after a mostly jet-lagged day that ended in a truly world-shifting korean bbq experience
we were so ready to get outside and experience our first full day of seoul
it turns out doing little to no research was exactly the fun and exciting part of travel
we've been missing we could have never predicted what soul had in store for us
you guys ready to go good morning yes we are you guys ready
this city is massive mind-bogglingly huge
which means we first had to figure out how to even get around no no way dude there's
like a thousand stops where did he even start where are where saturday morning and we are
uh exploring the train station to try and figure out yeah how all of this works that
turned out to be a much bigger job and a much more humbling experience than we had imagined
come on after a lot of google translate shuffling of change we finally got our fancy t-money card
cheesiest thing we've ever done oh which one do you want these are essentially magic plastic
cards that you load money onto and they get you access to almost everything in south korea
and i really mean everything buses trains taxis mcdonald's vending machines even baseball games
after months of searching for atms and carrying loads of cash with us everywhere we traveled
having this tiny and adorable card that's accepted everywhere was a total game changer for us
that was the quietest form of public transportation i've ever taken i don't know
if you're like just there was literally nobody talking on that entire train for the whole time
we were on i don't even know if i'm supposed to be talking here for those of you out there know
what you're supposed to do if like never talk on the subway or sometimes again it's just felt oddly
quiet we got off at our first stop on our way to the palace but we're immediately stopped in
our tracks by this incredible ai experience right in the middle of the metro station
after a quick pit stop to learn some interesting facts about the history of seoul
from robots we arrive at a station that is almost as beautiful as the palace itself
apparently legend has it that if you pass through that gate you
will not be old forever i don't know what that means does that mean i'll be young
i'm blown away one seoul's public transportation is so awesome there's so many signs so easy to
follow now we just got out of the station and we're right in front of the palace
it is stunning this i love this city i love seoul i love seoul so much so much
but first lunch we're on the hunt for some lunch brunch for josh and i but already we turned the
street and there's so many beautiful cute cafes i could wander around these streets for a while
picking out a restaurant in south korea is primarily an act of faith for us
where usually we would just hop onto google maps press the restaurants nearby button and pick
one out based on thousands of reviews here we're basically going in with little to no information
at all find a place yep we have no idea what they serve but i'm really excited it smells super good
most of our normal travel tools maps directions reviews they're effectively useless here in fact
naver and cacao are the go-to here and they're primarily all in korean okay let's see what
we got here you want some tea yes okay so we got a korean rice tea is what she said
that's nice very nice we just happened upon this
beautiful restaurant don't know the name really it's not on google maps it's not on naver map and
we have a full spread this is fun yay so what we've been finding out with every restaurant that
we go to is that no matter what you order you're gonna get like the thing you ordered and then
like 20 other small dishes of other things that we're not quite sure yet but it's always kimchi
it's really nice there's a little call button anytime you need something
you can press the button and it goes bing-bong and then someone will come and help you
so what'd you get i got the pollock the most famous dish here
i might have underestimated or overestimated my spicy tolerance
spicy and sweet i like it it's very good
bones and everything very tender another point for under preparing we would have
never found this restaurant if we relied on our good friend google god that was so good
we make our way back to explore the palace and are thrilled to find that we can even use our team
money cards to get in you can use your cute team money cards here as soon as we stepped onto the
palace grounds we were immediately transported to a completely different time and place
is apparently the largest of five different palaces that still exist here in seoul
the complex is pretty large too it holds not just the palace but
also the national palace museum as well as the national folk museum
we just heard some really awesome sounding drums and see a crowd for me so must go
a few times per day the changing of the guard ceremony happens right
in front of the palace gates we were lucky enough to catch the last one that day
as soon as we leave the palace we're met with more loud sounds
it wasn't drums this time though today has also been a day of massive protests all across seoul
i don't really know what they're protesting like we can't figure that part out unfortunately but
it seems like today is some sort of big organized protest happening throughout the city
we just walked down the main street here made it to toksugong palace and it is beautiful a
quiet retreat it's a much smaller palace than the last one that we were at today has turned
out to be a little bit of an interesting day because we intended to see all the historical
sites of seoul and we certainly have in visiting all the palaces but we're also getting a mix of
modern and all of it and history being made right now with i think five or six different protests
just happening right outside it's a really fascinating and cool city to be in right now
so apparently somewhere in here is something called the stone wall walkway and that thing
is famous for a lot of reasons it's beautiful it's wonderful it's a nice long walk but i think
the thing it's most famous for is apparently if you walk on it you are destined to break up with
whoever you walk on it with so obviously we're not going
i don't think this is it is this it i don't think it's hit i don't know i'm worried now
every every every stonewall looking thing has got me i don't i don't think this is it
i never thought that i would see this style of
building and architecture in a korean traditional palace
another thing that i've noticed is that i am far far too tall so it involves a lot of
a lot of that to get around for me are you hungry yes dinner time
so we just started wandering and uh we happened upon one of the largest
traditional markets here in seoul and it is massive and there's so many cool things
it's honestly all pretty overwhelming you just walk into the market and all of a
sudden you're just like assaulted by colors smells everything just
everything's for sale there's so many people trying to sell stuff to you but it's all done
very politely we don't even really know where to look or where to start we're trying to get dinner
there are a lot of places that sell these mung bean pancakes seem to be very popular and then
there's also a bunch of donuts but no real like no restaurants yet we just we're just getting lost in
they're here and sugary all of this for three thousand so like three bucks
what's in there i think this is mung bean on the inside
it all just feels like this kind of wonderful calm
chaos there's just so much availability of everything here what a cool market
lisa just hopped in line for the most popular dumplings uh on the street i don't know if
it's gonna happen the line is it's pretty cutthroat in here too if you even look like
you're not in line for an eighth of a second someone's just gonna hop right in front of him
that was a battle that was fun there they've got they've got a whole system
down like those ladies in there are just they're all business you got the it's like
i'm still processing they bring out like all the freshly cooked buns and i figured out there's one
spicy and one not spicy and then they bring it all out and then people order them in big old
boxes so then there's this like fear that oh no by the time i get to the front are you gonna run
out which happened once but then i got five i'm so excited look at all these fresh dumplings really
thick and nice doughy doughy wrapping and you can tell these are homemade like they were
they were making them in the kitchen just batches of them batches of them
no spicy this is so good juicy there's like pork and noodles and
bits of green onion in it just decompressing now that was that was an experience i mean it
was more fun to actually just get in line and and not understand anything that was happening
and come out of it and understanding maybe like 30 of it the one thing that i've been thinking about
all day is just how incredibly walkable this city is it just feels like pedestrians come first and
it's been a long time since we've since we felt that way the sidewalks are absolutely massive and
they're reserved just for people walking you're not sharing with motorbikes which has been our
experience most of the other places that we've been there's just so much life everybody's out all
the time walking around and just feels like the city is very very alive in a very good way i know
we've only been here like 24 hours but it feels like we're all kind of falling in love with seoul
there's so much of seoul that i already really really love but i think my favorite
part is all the really small alleyways that are just full of amazing restaurants
like this one we were just walking and bam here's everybody and all the food
so we found this great little pub here we're just picking up a couple of snacks
a couple snacks a lot of snacks and pizza and beer before we go and head out for
what we understand is the most important meal of the day which is second dinner to find our second
dinner we headed to a very hip part of town it's a maze of small streets easy to get lost in here
but there's not really a wrong place to go the things we kept noticing korean barbecue
photo booth and ice cream so we did as the locals did oh yeah we have to get props okay
oh wow
oh
okay aren't we all making silly faces
and next up on the local thing to do here seeing everybody with this purple and pink ice cream
we gotta have it
this tastes exactly like the milk at the end of a bowl of trick cereal and for that
this is the best dessert in the world the churro is really good it's like
it's like chewy mochi churro i think this one's my favorite to walk off all the
delicious food that we had during the day we ended the night at the heart of seoul
where are we this is so
cool there's more
i wish i could really fully encapsulate how beautiful this river walk is with all these lit
up pieces of artwork the peony the fish and the dragons oh it's so beautiful
you're just gonna have to come here for yourself and see
oh my gosh i think my favorite part about this entire experience is just how many people are
out and about how many people here in seoul are just enjoying this beautiful beautiful
night it is a total scene and a scene that i am in love with some might say soul is so cool
sorry won't happen again tour of big cities on this trip soul is winning
hands down so far oh big word it's so cool sorry i said it wouldn't happen again and then it just
wouldn't happen again just uh so many cheesy puns here some cities are best experienced little by
little with a little bit of research and planning seoul however is a city best experienced all-in
we were we were we were i i was not i don't what am i saying oh okay
hold on let me think of what i'm gonna say thank you very overall where are you going
okay very good all right
can you just get it together in your hair
how's that the only thing that i didn't account for was just how complicated it was
what am i supposed to say now
hello today
so the requirement to merit spend hours here just shopping did you see did i mention
how beautiful the flowers are flowers here really pretty everyone comes here for botany
nobody nobody comes here still still nobody comes everybody
hi kitty
what do you got to tell us so many things to say