Korea Late Winter Sonata 2015 -Seoul - Tosokchon Ginseng Chicken (土俗村参鸡汤）

Mr Love totally fell in love with Samgyetang when we had it in Busan on 1st day of our trip. So much so that when I suggested to visit another famous samgyetang restaurant in Seoul, he was up to it.

The reason we plan a visit to Gyeongbokgong in the morning is to come here for lunch.

Direction are as follow:

1). From Gyeongbokgong station (Line 3), take exit 2.
2). Walk straight out of the exit till you hit the 1st intersection where there is a convenience store.
3). Turn left and you can see a traditional looking house. This is the restaurant.

View once you turn left

My guide book states to come here early at 10-11am to avoid the long queue and we reached at 11.30am where there was a crowd in the restaurant but no queue outside.

Was ushered in to our seats pretty quickly.

Roasting chicken

Main entrance

Street along the restaurant

 There are 2 kinds of seating. Tables with chairs and those without where you will sit on the cushion on the heated flooring.

We had no preference but sensing that we are tourists, the ushers tried finding those with chairs for us. It was full and we went ahead with the one without chairs.

Interior

Free flow side dishes

 There will be a blue card menu on each table and you can check out what to order on it. It will serves as the bill at the end since there is a number on the card and the waiteress will record your order per your table no.

We had wanted to try both the samgyetang an roasted chicken but was told that roasted chicken will not be ready till an hour later due to machine breaking down this morning.

Oh well, so we ordered 1 samgyetang and 1 seafood pancake to share.

Menu/bill

Excited to be sitting the traditional way

 Service here was prompt since I think they will have pre cooked alot of Ginseng chicken stew since it is the main dish of this restaurant.

It was piping hot when served and as usual, a small bottle of Ginseng wine came with it.

Ginseng chicken stew

 The samgyetang is really good, even better than the one we had in Busan. I couldn't pinpoint where exactly the difference is, but this is the better one if I were to choose. That being said, the one we had in Busan was good too.

Mr Love was so impressed with it that he kept drinking the soup, something that was not the norm for him since he dislike soup.

Super big pancake

 Pancake came next and we were impressed by the size. It was huge! Luckily for us, the ajumma who took our orders did not listen to my instructions properly. We had initially ordered 1 samgyetang, 1 roasted chicken and 1 pancake. I had told her specifically that if roasted chicken is not available then she can changed the order to 2 samgyetang and 1 pancake. She didn't and we had 1 less item in the end.

But since the serving here is so big, it was just nice for us.

Back to the pancake, it was generously filled with seafood and spring onion and pan fried to perfection. Mr Love was missing this ever since we came back from Korea.

Napkins

 We took the card to pay the bill after lunch and saw a crowd forming outside the restaurant.

Happy us after lunch

Queue forming

 While walking back to the station, we stopped by Etude house and Innisfree along the street to shop. While people had been raving about going to Myeongdong, I find the shops here having more promotions than Myeongdong branch. And the cool thing is, it was pretty empty and I had the whole shop to myself while picking out items for friends. Hehe.

 2 days later we came back again to Tosokchon as we went watching guard changing parade at Gyeongbokgong. Was even very hungry but Mr Love was pretty insistent about trying the roasted chicken that the guide book had recommended.

The funny thing is, we are the only table that didn't order Samgyetang and shared 1 roasted chicken only. The ajumma who took our order was a bit surprised by our order but didn't say much and left us alone.

Truth to be told, there is nothing special about the roasted chicken. In fact can be described as disappointing as the chicken was too dry for our liking.

Roasted chicken

Side dish

Am still missing the samgyetang as I typed this post :)

Korea Late Winter Sonata 2015 - Seoul -National Palace Museum

The initial plan was to visit Gyeongbukgung (Line 3, exit 5) today since it will allows us to catch up on some sleep from the previous trip to Jeongdongjin.

It will starts our actual tour in Seoul but alas! I didn't notice the fine print on my guide book that the palace is closed on Tuesday since I half expect it to be always open. Mr Love was a bit irritated that I missed out on this information and seems like we made a waste trip here.


Luckily for me, the National Palace Museum of Korea which is right beside of Gyeongbukgong is open and it allows free admission! Seems like we didn't wasted the travel here after all.

The museum opened in 1992 and it displays relics from the Joseon Dynasty. Actually it is later then we realised that the palaces' royal relics are all displayed here and what is left in the palaces are the buildings only.

So depending what you are interested in, you may wanna drop by here instead of the palaces.


The 1st exhibition we went to is Kings of Joseon Dynasty where ideology of the dynasty and how the dynasty was formed was introduced.

It also showcased how the kings or future kings were educated from a young age based on the beliefs of how a successful king should behave. This is not unlike to the Chinese dynasties.

The main attraction of this exhibition hall is the King's throne where it used be placed in the center of main hall. The king will be seated here during state affairs and in audiences with his subjects.

Royal throne

Beautiful flowers that caught my attention instead

Also on displayed are the textbooks that the royals are educated in. The interesteing thing is, it is all in Chinese writings though I couldn't understand the sentences. I guess the way words are phased back then are really different from now.

Textbooks for the royals

Then we saw the royal seals which were engraved with various titles and presented to the Kings during their lifetime or after their deaths.

Some titles included honorfic titles which is to praise their achievements and virtue. Posthumous titles reflects the deeds of the king during his lifetime. Chinese emperor's Shrine titles are presented upon enshrinement of the deceased King's ceremonial tablet after 3 years of morning. Lastly the posthumous honorfic titles are presented in reflection of the deceased kings' reign. Again, these are similar to Chinese Dynasties practices.

The only difference is, Chinese kings' seal comes with Dragons on top of the seal while Korean version comes with turtles.

Golden seals

Jade seals

Seal boxes

Silk cloth to wrap the seal

How to keep a seal

A new king will be appointed on the passing of the current ruler and therefore during the swearing in ceremony his ceremonial robe will need to be that of a mourning son.

Ceremonial robe for new King

Ceremonial head gear

The Genealogy of the Royal family records information of the royal clans It used to records list the names of the king's direct or half brothers. But King Taejong who is worried about conflicts over the throne split the genealogy into three parts and thus narrowing down the legitimate competitors to the throne.

Genealogy of the Royal family

Casing to keep the records

We also saw exhibitions of the Government officials' seals, workplace and many other artifacts used in Royal palace of the dynasty.

Seals of officials

Library

Map of old Seoul

In the olden days, the most dreaded missharp would be fire breaking out in the palace where buildings are built mostly out of wood. Water are store in big containers outside the halls but Koreans still used quite a few talisman which they hope will guard against a fire.


The tailisman is usually engraved with the chinese character of Water which they believe would be able to guard against the fire.

Silver Talisman

Interesting to see these as I always thought such superstition are unique to us Chinese only.

Tailisman that writes out Water

Ceiling decorations of Dragons

Ceiling decorations of Phoenix

Last exhibition of this level would be the Royal court life. This is mainly focus on the life of women in the Royal palace. The Queen who is the primary wife of the King played the role of teaching proper Confucian conduct for all women in the palace and also wife of prominent officials who are given official ranks.

Robe of crown princess

Shoes

Robe of crown prince

It is here that we learnt that while serving meals to the Royal family, there is a standard that you will have to follow. Meaning to say, the dishes are placed in standard positions while serving.

And they do serve alot of things during meal time. Wonder who can finish all these at one go?

Typical meal served in palace

Side table

Hot pot

Standard serving instructions

Kitchen

Cosmetic of the olden days

Vanity counter

Hairband/ Hair Tie

Hair ornaments

Wig

Ornaments

Was hungry by the time we finished the exhibitions on this level and we decided to call it a day here. This was a pleasant surprise to visit since I did not plan to come here but we had gained knowledge and also saw some artifacts of the Joseon Dynasty that was unfamiliar prior to the visit.