[Travel] South Korea: Seoul (Febuary, 2013)

Hello all! Esh here,

As you guys might know, I am madly in love with K-Pop and thus these years I've been craving to go to South Korea. At first it was only because of the longing to breath the same air as my favorite celebrities, but now it has flourished into an interest for many things Korean other than their Idolized entertainment industry. The food (street food! mm), language, the pop culture, the fashion, the streets...everything has just captured my attention.

Last year my family and I had gone to Seoul, but on a tour, so we were limited to our free activities. This year, I opted to become our own private family tour guide so we can do what we want to do on our own time without needing to rush back on the tour bus every few hours :D

It's my second time going to Seoul and the first ever time going to Seoul without a tour guide, so naturally we had to figure everything out ourselves. BUT this time I didn't have the help of my parents since I volunteered to take care of everything. So, I had to make sure I was getting all the information correctly about destinations and our means of transport before going to ensure that I don't get my family lost somewhere in Seoul HAHA (that wouldn't be very nice, would it)

So the main plan was to get around by the subway, which was recommended by my Korean language tutor (who's hometown is Incheon). He said that taxis tend to drive the longer routes due to the fact that we're foreigners, so it's best to take the subway. Buses were also an option, but fortunately, all of our desired destinations were somewhere on the Seoul Subway Line 2, so we didn't need a bus.

I had initially wanted to bring my family to the Namsan Tower and the outdoor Yeouido Park which lines up right along the Han River. However, these mainly outdoor activities were a big no-no for my family when we got there because of the frigid, cold weather.

Seriously. The cold weather was no joke.

...and to make matters more extreme, we were flying in from Hong Kong, where our lowest temperatures in the Winter times ranges 5-12 degrees and it never snows here! So flying into freezing Seoul with slippery ice and nose burning coldness did take quite some time to get used to.

SO, I have a few pictures to share and i'll just share them in accordance to the districts and places that we've visited;

MYEONGDONG

Just how can you ever leave out the lively place of Myeongdong if you travel to Seoul? It's full of pretty much everything, from clothes to footwear, from footwear to eyewear, from eyewear to skincare and from skincare to food! LOTS OF FOOD!!!! My family's hotel, the Lotte Hotel in Seoul is just right around the corner of Myeongdong, an extremely convenient 5 minute walk away, which explains our frequent visits to this place during our stay in Seoul. We would eat breakfast in Myeongdong, take the subway to another district, then roundhouse back to Myeongdong for dinner.

Myeongdong is like a trendy district, there are teens everywhere, street stalls, and street FOOD! There's this potato thing where it's deep fried then put on a stick, kind of like intantly made potato chips. It's so fattening but so good! You guys mUST try that if you happen to stumble across it in Myeongdong. Oops, off topic. What I wanted to say is that Myeongdong is pretty huge, you can't possibly walk through this place thoroughly in one day. Do take your time and explore the streets before thoroughly spending your money because you really don't want to miss anything in these colorful streets :)

Here is the view approaching one of the entrances into Myeongdong, it's right across from the gigantic Lotte Duty Free Department store and the Lotte Young Plaza. You need to cut through this underground bypass to get to the other side and officially into Myeongdong. This photo was taken on the day that we arrived in Korea, and we instantly walked to Myeongdong that evening. I remember my heart beating so fast and I wanted to run across the street because I was so excited to finally be there! :')

More Myeongdong pictures! Excuse my horrible angles and laziness to rotate the above picture HAHAH but anyways, this is the place where we enter Myeongdong. It's the entrance near the Euljiro Ibgu station on Line 2, Seoul Metropolitan Subway.

One of the many Etude House stores scattered throughout Myeongdong! Actually, not only Etude House but all the other popular Korean makeup brands like Innisfree, Nature Republic, Skinfood, Holika Holika, The Face Shop, etc. are scattered everywhere! You can probably find at least 2 of the same brand stores a few streets away from each other. It's so cool and I was in heaven! I really regret not getting more things, but tbh thinking back, I did already purchase quite a lot.........heehee

One of the many korean bbq places in Myeongdong, this was probably not the best restaurant around but it was good enough for us inexperienced K-BBQ consumers. My family is a huge fan of food though, and we would gobble up anything :D

Another frequent thing in Myeongdong/Korea...COFFEE SHOPS. COFFEE SHOPS EVERYWHERE! There was Coffee Bean, Angel-in-us Coffee, Cafe Bene, Starbucks (of course), and more. (sidenote: when I got back to HK, my korean told me that Cafe Bene has the best stuff and I was like ??? THAT WAS THE COFFEE SHOP THAT WE HAD NO TIME FOR D: and I was so sad 'cause it was the only coffee shop that we didn't have enough time to try. So you guys; try it if you go to Korea, if you can, drop a comment about how Cafe Bene is, i'm so curious but i'm stuck in Hong Kong atm > <)

We trudged over into this cute, snug Angel in-us Coffee shop for breakfast one morning, the food was average, but again, good enough for us food vacuums HAHA

The thing I love most about korean coffee shops is how cosy and homey they tend to design their shops. Wood and warm tones everywhere, it must be sooo relaxing to just sit inside the shop on a freezing winter day and watch the busy world pass by...ah~ the perfect coffee shop dream ;u;

Service was alright, I successfully ordered the things below for my family in my developing korean HAHA /proud/ But it's okay even if you don't know korean! Many coffee shops have menus with pictures so you can just point to what you want and use the universal numerical hand signs to indicate the amount :P

SUBWAY

As I've earlier mentioned, we mainly got around with the Seoul Metropolitan Subway service. We mainly took the Line 2, so we were lucky cause we didn't need to switch lines :P It made my job as a makeshift tour guide much easier.

You can take the subway with this card similar to our Octopuses here in Hong Kong. You can purchase these cards in convenience stores such as GS 25s, they're called 쿄통카드 (Kyo-tong Ka-deu), i believe. You will need to add value and you can do that in the convenience store or in the subway stations, where they have add value machines everywhere :)

My brother, who didn't have a kyotong card just bought the good ol' tickets to get around~

Just a side note, but I've noticed the subway carts are usually pretty empty, but it's probably only because we don't travel during rush hours. It's also extremely quiet and my dad who speaks really loud got some glances. I had to shush him XD

...There was this funny incident where my little brother was swinging around in the carts like a monkey when this ahjussi started laughing at him and speaking in Korean. My family looked at me and I was all like 'don't look at me guys, my Korean is very limited', and I was a bit scared that the ahjussi was scolding my brother at first because I was aware of how appropriate behavior is valued in public places, whereas my brother swinging around like he was is probably not the most appropriate. But after a while I guessed not cuz the ahjussi was smiling a lot and just chuckling a lot at my brother (who stopped swinging around because he got embarrassed).

We all just smiled along and I guess....communicated in smiles? He was really nice and ended up getting off the same station as us. He patted my brother's back fondly before departing on his own way. It was really cute and friendly and strange at the same time...so there's our (or my brother's) little subway incident with a Korean ahjussi.



HONGDAE

Here's Hongdae! Another trendy district and what my Korean tutor called 'the clubbing district'. Where my family went we didn't see any clubs though, haha. The official subway stop on Line 2 to Hongdae is 'Hongik University', and Hongdae is basically a shortened version of that, like 'Hong Uni'.

There streets are very wide here, and again, lined with many clothing stores and eatery places.

We stumbled across this place called MUSTOY.COM, it's where you can color your own dolls. There were so many couples in there, haha. Then there's me and my loud family XD

Turns out this place is pretty famous! A bunch of pictures of celebrity posing at the venue is stuck up on all the walls. Yoo Jaesuk! I remember there was also a picture of a really really young Krystal from F(x) :)

My dad draws, so he did most of the decorating...

He drew our whole family's caricatures on the doll! aaaand there's my face~

We somehow wandered our way to one of the larger streets of Hongdae, where we found the Hello Kitty Cafe! On the way, my dad slipped on some ice and fell on his bum right in the middle of the crowded street. It was quite a sight and my family and I laughed for such a long time. ANYWAYS, Hello Kitty Cafe. Right.

It's what it's name says, there's really Hello Kitty EVERYWHERE. Even though I'm not a huge fan of Hello Kitty, I'm still a sucker for cute and attractive things, so the everything Hello Kitty theme made me squeal. So cute and pink! The waffles were Hello Kitty shaped, there were Hello Kitty cups, Hello Kitty coffee foam designs, etc.

 So here's the larger Hongdae street, which got more and more crowded as the sun went down. Mostly filled with teens and young couples. Clothing boutiques lined the street and STREET FOOD TOO!! haha street food ftw. We tried this hot egg thing mixed with bread, and it's slightly sweet. It tastes better than it sounds :P It was a pretty perfect roadside snack for a cold winter day, too!

I regret not buying more clothes here, probably because my dad and my brother loses patience easily, I couldn't dwell too long on clothes even though I really wanted too :( The quality of these clothes aren't exactly the best, but they're all so cute and cheap, I just......arjhkfahjs /tries to pluck clothes out of the picture/



LOTTE WORLD

AHHH~~ LOTTE WORLD, How can we not go here? Especially with my younger brother, he probably preferred this over all the shopping districts that we went to on the other days. Many people probably know Lotte World from TV shows or from their idols...well, I did anyway :P My favorite is probably Big Bang playing in Lotte World aand that Running Man episode done in here.

ANYWAYS, Lotte World theme park is an indoor theme park with an outdoor portion. It's located in Sincheon-dong, South Korea. On the subway, we took the Line 2 to Jamsil Station.

The South Gate Entrance~

We first went to the outdoor portion! My brother and I played this rotating swing thing, but after that we went indoors because it was just. so. cold. I could literally feel my face numbing as we swung around in the cold air on that ride HAHA

There is a lot to do in Lotte World, but the lines could be a hassle because there is always so many people! My brother and I lined up for what we thought was a rollercoaster, but turned out that we lined up in the wrong line for the wrong thing! It sucked cuz lining up sucked our energy out of us HAHAH.............:(

I sincerely wished we could have played more in Lotte World, but there was just too many people! It was also hard lugging around our fluffy wintercoats > <

Next time, next time.

OTHER TIDBITS

We did go to other places, but those are the major places that we spent our time in. The following pictures are some other tidbits from the trip! :)

The view from our window in the Lotte Hotel, Seoul, it's mainly a business district! I looove how this hotel is so close to a Lotte Duty Free, Myeongdong, and the subway station is directly connected to this hotel (y) good stuff, good stuff.

This is the map of the shuttle bus route that we took from the airport to the hotel

GOODNESS, this stuff is good (other than banana milk, off course). It's an aloe vera drink with aloe vera bits in it. I love love love it. Also available in many convenience stores and is available in a glass bottle too!

Random shots out the bus window, my first glimpse of South Korea in a year.

This shot is VERY deliberate. We were passing by Mapo-dong and I was like OH MY GOD INFINITE'S NEW APARTMENT COMPLEX IS HERE? (fangirl mode tch) and I started taking pictures of every blue glass complex that I saw hoping that one of them was the apartment complex of Infinite's. Sigh. 

Outside our hotel, nighttime. Some pretty ~~bokeh~~ effect haha. 

...So this concludes my South Korea travel post. Not everything that we've done is documented here. We also went to Dongdaemun (go to DOOTA! they have nice stuff there although a bit more expensive than the other mall), and the COEX mall in Gangnam. There are definitely so many more things to do in Korea other than shopping and eating though, and I wish to return soon to explore other places not only in Seoul but in South Korea itself!

I hope you liked this massive post, 'til next time,
Esh out!