Day 3 & 4: Everland, Gwangjang, Dongdaemun, Namsan

Hello! I'm such a baaad blogger for keep delaying my South Korea trip's blogposts. I'm sorry! T^T. I've been busy with college and I'm always at the gym or on my bed doing nothing during my leisure time ;p. Now I'm currently having my eid holiday for 1week+ ! I'm going to Bali tomorrow but before that, I should blog about my day 3 and 4 in Korea~

This was my 3rd time visiting Everland. 1st time in 2002, 2nd time in 2011, and 3rd time in 2016. Nothing's changed drastically... So yeah all I did there was riding just the thrilling rides like T-rex (my fav). 

TIPS: I purchased the ticket through Funko . It's cheaper and they also got a bus trip (seoul-everland-seoul) package, so it's easier than riding train to Everland. Do purchase the ticket earlier before your departure date to Korea because you need to print the receipt & show it to the tour!

The flowers at Everland at that time were my favorite part on that day! They're currently having a Tulip Festival. They're all real flowers!

The queue in Everland's famous rides can be horribly long! My tip -> Ask for 'single rider' at the ride's queue staff. You'll be separated from your friends as you'll ride alone and sit at the empty seat of other groups' odd numbers, but it will definitely save more time.

From Everland, we chose to be dropped off at Myeongdong to have dinner and shoppppp!

The next morning, we went to Gwangjang Market to have breakfast and try the famous food there. I was disappointed as the food wasn't special and you can find much more delicious food at other street stalls. Mungbean pancake was bland, oily, and expensive (4000 won for this gorengan!! T.T). Japchae was also bland and cold.
The only memorable dish that I had there was the Live Octopus Sashimi. It's around 13000 won which was expensiveeeee but it's tasty! Watch it on my VLOG!

From Gwangjang Market, it turned out that Dongdaemun can be reached by walking distance. So happy when I passed by beautiful flowers in front of JW Mariott Hotel in Dongdaemun!

Next destination was this famous DDP (Dongdaemun Design Plaza). Seoul Fashion Week took place in DDP. Inside the building, there were many art installments / exhibitions. From DDP, there were many fashion malls nearby like Doota, Hyundai Outlet, Lotte Fit In, etc.

TIPS: Try Baek Mi Dang soft serve ice cream in Hyundai Outlet (B1 floor). It uses organic milk & soy milk! The cone is also delicious & crunchy! Inside Hyundai Outlet, you can also find Banana Milk Cafe & Honey Butter cafe!! :)

Our lunch was this yuuuummyyy Jjimdak (braised chicken stew) in Lotte Fit In. We had this after we watched K-LIVE Concert ;)

 

After that, we went to Myeongdong again and walked to Namsan Tower. We spent the entire evening there. It's my 2nd time to Namsan but 1st time going there till the sun went down. So beautiful!

See ya in next post!
Do watch my Video Diary :)

South Korea Video Diary

Flower Party at Han Gang, Bukchon, and Poop Museum - 2nd Day in Seoul

On our 2nd day in Korea, we went to quite a lot of places. We got out quite early like around 9am to go to Seoul station to purchase our korail pass for our trip to Busan.

FYI, Korail Pass is a special pass given to foreigners that can be used for inter-city trains (like KTX, mugunghwa, etc.. but not the mrt!). It has 1-3-ad 5 days pass option and it's DEFINITELY cheaper if you want to go back and forth (seoul-busan-seoul) using KTX than purchasing the normal KTX tickets. You can find the prices here. You can pre-book the ticket online and pay using credit card but you still have to exchange it at the airport / seoul station.

Found my fav flower, Daisy at Yeoui-do Park!

The cherry blossom tree above is honestly a fake tree. I think it's provided for tourists who came there when cherry blossom season's already over (like me). But the trees look real, right? lol. Cherry blossom ending by Busker Busker was played when we're there!!

From Seoul station, we took the train to Yeoui naru station. Yeouido's park is super beautiful!

It's also big and we walked a lot when we're strolling around the area.

I was surprised to find that there were still a few cherry blossom trees there!! I couldn't stop taking selfies as it's my first time touching real cherry blossom flowers! I really wished my mom were there to witness it too since she's a flower addict! :')

There were lots of beautiful yellow tullips! It's also my first time witnessing real tullip flower too..

Then we went to Bukchon Hanok Village. It was my first time visiting Bukchon and I also wanted to take pic wearing Han bok (korean traditional clothing).

Not far from Anguk Station's exit, there's a crowded restaurant for samgyupsal (grilled pork belly) and kalguksu . It's full of locals so we're eager to try it as we wanted to have lunch too ! The samgyupsal was delicious but the soup was bland for us (need MSG so baaadd. lol)

The cheapest hanbok rental in Bukchon was in Bukchon-ro 12 Gil (you just have to keep walking up from the Bukchon Hanok Village street enterance to a small alley, then you'll find "Wear Traditional Clothing Hanbok Experience" sign). It's 7000 won but they don't provide photographers/ studio. The lady at the store was not that friendly either when we requested to change the color of our costume (well, we pay for it so we can ask for requests right?).

Other hanbok rentals with photographers/studio will charge you 20.000-35.000 won!

This was the only hanbok that fit my body. The others were too big & long T_T. Anyway I felt so fat wearing hanbok & I looked like a balloon!

When we're walking back to Anguk station to move to Insa-dong, I was hungry again and craving for tteokbboki. I also tried soondae (blood sausage). It was spicy but not that tasty. Soondae tasted quite bland and it's surprisingly not smelly as I thought before.

Arrived at Insa-dong, we went to Ssamzie-gil (unique shopping complex where each floor is connected with a spiral staircase, so when you take a stroll there, you'll pass every shop). There were also many cool wall arts !

We also happen to find Poopoo Land (Poop museum) in Insa-dong. It's small but it's quite funny as we had to pass 'human's digestive system' from the start line till the finish line of the museum! Can't wait to share u the video!

Last destination of the day was STYLENANDA in Hongdae. Yay for the free photobox!

We had budae jjigae (korean army base stew - spicy soup with ramen, sweet potato noodles, sausages, tofu, onions, spams, and kimchi as toppings inside) for late dinner in Hongdae. It's delicious and I slept really well that night with a happy tummy and sore feet after walking all day long! Hehehe

First Day in Seoul

Hello everyone! How are you? Term 2 had ended last April and I didn't get the chance to update my blog because I went to South Korea for 12 days straightly after I finished my final projects ;P.

This was my 3rd trip to South Korea and this time I went with my friend Leslie! I found cheap airplane tickets to Seoul last December, but my parents were unable to go with me due to my dad's friend's daughter's wedding. When I asked her to go to Korea, she immediately said yes so we bought the tickets right away. lol. Both of us are 'korean-freaks'. We went to sooooooooooo many places in 12 days and there are just so much photos, so I'd make 1 post for each day.

Right after we landed, we purchased T-Money (a flash card to ride the subway trains) and pre-paid sim card (it's active for 15 days, the price is around 36.000 won for 1GB of data + credits for phone calls & sms. I didn't remember the exact amount tho. It's really waaay more expensive than Indonesian's carriers. 1GB of data is such a small amount for an active social media user like me. hiks).

As I was so hungry and it was past lunch time, I decided to buy 2 most favorite (or mainstream) snacks in Korea; BANANA MILK & HONEY BUTTER CHIPS! Both were so delicious!

We had lunch at a random korean restaurant in Sinchon, 1 subway stop away from Hongdae (where we stayed in Seoul). We had Beef Kalguksu (beef soup with knife cut noodles) & Yukgaejang (spicy beef soup). The restaurant's owner didn't speak English and it's so funny when we ordered the food. I can read han gul so I know the menu but I'm not good at korean grammars.

We strolled around Sinchon and found Hyundai Department Store. We had ice cream at Godiva (hella expensive and it's waay too sweet & creamy for me) and did some shopping!

STYLENANDA in Hyundai Dept Store's Sinchon.

In the evening, we went to Myeongdong. I found Yoo Si Jin at Olive Young store & couldn't help to take a pic. HAHA.

I love gyeranbbang (egg bread). It's one of the maaaaaaany street foods sold at Myeongdong. Most of them are quite expensive for 'street food'. They're around 3000 - 8000 won!! I didn't expect korean street food to be this expensive... Well, some street food stalls in different areas like Hongdae , Sinchon, are cheaper tho. Street foods at Myeongdong & Dongdaemun are expensive!! Note that! So you shouldn't buy common street food (that u can find almost anywhere in Korea) like tteokbboki, kimbab, fish cake, soondae, fried chicken at those expensive areas (tourist spots) because u can get them cheaper at other places easily.

At around 11pm we went back to Hongdae and Leslie recommended this chicken restaurant (Poulet Chicken)  that she went years ago. She said the carbonara chicken above's the winner , plus the owner's handsome. lol. True. The chicken was delicious and I ate almost half portion of the honey chicken , but the handsome owner was nowhere to be seen. xD.

Poulet Chicken
364-1 Seogyo-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Directions: Take exit 9 out of Hongik University station (Line 2). Walk straight and turn left at the intersection. Walk all the way up the hill until you’re facing the main entrance of Hongik University. Turn right, cross the road and walk into the lane (not along the main road!) so the playground’s on your left and shops like Baskin Robbins and Tom’s Project are on your right. You should be able to see a huge orange signboard that says “뿔레치킨” in front of you. (credits)



So the first day in Seoul ended with a satisfied and bloated tummy xP.
See u on next post! You can ask me questions about my trip to SK to my ask.fm.