Having visited Nami Island and Garden of Morning Calm the day before, we were pretty tired in the morning. That being said, we had an exciting experience to look forward to! Walking around Gyeongbokgung Palace wearing hanbok, the traditional Korean outfit was in the itinerary.
We woke up a little later than we did the day prior, but it wasn't late either. We had bought breads and sandwiches at Paris Baguette Myeongdong the night before and we had those for breakfast.
We booked a Hanbok experience at Hanboknam via Klook where they had a buy 2 get 1 free for 6-hour rentals. We booked via Klook because it was a lot cheaper than what was listed on the Hanboknam website. However, when we got to Hanboknam we saw a large signage saying that there was a 50% discount for all rentals. I'm not sure if it was a temporary discount or not, but I felt a bit cheated. On top of that, there were many other hanbok rental stores with different styles around the area. I felt like I should've gone there and pick a store on the spot instead.
When we arrived at Hanboknam there was a long lineup. First we lined at the cashier to surrender our passport in exchange of a locker key. After depositing our belongings in the locker, we went to the second floor to choose our hanboks. The kids hanboks were available on the first floor but there weren't that many options for each size. Miss Kiki got talked into a red skirt but she wasn't happy with it and was looking a bit down when we were walking around.
The adults chose hanboks for ourselves, though it wasn't really clear anymore which ones we had paid for. The prices were different for traditional and fancy hanboks but they were all jumbled up in one place and to make it worse, a lot of them had unpleasant odour on them. I had my tanktop inside the hanbok but I wished I had worn a shirt with sleeves instead.
It took a while to lineup for the change room, and even longer to lineup to do the hair. Finally we walked to the palace just a few steps away and got there just in time for the guard performance.
It was very busy in the palace but we still managed to find a few empty spots for some pictures.
We didn't spend too much time exploring the palace as it was already past lunch time. While waiting for our food to arrive, I offered the gloomy looking kid to return to hanboknam to change to a hanbok of her choice. She readily agreed and here it is! I was happy that she didn't sulk and dwell in her sadness and were ready to make things better.
So we had our lunch at another BBQ restaurant across from Hanboknam, and that took a long time because they had forgotten our order. Everyone was getting hangry... though I was probably the hangriest one. :D
After lunch I took Miss Kiki out for pictures in her chosen hanbok. It was drizzling a little but it was still okay to walk around. Miss Kiki loved the way they did her hair.
After everyone finished lunch, we walked to Onion cafe that was the hype of instagram. It was walking distance so Miss Kiki and I went there in our hanboks. Everyone else returned theirs before lunch.
The Onion cafe was very busy, we had to wait for a while before we got a seat. The line to get the sweets was also quite long. Now I can say for sure that the taste is not worth it.
After Onion cafe we started walking to Bukchon Hanok Village but we were cutting it close for the hanbok rental time limit. We took a few pictures at the edge of the village and then Miss Kiki and I rushed back to Hanboknam to return our hanboks.
We made it in time! Please look forward to the next post!
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