South Korea 2022: Starbucks Reserve, Gyeongbokgung Palace & Bukchon Hanok Village
Day 2
Let’s just start the day bright and early - today were off to a Starbucks Reserve for some drinks and eats. I’m starting to collect those been there mugs from Starbucks, so that was my goal but also reserve stores usually have something different/special… so that’s why we go to them. Starbucks sure you can find them anywhere but they’re not all the same. This isn’t the special Roasteries that only exist in 6 or so locations (like the one in Seattle and Tokyo?) but… let’s go
Image: https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2018/starbucks-opens-largest-store-in-south-korea/
STARBUCKS RESERVE - JONG-RO
I didn’t realize this when planning but apparently this is the biggest Starbucks in Korea - love that. The bottom floor was only for take out and had a few standing tables if you quickly wanted to drink your coffee and leave. Then, there was this “golden” (it was a light wood) staircase that went to the second floor and the second floor is pretty big - there is tons of places to sit on the second floor.
Of course, you’ll find the typical drinks at this Starbucks but with Reserve’s, they have specialty origin coffees and a lot more food options. We grabbed a few food and drinks and sat down to enjoy.
Something that I never knew they did was with every drink you ordered, you got this small piece of chocolate. I’m not the biggest chocolate eater now but coffee with chocolate? I know that’s a good combo for sure. You shouldn’t be too shocked with Starbucks’ quality, you know it’s going to taste good. The coffee was nice and strong but it wasn’t bitter - smooth. And since I got a caffe latte, it was creamy. So good.
For breakfast, we decided to order this spicy chicken garlic sandwich which they helped us toast up and also a salad. I can start with the salad first. We were kind of craving more vegetables [eat your veggies when you travel yall] which is why we got this salad. It also came with 2 hard boiled eggs. Honestly, there were like 5 leaves of lettuce, I swear. I get that there were 2 eggs but $6.50 for a salad with 2 pieces of lettuce? Definitely not worth it. With the dressing though, it tasted pretty good - not gonna lie.
The spicy chicken garlic sandwich was surprisingly really tasty. It wasn’t too spicy and it wasn’t too garlicky either - it was just flavourful. The bread to filling ratio was really good - there was a HUGE piece of chicken and the bread is like brioche style, so it was slightly sweet. I highly recommend you pick up this sandwich is you go here and it still exists.
Lastly, we picked up a tiramisu (which isn’t pictured). It was pretty tasty and nicely balanced out the less sweet coffees we ordered. My mom said that the tiramisu here was not as good as the one we ordered at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Tokyo. I also picked up a nice colour changing mug that has the special staircase! Spoiler (not) I could not find the been there series mug here or anywhere else… Anyway… highly recommend you stop by this Starbucks if you can.
GYEONGBOKGUNG PALACE
It was such a nice day outside and the palace was I think only a 15-20 minute walk from Starbucks? So after breakfast/lunch, we walked over. Korea has so many of these beautiful trees with bright yellow leaves. And you know that feeling when its nice and sunny outside, its not that hot, its windy and you hear the crunch of the leaves flying around? Yeah, it was that kind of day.
I think they were doing some sort of construction right outside the palace so there were a lot of these random walls propped up and random patches of hay lining the floors… Not the prettiest surrounding I’ve ever seen but it’s fine - we haven’t gone into the palace yet.
If you dressed up in traditional Korean clothing and went to the palace, you would be able to get free entry but entry is only $3 CAD or so. Not bad either way. Right outside they also had some sort of guards standing there - not sure why exactly? I don’t exactly know if there’s actually someone or people of importance that live inside or not. But a lot of people were trying to take photos with them.
Honestly, it’s kind of unreal how big this area is. When you’re outside looking in, it really doesn’t look that big but it does get much bigger. You can enter this area (the image right above this text) for free, you only have to pay if you decide to go though those gates in the back you see in the picture. There were a lot of students here and of course a lot of tourists - some dressed up!
Once you pass through the gate, you can continue walking straight until the end and take a peak inside the palace. That is just the beginning though because if you make a left, there is a HUGE area you can walk through and around - it was kind of amazing. I was shocked how big it was in there.
If you enjoy walking and taking in the scenery, you can definitely spend a good hour or two in this area. Like I said, its surprisingly big and there are benches scattered around so sit down, breathe, and relax! There are also bathroom huts scattered around too so you don’t need to worry about holding anything in while you explore. Though they aren’t the cleanest bathrooms ever so…
When you exit the palace, there are museum’s and other buildings you can explore around the nearby area if that’s your thing.
BUKCHON HANOK VILLAGE
The next place we wanted to go to was the Bukchon Hanok Village which is known for traditional Korean style buildings and a lot of people love to visit and take pictures here. It was about a 20-30 minute walk from the palace, which isn’t too bad, so we walked there.
There are a lot of small shops and cafés as we made our way to the village. We weren’t looking to buy anything specific, so we didn’t really stop by any of them but there are a lot of interesting things to look at. I would have definitely made a few stops at some of the cafés but I wasn’t thirsty/hungry nor was I looking to café hop. Though we did stop by a convenience store for a lil drink before we continued walking - we were about half way there? We decided to try some soy based drinks because we heard soy was really good. We got 3 different kinds, a regular soy, black soy and I think an edamame one? I can’t remember exactly and no I don’t have photos [omg I found the image on Google, see below]. But what I know for certain was that they weren’t good (LOL). Maybe because we’re used to more sweet to neutral (but strong soy flavour) tasting soy milks… these were salty? It was a bit strange - definitely do not recommend.
Source: global.gmarket.co.kr/item?goodscode=2122077531
What’s funny though was - you know those super popular Korean convenience store hauls of those people making mixed iced drinks? - yeah, I was actually trying to look for those so I could make my own cute aesthetic video but for some reason I couldn’t find it anywhere. Maybe this 7-11 just didn’t have it…
The village is actually peoples homes, so you have to remember to be quiet… because real people live there. They have signs and people who work for the city/government walking the streets there. Also, lets not go up to peoples front doors/porches and take aesthetic photos - outside on the street? Yeah, why not. I know I saw some people’s front doors with a sign - not to take photos on their property or make a lot of noise. I can see how it can be really annoying if you have HUNDREDS of people gathering around your house. Though I wouldn’t feel too bad if you really want to visit either, a lot of people do, but just be respectful of the area and people, you know?
Surprisingly, I think it was mid day when we got there and there actually wasn’t too many people. I was kind of shocked. It is a bit of a hike uphill to get to this area so if you weren’t already, make sure you bring comfortable shoes. Plus its like cobblestone-ish, so I would not recommend heels of any kind. There is supposed to be this “look out point” when you made it near the top but I was checking every corner and street near the top but I could not find it. But that’s fine I didn’t need a look out point, it was still a nice view from where we were - you can see Seoul N Tower in the back!
Some of the buildings in the village were actually museums, shops, and things like that. So if you were interesting - it’s kind of like a maze up here. What’s interesting is when you see these cars drive up on a 45° plus incline on a tiny road and you have to shimmy out of the way. I’m just used to these massive streets in Canada - even residential, my road can fit 3 cars side by side.
There are also tons of café in this area but we wanted to stop by this pretty popular one we’ve heard of. We had so much trouble finding Osulloc Tea House because there’s no large sign telling you were it was. All we found was a small metal sign that said its hours of operations and it was right outside a Sulwahsoo… which is a totally different store. There was a set of stairs where the sign was and we did head up but then everyone coming out was holding the Sulwahsoo pamphlet and a worker of that store was standing at the exit there, so I thought it wasn’t there either. We kept walking around looking for it but we had no luck. So I decided to just go up the stairs again because it HAD to be here... there was a sign… because when you go up, there is no other sign… I decided to just continue walking, walking past the worker and lo and behold… it was behind her. So, yes if you go it is up there - just keep walking (lol).
Osulloc Tea House as the name suggests, is a popular tea house - they specialize in Korean tea. You can actually find small shops in places like department stores, so you can pick up tea as souvenirs if you wanted and not have to go to this particular location. This place is pretty popular so its kind of hard to find a seat. They have hot teas, iced teas, tea lattes… we all picked a different drink and got a nice table outside.
It was nice that each drink came with these info cards because honestly, I couldn’t remember what I had ordered. The cards tell you which tea you ordered and the notes. Also, I like how the iced teas came separate from the ice so it wasn’t watered down before I even started to drink it but I’m sure they did it like that because they brewed the hot tea separately. If someone in your life is a tea lover, I highly recommend you pick up something for the store on the first level - so many options! We picked up an iced tea brew option: jeju tangerine and muscat flavour - these were very good!
For dinner, we were supposed to go to a famous samgyetang [it’s ginger chicken soup] (maybe it was Michelin star or maybe on the guide) but it was on the other side of town - we would have to take transit to get there… so we decided to stop by one nearby. It also had pretty good reviews and was on the guide one year.
I got the one with perilla seed, my sister got the original and my mom got the one with abalone. Three different ones but they were pretty similar. Samgyetang is a small whole chicken with glutenous rice, Asian herbs and vegetables and of course ginseng stuffed inside all in a milky chicken and ginseng based broth. If you don’t enjoy that bitter ginseng flavour, this probably isn’t for you. It’s not overly bitter though, so if you’re not picky and or a child, I think you’ll be ok :) Ginseng is supposedly very good for your health. It also came with some kimchi side dishes: your typical cabbage kimchi, radish kimchi, and my personal favourite garlic kimchi. Again, the regular kimchi had this sort of gasoline aftertaste to it - it’s hard to put my tongue on what is it... and it wasn’t just me, my sister and mom said the same thing. This meal isn’t one to be classy, you’ll need to use your hands to really get in there. You’ll eat the meat off the whole chicken and you’ll need to dig into the………. of the chicken to get the rice (lol). My sister said the other restaurant had black chicken and the other restaurant we were supposed to go to was actually much tastier. This restaurant was pretty decent - Baeknyeon Tojong Samgyetang (41 Bukchon-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul, South Korea). I give this place a solid 7/10.
After a whole day of walking around, we were ready to go back to our Airbnb and rest up. It was still pretty early out, I swear it was only 5PM but when its time… its time. So, stay tuned for the next post. Hope you enjoyed this one
-Thomas