super duper delayed post since it is already the month of july and it is already spring but I was too lazy (oops)
day four in korea to me would have to be the coldest day of them all - although day 5 was the one which was 1 degree to -7, I had stayed indoors almost the whole day, so the coldness wasn't really felt. while day four which was where we had stayed out the whole day, had my insides clenching and trembling in the cold midday.
temperature report : 8 to -6 degrees ((real feel was a -20))
the main objective of this day was plainly to visit tourist sites and our inside joke of "a glimpse of olden day Korea"
First stop was to visit Miss Lee's Cafe in Insadong
the whole cafe is super nicely decorated and I love how the menu uses drawings to show the food available
this cafe was made popular because of the sweet potato couple from we got married which was seohyun and yonghwa
even the paper cups have such details ;;u;;
We ordered the set meal which included three lunch boxes ! Super simple food but super delicious.
You are basically supposed to shake the rice box to mix the ingredients up and right now I really crave for some kimchi rice
I thought the meat tasted okay but min and cherie said it tasted like vegetarian luncheon meat
and I totally could not finish that box of rice
here comes the injeolmi bingsu (and the only bingsu I ate in korea - can you believe it) My bingsu offers have always been turned down because the weather was so bloody cold
and guess what - we chose to have bingsu at the coldest day ever
we could have gone to a nice indoor cafe with many bingsu selections and spend a day there , but no , we chose to have it at a place where they didn't turn on heaters and let the outside air blow in. totally wrong place for a bingsu. But the bingsu totally did not melt even after 10 - 15 mins which I am not surprised.
The main attraction at ssamziegil would have to be the poop shaped 'bbang'. Don't exactly remember how it tasted because I was super full and i think i barely took a bite
This would have got to be my favourite shop at ssamziegil. Just really liked the art on the products and the shop was just so aesthetically pleasing
We had planned that we would go to this neoprint shop to take photos in hanboks but I think we kind of regretted it. As we could not take a photo using our own cameras ;u;
On the highest level, there is this love wall place, super similar to Namsan Tower where you can leave messages.
Regret not entering any It;s Skin shops which yeo jingoo endorses
We ventured to the other tourist locations where we got lost and all. But after walking for a while, we were total losers and walked back to where we came from and walked around
super pretty mint coloured phone booths ;w;
and below would be this shop where min bought her pullover and wore it almost every single day after no matter how bad her outfit looked cause it was so so cold.
Now looking back, I regret not buying those 15,000 ripped jeans
after much walking, we finally reached gyeongbokgong ! and we were sort of just in time for their guard changing ceremony (i think)
Initial plan was to buy admission tickets to go in, but it was way too cold and we just wanted to leave outdoors as fast as possible
quick selcas before leaving
hurried across the street to gwanghwamun square ( q kyuhyun's at gwanghwamun )
There was some sort of protest going on at the other side of the road so Min hurried us so we only took a photo with king sejong which I think was the one who invented hangul (if i remembered correctly from exo's showtime)
Our next stop would be Ewha Women's Uni (E dae) which I think was where I actually saw affordable and pretty clothes.
Most of the shops here sell similar items at around the same price so yeah
Was happy to see that most shops actually sold non winter clothes ;u; so I had bought a few stuff here
First stop was Korea's version of a Daiso like place. where min and cherie bought masks since the cold was totally not bearable and we basically was just walking into every single shop possible to hide away from the cold
Artbox in Korea has so much more variety and so much more prettier items :> considering art box is korean
Kind of regret not buying a few stuff from there now - but it is too late ;; unless someone is sponsoring me to go Korea
Kind of regret not buying any peri pera tints or the frozen themed cushions ;; all too late
Came across this Kopitiam in the middle of Edae ;;
Baskin Robbins which was endorsed currently by SHINee (which was actually exo a few weeks before) The weather would have been too cold for me to eat ice cream anyways
Supposedly the trademark of Edae would be this gigantic shoe thing but I have no idea what it is
Cherie and Min then went for a haircut as we were trying to fight from the cold ;0 and Cherie actually daringly went to cut some see through bangs
Last stop would be to Hondae's stylenanda which has always been on my list for when I actually visit Korea
Sadly, we didn't have much time to actually walk around Hondae area cause it was already pretty late ;; but Hondae I think also has quite a lot of hipster clothing stores and pretty affordable as well since it technically is also another University town (Hongik university)
I really wanted to buy a pair of metallic wedges which I saw on the Stylenanda website but they didn't have it here :-(
I still remember how before I went Korea I had went shopping with Megan and Nicole at Haji lane and I saw a pair similar and said I wanted to buy it because it looked like the Stylenanda one and at Haji I could try but Stylenanda I would have to buy it online :> and then they reminded me that I was actually going Korea soz (what a loser I am)
Really regret not buying any 3CE makeup or nail polishes because I realised they are actually pretty good
All that I bought would be the nail foil with the marble print ;; super pretty and till now I have not used it orz
The amount of photo prints we took at Stylenanda is insane
We were just hogging up the machine whenever there was no one after we saw a couple shamelessly taking like a few at one go, we did the same
Finally for dinner we headed to the Noryangjin Fish market which was so difficult to locate at night
As I saw in many peoples' blog posts before I had gone, many said to just cross the bridge and you will never not be able to find it because of the fishy smell but no
It was the hardest shit to find in Korea
So we had walked a distance and finally Min went to ask some Koreans and they told us to turn right after walking straight
After walking super far and no right turn seem correct, we decided to walk back to the train station because it was so freaking cold and we were hungry as hell
Just as we were about to reach the train station entrance, Min saw people coming out from this super dark alleyway, that was then we realised was the entrance to the fish market.
Next problem once we reached the fish market would be to buy from which seller. As I have read many tourists actually get cheated and pay super expensive prices especially by those China sellers so we made it a point to not purchase from any of those who could speak chinese
However, the chinese sellers were the only ones who would be super thick skin to approach you so I basically went up to this random seller which could only speak korean to buy the food.
At the fish market, what you have to do is to basically purchase your seafood downstairs and they will then lead you to a restaurant like place upstairs where you pay the people to help you prepare your food items.
The seafood was so freaking cheap I was so amazed. Like 3 of these abalones were like 10,000 won which we had them grilled. Oysters were 10 for 5,000 won which is super duper cheap. And we got the salmon for 15,000 won which was so so fresh and had a lot of belly ( It was so much that we could not even finish it)
Here comes the dare devil food - the live octopus ! One of Korea's speciality. It tastes really good but I didn't really dare to try a second piece because even after chewing, when i had swallowed it, I could still feel it clawing down my throat. But it just tastes like squid sashimi really.
south korea day one | everysing at incheon intl airport , gangnam yoogane
south korea day two | smtown global package : exolu'xion , smtown@coexartium , children's grand park
south korea day three | kona beans ,k star road,old sm building, exo'luxion day two, dongdaemun design plaza (DDP), lotte fitin
south korea day five | teacher kim dumplings , lotte world, lotte mart
south korea day six | siloam sauna, namdaemun, myeongdong : spao, jholic, nature republic, kang hodong's baekjeong bbq, music korea
south korea day 7 | kamong, viva polo, smtown@coexartium, myeongdong
Natale