652 yootongjigu
Hello finally my post about Korea! I have to upload all my photos onto facebook at work because i haven't gotten a new laptop yet hahaha
Touched down in Seoul at about 10+, and after some dilly-dallying, yifang & i missed the last airport bus, and also the last subway train to hyehwa. We managed to get to seoul station at least hahaha so we nua-ed at lotteria trying to figure out how to get to kayeon's house. And we ended up taking this expensive/atas cab but the fare was only ~13,000₩! Still cheap la.
Had breakfast at paris baguette the next morning! (finally visited it but omg the one in sg is so crowded?!) And then headed to gyeongbokgung! The palace is damn big, i really pity the palace servants who had to haul around the king/queen/prince/princess in a sedan chair.
Toksochun samgaetang (ginseng chicken soup) after! This was seriously the bomb. Pretty pricey for korean food standards, but quality! LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT GINSENG! (although after that we learnt that that was probably only about 2 y/o ginseng which was still considered meh in quality)
Visited sejong daewang (King Sejong's statue) before going to the artsy/hipster area insadong/samcheongdong! By then it had started raining so we hid away at this hanok style café/shop! (super cheap drinks, but very expensive handbags)
I think the rain kinda stopped so we headed back and ordered jjajangmyun delivery! You know like how they do it in all the kmovies & dramas. It's really interesting cos they don't deliver with disposable utensil! (except the chopsticks) The delivery people actually do come back later to collect the bowls which you're supposed to leave outside your house! Also turns out that the noodles are yellow hahaha i always thought they were white noodles
Myeongdong time! This place is evil. All the skincare shops lined up and i think i bought at least 1 item from each place i stepped into :/ my money dwindled and i had to go withdraw somemore HAHA Also tried osulloc for the first time and it's pretty damn awesome!! Seorae and mopple (mochi + waffle) at hongdae after! Tried skirt pork (??) but it was really tasty. Moppe is damn good also hahaha thinking of trying to make my own version at home!
Edae and hongdae are also evil places. The shopping is crazy!!!! Spent so much that i felt really broke after. We actually left our shopping bags from edae at the hongdae metro station so that we didn't have to lug around too many things hahaha yus also didn't join us for shopping so yifang and i felt really lost when we coudln't really find what we wanted to eat (japchae, pacheon, samgyupsal etc.) because everything was in korean! So we had to settle for some lousy noodles but at least the place had wifi so kayeon told us there was a nolboo budaejigae there so that was our second dinner! Made up for the terrible noodles with good stew (although nothing impressive) and makgeoli & cider!
Went for the dmz tour too! We settled for the half-day one, which included going to the tunnel (which n. korea dug to secretly enter s. korea), the dorasan observatory, railway station and imjingak. Skipped panmunjom (the place where n. & s. korea meet to do talks) though, which would've been pretty troublesome because apparently they're really strict, even about attire!
Cat cafe! Cats really don't give a shit about you unless you have food...maybe we should've gone to the dog cafe instead hahaha.
We also went to hangang and had fried chicken by the river :D It's pretty amazing how really everyone just orders fried chicken and picks it up from a metro exit hahaha. And there's like a whole bunch of ahjumas who are handing out all the flyers for all the different fried chicken stores! Of course there will be a celeb fronting even a fried chicken store so i think we were choosing between jokwon and boom? Hahahaha
Okay that's enough resizing and adjusting brightness/contrast on my photos. Busan, jeju and the rest of the seoul trip in the next post! (i'm doing this stealthily at work because all my bosses at out and there are only 5 people left in the office haha)