Author: Maren Hanetho

Saturday is shoppingday! We first went to the Silk market which turned out to be more like a fancy depatment store. If you want the famous brands more reasonbly priced this is the place to be. We were more in the mood for a marked. So after looking around here moved on to the Pearl marked.

Pearl Marked was a super fun and intense marked. With everything from Electronics to clothes. We have done a little reaserch and haggeling is expected. And that you can get things at 70% under the asking price. We got a lot of presents here and Trond is a master at haggeling. The experience was so intense so we have no pictures from inside the store. But it was super fun and if you get the chance, derenetly give it a try. The locals think its fun when you haggel with them and all of them was intrested in communicating even if they didn’t know english. We used googel traselate a lot. We had to take a break after some serious shopping, super happy with the experience and our loot. We were also planning how to get our loot to Norway.

We feel very assimilated now, and Maren was super proud when one of the staff asked if she was part chinese.

We did a little research and found the place that the Internett belived to be the best Peking duck in Bejing. Jingzun Peking Duck Restaurant 京尊烤鸭店 It was truly amazing and the best duck we have tasted. In addition till the traditional way. They also served the crispy skin as sushi bites. Very nice,

we made it, we are in Bejing. The flight went well and we the airport was very efficient. But when we came to the ATM it was not running. And it was the only one. The cabs didn’t accept cards. And we didn’t have internet to use Alipay. We were lucky and a cab driver who were willing to drive us to a ATM found us.

Bejing baby, its going to be an adventure.

Who dosent want to travel to a different era, step out of time and become someone else for a couple of hours. Impossible one might think, but in South Korea this is a common passtime. One dresses up in the clothes of a different century (the Jaseon era is often preferred) and one visits an old site. We visited Gwandeokjeong Hall, dated back as far as 1448. Of course a lot of it has been rebulit, but it is supposed to be consistent with what it originally looked like.

Most of us doen’t own sutible attire for such an exursion, but not to worry, there is usually a rental place close by.

Hanbok rental manmanbok is amazing. It has i vide range of outfits and it costs from 15 – 30 USD to rent an outfit for 2 hours depending on what you want. The efficient staff help you find something you wish to wear and help you put it on. They do your hair and makeup also if you want.

The buidings look amazing and have a lot of intresting facts on display in the various houses.

I have ofthen dreamed of telling off goverment officials.

Trond was not up for playing dressup, but he took the job as pursecarrier and photographer.

We startet our day with a korean breakfast at a place that served traditional korean food and packed lunchbokses. The food was super yummy and didn’t cost much. We had to use Google translate to manage to order, but the people who worked there seemed used to it.

Onjisim makes amazing bagels and cream cheese. Everything is made inhouse and tastes divine. It was so good we had to go back to taste more flavors. The café is located in the Hanok village in Seoul and here you can enjoy an amazing meal in beatiful surroundings.

Walking around Seoul is etertaining enough on its own.

The city is both beatiful and impressive and we love how they have art everywhere.

We are not sure what they children are playing here. Maybe the next season of squid game will explain.

Every now and then the cobbelstones have small faces.

Statues of the twelve animals of the year. Trond is born in the year of the snake and Maren in the year of the tiger.

After a rest at the hotel we went out for dinner at the night market. Where you can get dinner and a show for few thousand won. We could eat here every day 😍🤩

excelent beef!

That stuff in red sauce is tteokbokki, chewy rise big nudler thingy. In a spicy sauce, very nice.

And thi is egg-bread, its a whole egg baked into a sweet pastry, even got some sugar on top. A strange combination – but it works. That might be the fav of the day. Didnt get around to try de-boned chicken legs, but tomorrow!

marshmellow smores filled with strawberry ice cream.

The market, Myeongdog, is pretty big – and also loaded with tourist. So many people that you end up walking in que all the time – but still, so much going on that its worth a couple of hours.

besides all the food stalls, there are tons of shops selling everything, this is also a shopping street during weekdays. There where a couple of strange places.. a shop selling clothes for cats and dogs, more on that later 🙂