy. After lunch we stopped by a small stream that had fish before continuing to shop in Isadong. After our shopping a few friends and I went to get a sweet treat and stopped by a place that does the shaved ice desserts and cake, we got a slice of chocolate cake, strawberry shaved ice, and a strawberry tiramisu; all which were very nice and light and not too sweet. My friends and I too the bus back to the hotel which was another 40 mins back and found dinner on our own.
