Welcome back to Tales From Our Pocket. We are in a brand new
country for us. We are coming to you from...
(we don't know what we've done)
(but this is blowing my mind. Hey you guys look like you had
some bibimbap. Where'd you get it? Bibim-burger?)
We are so excited to be in this kimchi loving nation. We are starting our trip here in Seoul
and after we're done, we're going to pick up a car and drive into the countryside, where we're
going to take a deeper look at the culture and the traditions of Korea, as well as exploring the
stunning Countryside that is here in Korea. We are starting our trip today here in the Bukchon Hanok
Village. This is a traditional village that has been preserved, and it is beautiful. Let's take
a look around before we head off to the Korea Folk Museum, and then we're ending our day at
a beautiful palace that gets lit up at night. It should be beautiful! We don't have tickets,
so we're going to have to stand in line. Fingers crossed that we can get in! And, oh,
we better try some Korean food. We are so excited to be here. Let's go check out the village.
What a great way to start our trip to Korea. This is beautiful. All
of the architectural elements are just...
ah nuts. We love all the architectural elements. All of the lines and the squares that we see
integrated into the architecture, it's absolutely beautiful. To have the place almost to ourselves
this morning has been incredible, but now we are quite hungry, so we're going to go back and have
some breakfast. We will pick you up again over at the Korea Folk Museum. See you there!
Seoul has the cutest public parks! Like that one.
And we are at the Korea FolkMuseum! It's free to get into. How amazing is that? Is that a thing
in Seoul? Are most of the museums free? We have no idea. Anyhow, we walked in because it's free
and it looks like it's really big. We are here hoping to learn more about Korean history, so we
understand what we see the next few weeks while we explore Korea. I guess, let's go learn something!
This is a house, a building that was built in the 1850s,
and was moved here in order to be preserved - sort of like the open air folk museums that we
love so much in Europe. I was not expecting to see one of these here in Korea. I love these.
We just came around the corner and it looks like they maybe have transported some shops from
elsewhere in Korea to here. This is so cool! I was not expecting it to look like this. I think barber
shops look the same everywhere in the world. Neat! I thought it would be more of an enclosed museum,
that you walk around in and see exhibits of maybe clothing, that would tell us the history about
Korea. Not this open concept. This is so cool.
Many of these graphic novels are in cases, but
some are available to be looked at, including one that looks like Aladdin!
This is a print shop and the sign out front says that this manual machine right in front of us
is the only one like it left in the entire world. This looks like it was a restaurant. Based on how
many coffee houses we've seen, we think a coffee house is really important to Korean culture.
They've got a little one right here. We're going to step inside and it has a really cool phone
outside. I've always wanted a red phone! It's free coffee! Free coffee. Very sugary, free coffee.
A little sweet even for me.
The more we travel, the more we realize the world is all the same. The
classroom here - presumably old, although there isn't a sign that says so - looks just like the
classrooms back home, that are older. That's really cool. We seem to have forgotten our
school uniforms. All right, that was amazing. This shop just behind us has school uniforms that you
can try on, but they're like adult-sized school uniforms that even fit us large Americans. You're
able to put them on, and then it has instructions to sit and wait five seconds. They'll take a
photo, and we're like, okay, what is this going to end up on the internet somewhere? What happens?
It prints out a photo of what are you wearing! That was amazing! It was completely free! Oh
my gosh. We were skeptical, but that was really neat. It even fit me. I'm pretty large. It was fun.
No? Probably not. No, no. Okay.
Now that we found some signs, we realized that we just took a "walk down memory lane".
It's fun, even if it wasn't our memories.
Bill found a new wife, and a kitty.
I wish cooking was this easy.
We just left the indoor section of the National Folk Museum of Korea. This was an incredible
museum. I cannot believe it was free. It was so interactive! We learned so much about the
way of life that used to exist here in Korea, before modernization. It actually was really
similar to like farmers and rural way of life back in the United States, so again,
I'm struck by how small the world really is when it comes to some of the things that we do in our
daily lives. Now we need to see whether there's anything else to do outside the Folk Museum,
and then we are headed to something that I am super excited about: Korean barbecue. I've been
looking forward to this for a long time. A really long time. I am so excited! We have
a place all chosen that's not far from here, so there better not be anything else to look at out
here. I think we just need to go have some Korean barbecue. That's what's up next, and we're hungry.
We have the place that we've chosen for our Korean barbecue,
and there are a lot of plates on the table. I hope they show us what to do with all this stuff,
because, does it all go on the meat? I have no idea. No idea
what we're doing. It's very exciting. All right, it's pork belly and pork shoulder.
I'm putting this one in what looks like a Himalayan sea salt and also some mustard.
Okay, he just said to put it in fish sauce. We do what he says.
Okay, all right. I'm going to try my first pork belly.
That is so good! It's just tender and it melts in your mouth. We have learned that
you just take all the toppings that you want. You put them on a piece of lettuce,
and then you shove the whole thing in your mouth all at once. You're
going to fit all that in your mouth? This is not going to go well for me.
I can't fit all this in. [proceeds to fit it all in]
The aftermath.
Well, that was fantastic. Just a good amount of food. Everything was really tasty, much better
and more interesting, I think, than the Korean barbecue we've had back home. That was delicious.
If all the food here in Korea tastes like that, I'm going to go home having gained weight instead
of lost it (which is normally what we do when we travel). It was delicious. I can't wait to have
that over and over again while we're here. For now, we're off to stand in line at the palace.
We're hoping to get in for the lights at night. It only happens for a couple months each
year, and we were not able to get tickets for it, so it's off to the line we go.
We made it in! This is the first and main Royal Palace (Gyeongbokgung) here in Seoul. We decided
to see it at night because we have a different one we want to see during the day. It's beautiful
all lit up, and everybody walking around - some of them are wearing traditional wear,
which is a lot of fun to see. I mean, it's beautiful. It matches the ambiance of the lights,
and kind of makes you go back in time. I'm really glad that we came here in the evening.
We are tired. We are full, and we are happy. If this first day in Seoul is any indication of how
this trip is going to go, we are in for some surprises and a whole lot of fun. We are super
excited for the next two weeks, and if you enjoyed this video, do us a favor hit the like button
below and think about subscribing. We have a lot more to come on Korea, and we're probably going
a few places that'll surprise you. See you in the next video! Thank you so much for watching. Bye!