Bukchon Hanok Village
There’s this little area east of Gyeongbokgung Palace that was a delight to visit. A place that’s getting a little more popularity It’s the Bukchon Hanok Village. An area preserving the traditional homes of Korea. And not typical preserving way of turning these homes into museums. No. Everyday people still live in these homes and we tourists get to wander the streets in awe of the architecture.
Some places do allow people inside the gates to look around. Some even rent out places for people to get a full experience. That’s something I would next time I stay in Seoul. The area isn’t too far from the SRMT. About a five minute walk. It felt peaceful walking the streets. There were tourists. Not masses of them debarking form tour buses. Though I see that happening here. Maybe it was an off day. Or maybe it truly wasn’t a must experience in all the travel guides. Please let it be the latter. I really enjoyed the peaceful stroll along the streets.
Food wise we stopped by a restaurant toward the middle of our walk. I don’t have the name, but it was a traditional house turned into a restaurant. It actually turned up as a surprise and lucky for them, I was hungry.
11-9 Gahoe-dong
Jongno-gu
Seoul 110-260, South Korea
+82 02-744-2929
Verdict: It’s one of the few places left that is a whole neighborhood of these traditional houses. And for the restaurant, sure. Stop by there. Good food.
A little more salad then you would expect for the stone pot rice bowl. It’s made up for by the fresh cuts of abalone.
₩9,000KRW
Nice and chewy buckwheat noodle in the sweet vinegar broth. A wonderful way to cool you down after a walk up and down the streets.
₩8,000KRW
My favorite part of the meal, beef rib soup. You can think of it as light, with the mildly flavored soup. Enter the soft fall off the bone ribs and you got yourself a hefty meal. I had mine with rice. So needless to say, I was full by the time we were done.
₩9,000KRW
This would be a nice morning or evening stroll. Did I mention you hardly could hear the traffic?
The traditional among the modern buildings.
It goes without saying, keeping tradition is tough in this world. If you need to put barbed wire around your house there’s got to be bigger issues than vandalism.
Out on to the main street, the number of tourists to locals diminishes.
Here’s the place I’ll stay at next time. From the outside, it looks like another well kept traditional home. What I learned later, this was a Korean guest house. A place where you’re embedded in the traditional style and eating of Korea.
This was actually the first home we ran across. It happened to be one with an open door. We couldn’t tell if we were allowed in or not. Best not be the tourists that didn’t know any better.
For those who are looking for the place, you see this, you’re pretty close by. Just follow the street up and you’ll find it.