I went to Seoul on 9-14 October 2013 despite my friend-who-traveled-to-South Korea-4-times's advice that I will only be seeing red autumn leaves in November. My friend was right, and I regret that I didn't listen to his advice. So when your friend say go in November, you go in November. LOL!
I spent RM2200 per person for the whole trip (including souvenir, food, transportation, guesthouse, flight ticket, entrance fees)
(Per person: Air ticket = RM850. Guesthouse = RM390 for 5 nights)
Here's what we did in Seoul:
Day 1 (39,000W/2 person)
- Reached Incheon airport at 4pm
- Checked in to guesthouse in Hongdae
- Unloaded and took subway to go Sinchon for dinner (ChunCheon Dalkgalbi)
- Walked around in Sinchon area and tried their street food (Grilled squid Ojinguh Gui -오징어 구이)
- While walking back to guesthouse - Patbingsu 팥빙수 in Hongdae
The room in Family and Friend's House was clean and comfortable
Living room & kitchen outside our bedroom. This is what I like about guesthouse.
Another thing I like about guesthouse is that the owners are generally very friendly and they will give suggestions on eateries and worth-visiting places.
Every station has a map of the area nearby which is helpful for us to recognize the street and find the restaurant easily. But we still failed to find the correct shop. =.= We went to the less famous dalkgalbi shop.
Anyways, the food was tasty too! I wonder how different was the more famous shop taste like.
Because very few people dine here (Only some foreign students) their service was very fast. And, their kimchi was the best I had during my Seoul trip, fresh sour and crisp. Not those pungent-tasting kimchi.
After dinner, we saw a stall in front of a 4 storey-cinema selling dried fish cake and octopus, and grilled squid. We bought a grilled squid, the smoky taste was heaven!
Hubby's sister requested us to help her buy EXO song album. I checked online before the trip that there's a shop selling CDs in Sinchon. So we walked around Sinchon under 23 celcius to look for the shop.
We then went to the Hyundai department store, but the clothes there were expensive, so we left the store shortly (they were also going to close that time. It was around 10pm)
So, we went back to Hongdae, walked pass a shop selling patbingsu. We always wanted to try palbingsu, to see if there's any difference with those sold in Korean shop in Malaysia (Because I don't favour pabbingsu) No difference-- the ice was still coarse, red bean powder choked me and I don't like the combination of red bean and vanilla. We concluded we don't like palbingsu.
Day 2: (100,000W/2 person)
Toy Museum (Closed down)- Never mind. There was a Kokdu museum nearby.
- Lunch at Bukcheon Myeon Ok
- Street food:
- Changdeokgung, Bukchon, Gyeongbokgung and National Folk Museum of Korea
- Daerim art gallery
- Tosokchon (토속촌) samgyetang 삼계탕 as dinner
Toy museum was in the itinerary because hubby loves toy models. But when we reached there it was not there. I asked the girl working in GS25 convenience shop where is Toy museum in my beginner level Korean "Toy museum 어디에요?" She answered "없어져서요" with a hand gesture making a cross. So I asked if the museum has been relocated "어디에 이사했어요?", she still answered the same answer "없어져서요". So I guessed "없어져서요" means being shut down. Haha. I learned a new word.
Kokdu Museum: Kokdu is wooden carved artefact in the form of human or animal to be buried together with the deceased. Korean traditional culture believe that these kokdu can calm the deceased spirit, lead them to the next destination, and entertain and protect them along the way. Photography was not allowed in the museum, so I don't have the pictures of kokdu. I borrowed a photo of kokdu from this blog:
They looked really scary, they looked like they will move at night.
One thing I found very astounding is that Koreans are so much more civilized than us Malaysian. They really queued up for bus. They even walked pass the bus to the end of the line to queue up. Malaysians should learn to do this.
We went to Jongno-Gu for palace visit. Before that we had lunch nearby:
Bukcheon Myeon Ok (Bukcheon Noodle House)
This shop was full of working people so I think the food should be good.
This shop was full of working people so I think the food should be good.
We shared one naengmyeon (Cold noodle soup) and 1 pajeon. This is the first time I had a naengmyeon, it was not bad. But I'm not used to eating cold stuff as main meal.
Huwon (Secret Garden) in Changdeokgung was beautiful, and secluded. Here are some of the photos in Huwon. (It takes lots of time and energy to walk in there, so if you don't like ancient building and nature, you can skip this)
I love to see traditional buildings, especially the colorful roofs and doors. I can just walk around for a day, admiring these. Below are different types of roofs and doors (Combining huwon and changdeokgung area):
We went to Bukchon before going to Gyeongbokgung. And we insisted to find all the 8 photo spots. We did find all the photo spot thanks to hubby's good sense of direction.
View from spot 1:
View from spot 2:
View from spot 3:
View from spot 4:
View from spot 5:
View from spot 6:
View from spot 7:
View from spot 8:
Gyeongbokgung was huge!! We had to speed walk because we only entered the palace at 5pm as we spent too much time at Changdeokgung taking picture of the roofs and doors.
Gyeongbokgung is more about lake and trees...
Doors and roofs again....
Old map of the palace. I like how it looks fictional. =)
There's a culture museum Gyeongbokgung called National Folk Museum of Korea (국립민속박물관) There are plenty of ancient houses from different era, love it!!
And there were some traditional games that we could play
When we walked to the next destination, we finally saw some red color autumn leaves, but the sky was already getting dark. =(
The famous Gwanghwamun
Then we headed to a boring art gallery hoping it has some interesting art piece to watch as I love to admire art & paintings. The exhibition was about paper and ink. So we paid to see different thickness and texture of paper and printing skills with different type of ink. Disappointed, we left the art gallery very soon after and head towards our dinner place, Tosokchon (토속촌) which is famous for it's ginseng chicken soup, samgyetang 삼계탕.
It was full house, we had to share table with strangers. And you have to sit cross-legged on the floor to dine in. I had numb legs after finish eating..
Anyways, the food was ok, it has ginseng taste, but that's all. I prefer Chinese style ginseng soup made by my mum. Maybe we should request for salt to add flavour to the soup as we found it quite bland to our tasting.
One thing about these areas which we visited today near Gyeongbukgong: if you are a Chinese, you don't need to worry about language barrier as most of the restaurants especially famous restaurants like this has Chinese waitresses. Also, there are plenty of Tourist Helpers walking around near tourist destinations. They can show you the direction and you can choose helpers who can speak Chinese, English or Japanese.
(Photo from https://seoulhostel.wordpress.com/)
- Namsangol Hanok Village 남산골 한옥마을 (Free entry)
- N-Seoul Tower (Free entry for area outside the tower)
- Sannakji (Live octopus)
- Gwangjang Market 광장시장 (Buy souvenir & eat street food)
- Nanta Show @ Myeongdong
I'm so in love with Korean traditional house. So Namsangol Hanok Village is a very memorable place for me. It's similar to National Folk Museum of Korea but showing more big traditional houses lived by the riches during Emperor time.
You can even see the well-decorated interior!
And you can play more traditional games and watch performances
That day we were lucky they had FREE Korean acupuncture and consultation service in conjunction with their traditional medicine day. We were even given a free cup of bitter herbal tea after the consultation.
N-Seoul Tower
We walked from Namsangol Hanok Village, across time capsule park, Namsan Park and then walked up to the tower (please don't do this in cold weather, we regretted, it was freaking cold! And quite a long journey to walk)
Lunch at the bottom of the tower.
Then we paid the fees to enter the tower (9000W/pax). Not much to see during day time.
Love locks at the bottom of the tower. Plenty of them!
We saw Korean traditional combat rehearsal at the bottom of the tower
SanNakJi (Live Octopus)- 28,000W/2 pax
GwangJang Market is our favourite place for street food!
From left:
껍데기
Blood sausage (순대 – Sundae)
Mungbean Pancakes (빈대떡 – bindaetteok)
Pork knuckle (죽발 - Jukbal)
Nanta show at Myeongdong (50,000W/Pax)
- i-Park Mall
- Hongdae: Baseball game, TrickEye Museum
- Dinner at Keumhwaro bulgogi recommended by our guesthouse host (But we didnt get to eat the bulgogi, just ordered some beef)
- Myeongdong (To buy something upon request by friends)
i-Park mall is a mall with LOTS of camera, and running shoes promotions!!
We went to Hongdae for flee market and passed by this baseball training place. 1000W/10 shots
Opposite the baseball training place is this shop called Bongchu Jjimdak 鳳雛찜닭. This is by far the closest taste to Chinese cuisine (soy sauce chicken). We ordered for 2 pax 19,000W.
And we saw these mural arts
Hongdae Saturday Flee Market
Trick-Eye Museum has not much Korean stuff in it except for some of these below. Entrance fees 15,000W per person including entrance for ice world.
- Hiking at Dobongsan Mountain 도봉산 (Free entry)
- Grilled fish after hiking
- Jjimjilbang at Itaewon Land 이태원랜드 (18,000W/2 pax)
- Saemaeul Shikdang 새마을 식당 good bulgogi and kimchi jjigae rice
- Buy snacks as souvenirs in a grocery store in Sinchon
We love hiking and nature. So I added hiking into our itinerary. For a 6D5N short trip Seoraksan is too far to travel, so I chose Dobongsan which is only 45 mins away from our hotel by train. It was a good choice because the rock formation was beautiful and there's no tourist at all, all locals! =D
It was Sunday so the mountain was full of local hikers
LOVE the rock formations!
When we're old, will we picnic at the top of the mountain enjoying the scenery?
Photo taken by the friendly Koreans below:
Koreans are generally friendly to tourists.
This guy helped me to come down from the big rock because I climbed too high to take a photo. . He let me step on his thigh to come down. Hehe.
This uncle made sure we are on the right trek to the mountain top
After hike we were starving, so we get some food. But they only serve grilled fish. =.= The whole row of shops selling ONLY this kind of grilled fish are full-house, which means this area is famous for this kind of grilled fish
I'm not used to the taste of this fish, it's too 'fishy', so I only ate the kimchi.
We went straight to Itaewon with our dirty bodies. Tehehe..
I did not take photos inside because everyone was either naked or sleeping on the floor. Haha. (Photo credit: http://mummyhaveyouseenmyjumper.blogspot.com/2013/06/june-30.html)
After that we went back to Hongdae for dinner at Saemaeul Shikdang (Their bulgogi and Kimchi jjigae rice were so good!!!)
(Photo credit: http://www.eatinkorea.com/en/restaurant/saemaul-sikdang)
It looks normal but it's really delicious!
Day 6: (25,000W/2 person)
- Visit YG building
- Back to Incheon airport
I love BigBang so much I have to walk all the way from my guesthouse to visit their office. Hehe
Before we left we took photo with the friendly and pretty guesthouse host Lynette
---
Before I end this, I'm gonna feature some street food which I like (forgot to take photo of them before I ate them, so I have to borrow photo from these websites. =P)
Odeng (it comes with hot soup in paper cup)
(Photo credit https://wetcasements.wordpress.com/2010/04/09/odeng/)
Gukhwa Ppang (Red bean waffle in chrysanthemum shape)
(Photo credit http://sedotravel.com/xe/KorDining/30437)
Gyeran Ppang (Egg bun)
(Photo credit http://yukichanelf.tumblr.com/post/99233948974/egg-toast-gyeranppang-credits)
South Korea, I will visit you again. =)
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