Wearing Hanbok at Gyeongbokgung Palace: Day Two in Seoul

Day two in South Korea. We spent the night at the rooftop hostel and I kind of dig it. The only catch is the stairs. We’re on the fourth floor and there’s no elevator, so it’s two flights every time you forget something.

Breakfast is included, but it’s a light one. Toast, cereal, coffee, the usual stuff. Today we hired someone to drive us around Seoul for the day and go sightseeing, so we ate and waited out front for our ride.

Back in the Staria, Four Stops Today

Our ride is a Hyundai Staria again. Very popular vehicle here and a very nice looking one too. They use Starias here like Honda Civics. I love the look of this car and America needs it.

We’re doing four locations today. First stop is Gyeongbokgung, the largest of the five grand palaces in Seoul.

The Foam on Every Car Door

On the way over I noticed something in the parking lots. A lot of cars here have foam strips stuck to the sides of their doors. My first guess was door dings, and then I talked myself out of it on camera.

Turns out the first guess was right. The damage has its own name here, 문콕, munkok, which is literally a door poke. The foam is a door guard, 도어가드, and the reason it caught on is that parking stalls here were only 2.3 metres wide until the standard was widened in 2019. Older garages are still built to the old size.

The part that surprised me: you put the guard on your own car. It’s not there to protect the car next to you.

I Kept Calling It a Handbook

Next we were headed to get, and I quote myself here, “a handbook.” I thought it was some kind of package you buy that includes the entrance fees.

It’s hanbok. One word, no “oo” in the middle, and it is not a package at all. It’s traditional Korean clothing. The relationship I had backwards: you don’t buy a package that includes admission, you wear the clothes and the palace lets you in free.

South Korea has been letting anyone in hanbok into the royal palaces free since 2013, four of them plus Jongmyo Shrine. Gyeongbokgung admission was 3,000 won at the time, a bit over $2, so the free entry is not really the point. The point is that the whole street outside the palace is full of rental shops, and they are busy.

Hanbok Town

We crossed the street to a shop called Hanbok Town. That stoplight was long.

Inside it’s racks and racks of outfits, floor to ceiling, and staff who dress you. Standard rental around here runs roughly 15,000 to 25,000 won for the four hour package, about $11 to $18. We all got dressed up except Al, who has done this before.

I ended up in pink with a wide black gat on my head. Head to toe drip, as the kids call it. It’s silk, it’s soft, and it’s genuinely comfortable.

One real problem though. No pockets. I’m carrying phones, cameras, everything, and there is nowhere to put any of it. You go from having pockets to being a guy holding things for four hours.

A Bunch of Corrections

Once we were inside I finally understood what I was wearing, so here are the corrections.

Hanbok is the outfit, not a tour package. It’s traditional dress. Someone told me the pink was what priests wore, and that’s not right either. Pink is 분홍, closer to “powder red,” and in the Joseon court it was restricted to senior officials.

A few more that are worth knowing before you pick a color off the rack:

• White is what most Koreans actually wore. Undyed hemp.
• Red wards off evil and was the king’s daily robe.
• Yellow was the emperor’s color, and nobody else was allowed to wear it until 1897.

No Drone Zone

Walking up to the gate there’s a machine I couldn’t figure out, looked like a blower, and then a sign that settled a different question. No drone zone. Good thing I didn’t bring it.

There was a presentation going on at the gate when we walked up. I thought I heard it was a changing of the guards, and it was, in full color. Beautiful colors, really awesome to walk into.

Inside the Palace

Gyeongbokgung was built in 1395 and it is the largest of Seoul’s five grand palaces, so the “supposedly” I said on camera was unnecessary. It’s a huge site. Painted beams, red pillars, courtyards that keep opening into more courtyards.

The kids were into it for about an hour, which is about right. There is a lot of shade under the colonnades, and that mattered more as the morning went on.

The Pond, and the Blue House to the North

Further in there’s another area with a body of water in the middle of it, and it’s the best part of the grounds. The building sitting on stone pillars over the pond is Gyeonghoeru, the king’s banquet hall. The name means “virtuous meeting.” It burned in 1592 and was rebuilt in 1867, and kings came here to pray for rain.

Directly north of the palace is the Blue House, 청와대, which is South Korea’s version of the White House. I said prime minister on camera. It’s the president.

Worth knowing if you go: when we visited in May 2025 the president wasn’t actually working there. The office had moved to Yongsan in 2022 and the Blue House was open to the public as a tourist site. That ended in August 2025, and the presidential office moved back to the Blue House at the end of December 2025, so you can’t just walk in anymore.

Returning the Hanbok

By this point the weather had warmed up and the hanbok had stopped being fun. It’s silk, it’s layered, and I am not a fan of heat. Cold I’m fine with. Warm and wrapped in two layers of silk, less so.

So we walked back across the street and returned everything, and it was much cooler right away. Very interesting experience, and I’d tell anyone coming to Seoul to do it. Just go in the morning, before the heat.

It’s almost lunch time and we still have three more stops on the list. Next episode.

This post is based on our travel vlog. Watch the full video below for all the moments, reactions, and footage from the day.