Seoul-ful Adventures

Seoul had been an awesome trip. Kinda disappointed that I did not get to visit the theme park (I’m an avid fan of thrill rides), but I’m sure there will be chances in the near future. It was just TOO COLD!

One of the highlights of the trip was visiting my JC mate in Seoul I woke up pretty early on the fourth day, and made my way down to her university area for brunch/lunch. And I did not have form of communication devices with me (, so I was pretty worried about finding her in a foreign place, and also about contacting my friends back in the hostel. But then again, it’s the thrill that makes everything fun right?

I waited outside the gates of Yonsei University, doing people-watching and trying to catch a glimpse of a familiar face.
And I met PAM! The last time I’ve seen her back in Singapore was like MONTHS before this meeting, and she grew so much prettier and happier!

She brought me to this pretty interesting place for lunch where it started off as a hot pot, but once you’re done with the soup, they will start mixing the rice in. To me, it was like two meals in one. Oh, and it was cheap too!

Afterwhich, she brought me on a mini tour around her campus.
And I was blown away by it. Seriously, DOES THE PICTURES BELOW LOOK ANYTHING LIKE A CAMPUS TO YOU?
What is NUS/NTU/SMU/SIM?

Haha, I was thinking to myself -’ just add a bit more tall buildings, one or two hills/mountains behind, a few more trees here and there…’, it will totally resemble Harry Potter’s Hogwarts.

Now, for the rest of the trip…

Insadong

Too cold. Forced Neoprints. Dung Pancakes. But I felt artsy.

We went to the super artsy-fartsy Ssamziegil in Insa-dong.
Yes, it was so cold that night (with a slight drizzle, which I hope would turn into snow), my fingers felt as though they were going to drop off any moment even when I was trying to stuff them as deep into my coat pockets as possible WITH GLOVES ON.

We ate the famous ‘dung’ pancake, which was pretty overrated in my opinion. The idea is just interesting, but the taste was ‘mehhh’…. I kept the paper bag as a souvenir though, because the illustrations of how the ‘dung’ pancake is formed was so hilarious.

And again, I dragged Andrew (who detests neoprints) to the photo booth. I didn’t know they provided traditional Korean outfits (for free!), so we just played around and had our pictures taken. The photo was laminated for us as souvenirs too, how nice.

We then ‘trekked’ down to somewhere near Gangnam.. Apgujeong, I think, to indulge (for once, finally), real authentic Korean cuisine.

Ramyeon, Ddokbokki and Cheese!

And visited the Lotte Departmental Store, just for a feel on how malls are like in Korea.
Nothing special, except for the toilets.
I think the culture of makeup and cosmetics is super prevalent in Korea, and they really have designated makeup cubicles/large mirrors for ladies to primp themselves at.

The last day in seoul

#depression

My favorite bread EVER. I can’t find it anywhere else….[UPDATE: I can't even find it in the Bejing and Vietnam's outlet! UPDATE #2: Not even in the Jakarta outlet too!]

I’m not sure if you guys heard of Se7en, a famous R&B artiste in Korea. We visited one of his ‘Spicy Chicken’ (sorry, that’s how I refer it as) restaurant outlets in Hongdae.

And no, it’s not just another idol franchise. The food here is good. No kidding.

We can choose the spiciness level of the dish, and I think we picked the mild one.
It was still quite spicy to me though! And enjoying it cider was AWESOME!

There’s a cherry blossom tree in the female toilet. A tree. A freaking tree. Thank goodness it’s fake though…

We spent the last night walking around Hongdae.
Most of the shops were closed, and I made alot of discoveries which I felt super angst about because there wasn’t enough time for me to visit them anymore!

[I also just realized how close our hostel was to the Coffee Prince cafe]

It was really peaceful and serene at night, with occasional cars cruising past.
We also found some really interesting graffiti on the walls. The one below was made into my ipad wallpaper!

One of my favorite cafe design.
Should have went in for a snack. Sigh.

Till we meet again, Korea!