In Seoul, we’re staying downtown in the Jongno District, centrally located between all five of the city’s palaces. Like everywhere we’ve been so far, the city also features plenty of shrines. One big difference we’ve noticed between Busan and Seoul is the abundance of sculpture; Seoul feels like an open-air gallery, with public art at nearly every corner. It’s been pleasant to stumble across them throughout the city.

On Friday, our first full day in Seoul, we got an early start, beating the crowds to the Deoksugung Palace. All royal buildings in Korea are painted in the same traditional red, green, and gold color scheme. You might recognize the style from earlier posts.

Within the palace grounds, we discovered a branch of the Contemporary and Modern Art Museum. Kelly and I realized it had been quite a while since we’d visited an art museum (most of our recent stops have been historical), and it made for a nice change of pace. Here are a few of our favorites from the exhibit!

Next, we headed to Gyeonghuigung Palace. No crowd dodging here, though you wouldn’t know it from our photos.

We ended the day at Jamsil Baseball Stadium, home to both the LG Twins and the Doosan Bears. It was a pretty fun cultural experience. No set of food stalls are complete without some fried squid.

The LG Twins, one of Seoul’s professional teams in the KBO (Korea Baseball Organization), were the home team for our game, facing off against the SSG Landers from Incheon.

Besides the Korean street foods, the main difference between KBO games and American baseball was the singing. Nearly every player on the field had their own unique chant or song, many of which were surprisingly complex. Fans didn’t just sing, there were also coordinated dance moves and arm gestures, led by cheerleading squads for both teams. The majority of LG Twins fans sported yellow neck towels (we got one too), which doubled as rally flags, waved in unison with each chant. What really stood out was how constant the chanting was. In the U.S., I’d guess songs and chants take up maybe 3–5% of a game. But in the KBO? More like 90%. It rarely stopped and made for distinctly different atmosphere.