Adventure Time Korea: Bukchon Hanok Village in Seoul

Accidental shot from my selfie stick

Just because you are living in Korea and even in Seoul, doesn't mean you shouldn't take the time to do the touristy things. I think a lot of the time people want to be distinguished as a local rather than a tourist. But.... there is nothing wrong with being a tourist. It's fun to see things and do the tourist thing every once and awhile. It's great being a local and knowing the best dives and having the ahjumma at the kimbap restaurant know your favorite roll. However, it's also fun trying new things and going to the popular places that the tourists are flocking too.

This brings me to one of our many tourist weekends in Seoul. This weekend's focus was the Bukchon Hanok Village, which is a small area filled with Korean traditional houses. If you take the subway line 3 and get off at Anguk Station, you walk right into the village. It does take some walking but you can follow the crowds of people or just wonder around until you find something. There is a lot of walking with this and many hills to go up and down but these are well worth a look. You can roam up and down the streets looking at traditional houses. There are shops along the way and if you would like you can even rent a hanbok (Korean traditional clothing) to wear as you walk around. Great for pictures and the experience. When you walk up to the top you get some great views of Seoul.

There are a lot of museums in the area. One of the best is the Traditional House Museum. It gives you the opportunity to walk through a traditional house and yard. You can read the history and use of each room. It was really interesting to look through and had a beautiful garden. I couldn't tell you how to get here though... we literally happened upon it while we were exploring the houses. (You are going to read that a lot in this post.... actually in this blog). You can't actually walk through the rooms in the house. But you can look into the windows and doors like a peeper. The museum is free. You can walk right in and start exploring. (Pro Tip: It's also the only free bathroom in the area, so you get a free museum trip and a free bathroom. Complete score!)

Must have shot of our coffee

When we came down from the Village, we needed coffee because well we always need coffee. There is a road with tons of restaurants and coffee shops. I'm not going to lie, most of the places in the area are overpriced because it is for tourists. The word bougie went through my head when we passed by a lot of the shops. But we did end up finding this really cool coffee shop. It was up a steep stairway and the name is definitely what drew us in. The shop was great with tons of paraphernalia and cool artifacts around the shop. The guy behind this counter was super nice and his English was great. It is mainly coffee and juices, we were actually hoping for smoothies, but the coffee was not a disappointment.It was a great break from the heat because we were sweating like pigs.

We did it! Yeah!

I don't know if I should be in here

After our coffee break (read air conditioning break because summer in Korea is death), we went on with the exploring. Once again.... this is one of those things where we just kept walking and happened upon a mountain. We decided it was a must to climb up it. Samcheong Mountain was the name and we were determined to see what was at the top. There were a million trillion bijillion stairs. I love exercising.... however I was dying up these stairs. We had to take so many breaks (embarassing side story, I sweat from my knees pretty bad.... I know it's weird. Anyways I was wearing red jeans that day and it looked like my knees were faucets leaking water. My friends haven't let my knee sweat go to this day). I wanted to give up a lot but it was well worth the climb because the top was amazing. We ended up on a wall with cubbies (sniper holes that we don't know if we were supposed to climb in... it didn't say not to go in.... please don't deport me) to climb in and views of Seoul that were amazing. Apparently if you keep going you need your ID or military clearance... I don't know... We stopped because we had left one friend behind because she was scared of heights and crying on the wall.

Once we came back down, you would think we were done. But no we kept walking and found the Korean Folk Museum (once again, happened upon... it's a pattern). This is also a free museum you can walk through. There are restaurants and lots of other museums in the area. There are some beautiful temples and more historical things to look at. There is a kids zone with fun crafts to do. You can see men and women walking around in traditional clothing. We had fun walking through it and taking pictures and reading the signs (all of these were in Korean and English). There were some statues of the Chinese zodiacs that you can take your picture with, so of course we did that.

After walking through the Folk Museum, we were officially done. Our feet hurt, we needed a shower, and we stank.... like super stinky foreigners walking around. We decided it was time to head back. But if you want to keep going, there is a lot more to see. You don't have to know the way or use your phone to find anything. We only knew the first stop and from there we were constantly "lost". We did lots of fun things and all of this was just happened upon while walking around. Don't forget to be complete tourists and take lots of pictures for the gram. And definitely don't forget your selfie stick, you'll need it and you won't be a proper tourist without it.