➹ autumn finds at insadong

It was my second time exploring the bustling streets of Insadong last Autumn. The light morning rain has just ended as we walked through the twisting alleys from Bosingak tower and into the main street of Insadong. Our first landmark was the Starbucks shop with the 한글 signage. This has always been and still is a fascinating sight (curiously so).


The streets were full of shoppers and office folks heading for or from lunch. The shops lining the streets had everything from Korean souvenirs to fall/ winter gear. We ourselves were on the lookout for cute scarves, gloves and bonnets and there were infinite options! But we weren't really planning on shopping at Insadong. I had this preconceived notion that souvenir shopping is best done at Namdaemun and then clothes+cosmetic shopping is best done at Myeongdong or Dongdaemun. Insadong for me was more for cultural immersion and finding those quirky uniquely Korean stuff... and I suppose I got this from reading so many write-ups on Seoul travels! In any case, I may have had a shift in perspective after this trip cos I did find lots of great regular stuff at Insadong which I regret not buying later ...

So anyway, because we weren't on our serious shopping-mode, we had our cameras busy clicking away but it was a bit challenging since there's soooo much to look at while at the same time, we had to be cautious not to bump into other pedestrians along the way ^^.




We headed to Ssamziegil and I was kind of sad that there were no Christmas suspensions yet on the middle of the courtyard.



Nevertheless, there were endless picture options!




I love this corner so much!!!


Autumn has created a charming aura on the rooftop garden ...


We ended our tour with a coffee break at this cafe. The cream cheese pretzel was soooo good ^^.




I wish we stayed longer at Insadong but we wanted to catch the changing of guards at Deoksugung so we had to hurry off. There were definitely a LOT more stuff to see than we had time for. I think I can even spend the entire afternoon browsing around the shops there! But yeah, that will be a plan for next time~