Korea (Seoul & Jeju) 2013 14-28 Oct (Day 5)

After a day of too much food yesterday, I guess today can't be any worse off... haha

We woke up with no agenda and was invited by a Korean friend for lunch. We were to meet at the restaurant, Sanneri (山內里) located at 146-1 Gye-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, Tel: 02-7479700 . If you're going by the train, take to Anguk Station (Line 3) exit 3, after you come out of the stairs, walk straight for about 30m to the intersection, turn left, walk for about 20m and you'll see the restaurant. You can check it out at their website, www.sanneri.com.

This is highly recommended. It was a nice traditional restaurant and we had a room to ourselves.

My apologies for the blurry pic

Had excellent service although we didn't understand a word that was said. Our host ordered a set meal and we dutifully (a.k.a happily) ate everything placed in front of us. 

You will not believe the amount of food served. Each picture shows individual serving unless stated otherwise... here goes...

1st dish...

Blueberry salad

 ... followed by...

kimchi

 ... followed by...

Raw fish

 ... followed by...

Kimchi pancake, can't remember what, fish
(This pic is 2 person portion)

 ... followed by...

Hobakjuk (mung bean noodles)

 ...followed by...

Beef bulgogi
(2 person portion)

 ... followed by...

Stingray

 ... followed by...

Not sure of the name but its some Korean noodle

 ... followed by this wonderful dish with yummy blueberry dressing. The long stick-like things you see on top are ginseng cut into strips and the flavours blended so well... one of my favourite dishes...

... and this is the ultimate... raw beef on a bed of radish topped with pine nuts... I was a little squirmish when told what it was, but I was game to try any Korean food placed in front of me, so I mixed it up and took the first bite... it was... soooo... GOOOODDD!!!! This became my favourite dish of the meal... The beef was so so tender and the sesame oil was so fragrant, and the radish was so sweet, the flavours seemed to just explode in your mouth... you MUST try this.

... followed by...

Fried octopus

... followed by... Korean beef patties with vegetables at the side. The patties were so juicy and flavourful. Eaten with the crunchy vegetables, it was heavenly. The flavours of the beef and vegetables were more than enough and I didn't need to dip it into the sauce.

... followed by... "dunno what" soup... but it was nice, I liked it, although my friends didn't really like it.

Soup

... followed by super soft and tender pork... soo good and its coming from someone (ME!!) who don't normally eat fatty pork.

... tired yet??? Next dish smoked duck... which was oh so tender, juicy and so rich in taste... 

... I think the climax is over... something simple came out... unpolished rice eaten with side dishes...

... just when I thought the next dish would be dessert, out came the next dish... it was some fish that tasted like sardines cooked with radish and it was so yum too.

By now, we were nearly exploding, and then this soup came out. We were wondering when will the food ever stop??? 

Any more dishes and I would've puked out everything that I've swallowed. But being the nice guests that we were, even if they were to bring out more food, we would've eaten it.

Thank goodness we saw the light at the end of the tunnel, or the last dish at the end of the set meal... phew...

After the fruit, we had this tea that tasted like sour plum wash it all down, and hopefully to help us digest the how many course (I lost count?!?!) set lunch.

If you must know, this was the aftermath of the whole lunch. We nearly wiped off everything. I was shocked too at our capacity.

After such a satisfying and filling (more like over filling) lunch, we MUST definitely walk it all off. We decided to stroll across town to visit Gyeongbukgung, since it wasn't opened the other day.

Ah, so this is what HRH King Sejeong looks like in the day.

Walk further down and its the palace. Gyeongbukgung is also known as the "Northern Palace" because its the furthest north when compared to the other nearby palaces.

Upon entering you'll see the main entrance into the palace grounds.

There were free guided tours and you can go find out the timings near the ticketing counters. Its pretty interesting as you'll get to know more about Korean history and culture.

This is one of the halls where HRH conducted his official affairs.

This is actually one of the bedrooms of the royals. It was so interesting to note that all these are raised above ground level and there are mini furnaces beneath heating up the flooring, thereby keeping the bedrooms warm and the royals don't get cold feet.

Grounds were very big. Apparently, the premises were destroyed by fire in the 1500s and the 7,700 rooms were only restored in 1852-1919

As we had such a filling lunch, we didn't really have much in the night. Well, it was good walking exercise after eating so much. We had to pack our luggage as we were checking out tomorrow to move to another hotel. Another one of our travel mates will be arriving tomorrow evening.