Seoul, Day 3 (2025): Hanok Villages, Palaces, & Omakase at Kyochon Pilbang
Up until this point, the weather was pretty balmy, but a cold front came in making it much chillier than the first couple of days we were in Seoul. And unfortunately for us, the plan for today was to be outside to look at some palaces and walking through a couple of the hanok villages.
Our first stop was Ikseondong Hanok Village, an area full of cute cafes, stores, hanoks (traditional Korean houses), and various narrow walkways that you could get yourself lost in. With numerous options for breakfast, we went to Cafe Highwaist for some scones and coffee. The Christmas decor was super cute and the display of scones looked amazing:
Nick and I got an apple scone and a chocolate scone along with a couple of coffee drinks. To be honest, the scones were a bit dry, so the jam from my scone helped give it some added moisture. In retrospect, I think we should have come for their beautiful cakes later as an afternoon snack, although that didn’t stop some of the other patrons from having cake at 11 in the morning.
We then wandered around Ikseondong to appreciate the area, get some famous salt bread, and do a little shopping. The entryways to many of the stores were beautiful, especially given the small size they have to work with:
There was one cute clothing store that Tiffany wanted to check out, but the entrance and the ceiling height posed a challenge to some of us:
We all survived the store without any concussions, success!
Nearby Ikseondong are the palaces, which are a short walk away. The main palace, Gyeongbokgung, is closed on Tuesdays, the day we were there, so we went to the smaller Changdeokgung and Changgyeonggung Palaces. You will need to buy tickets to go inside, but the price is around a few dollars per person.
The bigger of the two, Changdeokgung, was built to be the secondary palace, but even though it’s smaller than Gyeongbokgung, it’s still an impressive site to walk through. The original palace was destroyed in 1592, but has been rebuilt and restored since then. Walking through the various large gates and around the large plazas in front of ornately painted buildings offers a glimpse into the royal life centuries ago:
With the ticket to Changdeokgung, you can buy a ticket to the adjoining Changgyeonggung Palace for something like $1. It’s less crowded than Changdeokgung, which made for some nice photos of the grounds, especially with the autumn leaves in view:
There were many groups of people dressed in hanbok taking photos, but they all looked extremely cold, so we were happy we didn’t opt for that. Also, I don’t think they’d have any hanbok in Nick’s size…
At this point, we had been walking outside for a couple of hours in the winter weather, and we wanted to find a coffee shop to briefly cozy up with a warm drink. It took a while of walking and getting a bit lost, but we finally made it to Tonti Coffee, a cute cafe that we could only find because of a sign they had on the main road. The owners were so nice! They asked us where we were from and we said Seattle, and they were so appreciative of us visiting them, even though I’m pretty sure we weren’t the only non-Koreans there. We ordered some much needed hot coffee drinks and enjoyed being out of the cold:
We chatted a bit with the owners before we left, and they told us that the person who makes their cakes and desserts either is from Portland or lived in Portland before moving to Seoul, so we had a PNW connection with them. But yeah, they were so sweet and welcoming—we were happy that we took an unplanned coffee break to stop here!
From here, it was a short walk to the famous Bukchon Hanok Village, a residential area with many restored traditional hanoks. Since it’s a huge tourist stop, it will always be full of people walking and taking photos, so in an attempt to mitigate the crowd disruption, there are multiple attendants who will monitor the area and may tell you to be quiet if you’re too loud.
We tried to take some photos, but the main walkway was extremely crowded and even the side streets were full of people taking pictures:
We continued to walk around the more commercial parts of the area, where we saw a cute Innisfree storefront and looked at some clothes by Minju Kim, the first winner of the Next in Fashion show on Netflix:
I actually found a pair of pants that looked cute, but since she mainly designs women’s clothes, they didn’t have a size that would be near my waist size.
Further down the road was this awesome looking Baskin Robbins:
We didn’t stop in this time because it was waaaaay too cold for ice cream, and also because we wanted to get a snack from a small mandu shop:
We didn’t want to eat that much because we had a cool dinner planned later, but like many stores in Korea, they required one order per person, so we had to order four dishes. Each one was made to order and were delicious!
We walked around a bit more before deciding that we should head back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.
After getting changed and freshening up a bit, we took a taxi to Kyochon Pilbang in Itaewon. They’re known for their fried chicken where you’re served sauces and paint brushes to paint onto your chicken. It’s incredibly popular and when we arrived, there was a line out the door, primarily with people on the waitlist. Fortunately for us, I made a reservation in advance not for the main dining room, but for their omakase dinner instead, which is held in a six-person room in the back. We were a little late because the line to check-in was longer than we expected, so I wasn’t able to take any photos going in, but here’s the room as we left:
Besides the food, the other notable aspect of the restaurant is the decor, which I wish I was able to take more photos of. I think Pilbang means paintbrush in Korean, so the theme of the restaurant is based around that with calligraphy brushes everywhere, such as in the lobby:
To open the main door to the restaurant, you pull down on a large paintbrush to reveal the door and the actual entrance. As mentioned before, the line was so long that the door was held open because of the line so the effect was sort of lost because of it.
Once we were seated, our awesome chef behind the counter, Jinkoo, introduced himself and also gave a brief description of the omakase dinner. The menu was already placed for each of us, and everything on it sounded delicious!
After taking our drink order, the amuse bouche arrived:
Jinkoo was always behind the bar cooking, so during our meal, we enjoyed talking to him and answering his questions about Seattle (apparently, he hasn’t had anyone from Seattle dine at the omakase counter when he was the chef). He even told us that a couple of days ago, a couple came for omakase as a blind date. After the first course was served, the woman excused herself to the bathroom and never returned. Jinkoo said that after a few minutes, someone from the front of the restaurant asked him through his earpiece if she had returned, and he said no. They sent a female staff member check the restroom and she also said that the woman was not there. A few minutes later, Jinkoo said that he saw a text from her to the man that said ‘not my type,’ so she basically ditched him and left him to pay for both dinners. Obviously he was distraught, but the other diners wanted to cheer him up, so they paid for some drinks for him, and they all got drunk together to ease his pain. Still, it’s shocking that someone would just up and leave after literally a few minutes of being introduced. Jinkoo, pulling no punches, said that she wasn’t even that pretty.
Anyway, back to our dinner, we had no such drama, and we continued our meal with possibly the best Scotch Egg we’ve ever had:
As we enjoyed our current dish, Jinkoo would be busy prepping the next two dishes, so there was always constant action on the other side of the counter. The rest of the meal was delicious and wonderfully prepared; my only regret was that I didn’t have any room left to enjoy the chicken and rice dish:
It was such an amazing dinner with fun filled conversation all around. We even got a photo with Chef Jinkoo before we left:
As we left, the host asked us how the omakase was, and we told him we loved it. He responded that he thinks that the main dining experience is better, so I guess we’ll have to go back!
We took a taxi back to the hotel to relax and rest up for tomorrow’s adventure, a day trip to Suwon!