Gyeongbokgung Palace 경복궁 & Lotte World 롯데월드

First full day in Seoul and Ilisha and I both were super excited about exploring the city. Our main focus was visiting the Gyeongbokgung Palace and Lotte World. We obviously didn't think it through before because we were basically dead by the end of the day. 

On our way to find breakfast around the area, we came across the Police Station in Myeong-dong. How cute are these friendly looking animated statues outside the station!

Cases and cases of strawberries on a cart right off of the street!

Our hotel was only a block away from the Lotte Department store!

The entrance for the subway and we went down the escalator because it said there was an underground mall! Most of the stores were closed and some were preparing for opening but even then, the underground mall was huuuuuge. 

After walking for what felt like an eternity at the underground mall, we picked an exit and exited. We ended up in the City Hall area, which was super pretty. We also spotted a temple/palace across the street so as the adventurous tourists we were, we went closer. 

How pretty is the drum!

We ended up grabbing a quick breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts.. how ironic. It was both our first times eating at Dunkin's ever and our first time would be in Korea.

Since I haven't been to Dunkin' Donuts in the States, I'm not sure if these items were out of the ordinary/the typical items they serve at Dunkin's but they had some really interesting donut options, as you can see below.

All the options! Ilisha ordered an egg panini, an egg tart, and iced milk tea and I ordered some grilled cheese, tater tots (sorry stomach, mama's on vacation), and hot milk tea. We ended up with a lot more than we ordered though! I got my grilled cheese on top of a grilled cheese with cranberries and walnuts?... And Ilisha found surprise meat (just kidding, it was ham.. or turkey) inside of her egg panini. Great start to our day!

After we had enough of watching the homeless guy outside of Dunkin' Donuts try to get the people walking by to look at his book or whatever he was holding, we headed to the Gyeongbokgun Palace! From Dunkin's, we literally had to follow the main road and it lead right to the palace. 

On our way to the palace, we passed by the Gwanghwamun Plaza where there was a statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin, who was a Korean Naval Commander. He was considered a hero for his famous battles against the Japanese (who were the ones invading Korea).

Super colorful flowers surrounding the statues in the Plaza. 

This is me trying to get a picture in with the flowers but my dear photographer (ahem) decided to take a wider shot, making me look super awkward kneeling right next to the flowers. 

We then encountered this little booth where people were trying on hanbok, traditional Korean clothing. I (of course) had to see how much it was to get into one of those pretty dresses! It turned out to be FREE. Yes, free. And I love free things! So here we were (below) with Ilisha being the King.

^ The six columns.

I wonder how much maintenance is needed in order to keep the flowers blooming!

We made it to the Gyeongbokgung Palace! There was a huge wall before entering and it's called the Gwanghwamun Gate, which had real guards (we thought they were fake at first) guarding the exterior dressed in traditional guard uniforms. 

This guy is probably Instagram famous. Lol!

The Gyeongbokgung Palace was built in 1395 (holy crap, that's 619 years old!) and is the grandest of all five palaces in Seoul. During the Imjinwaeran War, the Palace was destroyed but the close to 8,000 rooms were later restored.

This is the second palace I've been to! It was super pretty. The admission was ₩3,000 per person and ₩1,000 for our audio MP3 guide, which is always helpful in understand the background of everything.

We got a glimpse of the the King's residing quarters.

This was the garden area behind the Queen's residing quarters. 

And then this is the actual garden.

While we were walking through the garden, this lady came up to us asking if she can interview us for EBS, which is the Educational Broadcasting System (similar to PBS in the States). We were interviewed separately on a topic that she plans on covering, which was either travel agencies or food/cooking. We couldn't relate to travel agencies and I love food/cooking so it's the obvious choice. It airs June 4th and 5th! Definitely an interesting experience.

The Guard changing ceremony! I wonder how many times these guards have done it.

After we witnessed the guard changing ceremony, it was around 1PM. Since it was still early and we wanted to be proactive today, we headed out for Lotte World! To get there, we had to take the Subway for the first time. We had to purchase a Single Journey ticket where we had to select our destination and pay accordingly. We had to pay a deposit of ₩500 and once we reached our destination, we can put the ticket in the machine to get our deposit back.

Stopped by Mango Six, which is apparently a popular franchise in Korea known for their mango products (hence the name). 

Grape lemonade on the left and my Citron tea on the right. Nomz. 

We originally went to get our tickets for Lotte World, but I believe it was around 3PM by the time we arrived, after 4PM the ticket price goes down ₩10,000. Since we have yet have lunch, we decided to go eat and wait until after 4PM to go! There was a Lotte Department Store in the same building (surprise, surprise) and we found the food court!

Ilisha's Omelete Rice, which was super yummy. 

It was finally 4PM and we headed over the buy our tickets! Lotte World is basically a huge theme park. Indoors and outdoors, which is called Magic Island! It's actually in Guinness World's Record as the world's largest indoor theme park. The theme park was filled with rides, ice rink, and a lake. 

We definitely underestimated these teacups. They were MUCH more intense than we had originally anticipated. That actually can be said for a lot of the rides we went on. 

Magic Island side

For those who know me. Knows that I hate roller coasters, especially the ones that goes upside down or the ones that DROP. So imagine how I was feeling when I was forced onto this ride below called the Gyro Drop. A steep (understatement) drop with an altitude of 70 meters. I was shaking for awhile after the ride. It just kept on going up and up and then stopped. When the ride stopped at the top, so did my heart. And then we dropped and I died.

Mmmm mmmm mm never in my life. Cain't trust it.

The overall experience of Lotte World was a pleasant one. Like most theme parks, there were a lot of look at and the rides were definitely one of a kind (not that I'm a theme park expert..). But it's definitely one of my highlights of this trip! It is a bit pricey, but comparing the admissions price to Lotte World to Great America or Six Flags or even Disneyland is actually really reasonable and affordable. Highly recommended!

Final remarks:

1. Head to the Gyeongbokgung Palace and learn more about the history of Korea through their royal palace. Accessible via Gyeongbokgung Palace Station (Seoul Subway Line 3), Exit 5. Or, Gwanghwamun Station (Seoul Subway Line 5), Exit 2.

(22, Sajik-ro 9-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul | 서울특별시 종로구 사직로9길 22 (필운동))

2. Try a drink with mangoes at Mango Six! 

3. Reserve half a day and visit Lotte World. A must especially if you have children. Accessible via Jamsil Station (Seoul Subway Line 2 & 8), Exit 4.

(240, Olympic-ro, Songpa-gu, Seoul | 서울특별시 송파구 올림픽로 240 (잠실동))