Gyeongbokgung Palace

Yesterday was our busiest day yet.  We started out by ordering our own breakfast at Tae Geuk Dang bakery down the hill from the hotel.  We were completely clueless as to what to order, but Angie is always good about asking. She looked up the word for "breakfast" (achim) and "what do you recommend" (mwo chucheonhae jusillaeyo) in our handy dandy lonely planet guide, and asked a very nice lady who suggested a big-sized roll that they could cut into quarters.  It looked like it was custard-filled but otherwise was the size of a half-loaf of bread. When they served it, it turned out to be filled by a cross between egg salad and cole slaw, with a Korean twist of course. Surprise!  Angie and I ate the whole thing, and frankie even ate a couple of bite.  But, both girls really had ice cream sandwiches instead.

We took the subway down to Gyeongbokgung Palace, seat of power in Korea during the Josean dynasty from the 1500's to 1910.  The palace included a history museum, a changing of the guard reenactment, and lots of old stuff in general.

This is the stupa from the high-monk Jigwang-guska, a masterpiece of ancient Korean stone stupas, believed to have been built around 1085, making it the oldest thing we saw today. It was built during the Goryea dynasty, the one that came before the Joseans.  The Goryea palace is about a kilometer away and we'll visit it later this week.

Somehow, Bee and Frankie's Korean outfit wound up in a museum.  Who knew?

This guard was clearly intimidated by Bee and Frankie.

After the palace we met Angie's friend Miyun and went to a very nice noodle restaurant.  We finished the day in a place that was very familiar to us...