Our itinerary for our first day  was to go to Gyeongbokgung (경복궁) Palace. However, since we didn't have a single won in our pockets (save for those credits in our T-money cards), we headed first to the Myeongdong shopping district to search for a money exchange counter and to withdraw from an ATM.

ready for the coldness ouside!

We were fully-clothed when we went outside coz we knew it's gonna be cold! When we went outside, we noticed that we were only the ones in scarves haha so we took it off. Apparently we can stand the cold without it. :p

Finally, the Shinhwa ATMs were working that morning! We happily withdrew some cash then proceeded with the money exchange. We had USDs with us and we were able to exchange it on a rate of $1 = ₩1,100 which was the highest rate that we saw among the money exchange counters in Myeongdong. Lucky for us!

Now that we have money (yay!) we now searched a place to have our breakfast. We went in to the first one we saw (because we were already hungry!).

Behold, our first decent meal in Seoul!


We ordered two servings of bibimbap (비빔밥). The rest of the others are the side dishes.

Hmm all I can say is that I have tasted bibimbaps in the past that are way better than this one. -___-

After the meal (we were only able to eat less than 1/4 of that bibimbap xD), we did a quick tour around the shopping district.






Lots of stores and makeup outlets! Anyway now that we were done with our money stuff, we went our way to Gyeongbokgung palace!