We visited two of Seoul’s old palaces, watching the changing of the guard at one of them, before strolling for an hour in beautiful Secret Garden behind Changdeokgung Palace, now in its full autumn glory. From there we took a subway and bus to Seoul Tower to see millions of twinkling electric lights slowly take over from the sun the task of illuminating the city.
Seoulites have discovered coffee and pastries in a big way – we’ve never seen so many nice coffee shops in a city, and it surely must have more patisseries than Paris. We stayed at a guesthouse in the Hongik University District and ate at Korean cafes in the surrounding streets. But it wasn’t all beef and kimchi - we patronized a nearby bakery more times than we should have, leaving each night with assorted pastries (for tomorrow’s breakfast we told ourselves with little conviction). Hongik has become trendy, particularly with young people, and on weekends it throngs with visitors and reverberates to the sounds of excellent street bands and performers, several of whom we saw oozing X-Factor for the enthusiastic crowds watching. Everyone seemed to be having a great time – Seoulites have obviously reached their own personal accommodations with the craziness and dangers from across the border 60 km to the north, and that was great to see too.
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