Seoul Getaway Day 2: Insadong

After wandering around the palace grounds, we headed to Insadong, a shopping district that becomes a pedestrian street on the weekends. It's rather well known for maintaining a traditional feel, even though it has many modern shops.

Rather crappy photo of an exquisitely colored hanbok.

Coming from Gyeongbukgong, heading to Insadong.

Such a cool sculpture!

It looks wet, but it's not!

Northern entrance to Insadong.

For all your calligraphic needs.

Should have stopped in to see how Korean and Japanese paper are similar/different.

Cutie outside our restaurant.

Inside of the restaurant.

KIMCHI JJIGAE. MY BELOVED.

Kimchi jjigae and banchan. This meal filled me with such joy.

Chijimi, a vegetable pancake that somewhat tastes like latkes to me.

Hello, oh healthy and delicious kimchi stew thing.

Rather rad building full of boutique stores along ramps that travel up to the building's roof.

It was quite crowded. A lot of the stores sold crafty, expensive things.

For some reason, this shot of swanky apartments reminds me of NYC.

Garden near the roof.

A very charming building indeed

Though perhaps not fun to shop in when it's raining.

The stairs on the way down were covered in all manners of very, very cool graffiti.

Cardboard whale art.

Guess what this is! (And don't peek in the bottom left corner!)

Hahahahaha.

Groovy architecture that reminds me somewhat of the Umeda Sky Building in Osaka.

Red Mango!! Japan doesn't really buy into the low-cal frozen yogurt thing, so this was a treat. Unfortunately they didn't have as many fruit selections as the American stores do (in fact, their only fruit options were different flavors of jam), but it was better than nothing!