Seoul Visual Diary - Part 2
Posted on Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Good morning! It's our second day in Seoul and we were all ready to do more exploring!
After grossly overdressing on our first day of Korea due to fear of the cold, I finally got more daring and decided to pull on a short dress and throw over my flimsy kimono (but not without cheating a bit and hiding a thicker cardigan underneath. What can I say, I am paranoid.)
ASOS Asymmetrical Hem Dress | Forever 21 Grey Kimono | ASOS Plimsolls (similar here)
Evidently I shop at ASOS a bit too much. I think my overseas style is really low maintenance. It's like traveling is stressful enough without having to worry about things like fussy clothes.
We were at Gyeongbokgung (pronounced "kee-young-bock-goong") - the "main" palace of Seoul and finishing up more shots for the Still.Products x The Ordinary Co's Lookbook, which by the way has launched already. View it here!
Adorable mini flowers growing from the ground! I think you could just trample over them and not realise they existed if you weren't paying attention. Brings a new meaning to wallflowers, haha. Or floorflowers, I would say? Heh.
This cherry blossom tree (?) was gorgeous and just the right height for us - it was in this loosely cordoned off area, so E-main and I snuck in to do the last few shots for the Lookbook. All was good until a zillion genius tourists tried to follow as well to take photo of the tree - which caught the attention of the palace guards. They chased us away, but once everyone left, we snuck back in again, HAHA. The worse consequence would be they kicked us out of the palace, which cost like 3000won entry, so...
And now that the work part of our trip was over, we were free to wander and take lots of touristy shots, hurrah!
Super cute Singaporean girls we bumped into wearing Hanboks. We knew they were Singaporean the moment we heard them speaking because our accents are so obvious. Well, to us Singaporeans at least!
The Cherry Blossom season in Korea is supposed to be a little later than Japan's, however I think we were a week too late to really see the peak of the season in Korea. Our travel dates were 22 April - 26 April so I would definitely recommend heading down here in mid-April instead! Either way, we still caught some blooms, so all was well :)
Our word of the day was "moddish", haha. Don't ask.
Even without reviewing today's photos, E-main and I agreed that we super loved them. Hahaha.
Bye Gyeongbokgung! There were tons more tourists that day since it was a Saturday. GET OUT OF OUR PHOTOS RAWR.
Anyway it was lunch time! Since it was 3pm and we were going ker-a-zee with hunger, we found this legit little Korean restaurant with low tables near the palace in a small alleyway. Oops don't have the name or the address of the place.
We need food!!! Fortunately the menu came with pictures, so we shared the bulgogi (you know the hotplate pork in all the food courts) and a kimchi stew.
E-main and I are crazy over the seaweed because it tastes great half soaked in the kimchi soup. It's the first time we finish a banchan dish other than kimchi!
Said kimchi soup. Luckily we only ordered two dishes because they were both really large! The Koreans also seem to have this fascination with watching their food get cooked in front of their eyes (and not in the kitchen).
Unlike the Singapore food court version, the bulgogi in Seoul is much sweeter (I think they added honey/caramel into it???) and comes with cactus as well which I try cause YOLO. It tastes like capsicum/peppers, except I was constantly afraid if they forgot to clean out all the prickly bits of the cactus.
Now that E-main is equipped with the ability to ask the locals "how do you say ______", she makes it a point to ask every one something whenever she can. She can make even the grumpiest auntie smile and stop to help her write stuff like "fork" down! (Though by the end of the trip we were still yelling things like "TOILET?" at the locals. Note to self to learn even more practical things to say before going to a foreign land, haha).
All in all a really good meal considering we stumbled upon this place! It cost us 17,000won altogether (about S$10.00 a person!) Eating in restaurants in Korea is seriously affordable. I'm not sure what restaurant (not hawker centre, mind you) in Singapore we can eat at that will cost us $10.00 for the whole meal!
Afterwards we head back to our Airbnb for some chilling and napping time (E-main chills, I nap!).
Look how messy we are, haha.
Look how messy we are, haha.
Around 5-6pm we head out again to Dongdaemun! Super excited because it's suppose to be cheaper than Myeongdong. Here's another one of those pretty canals that they turn into parks.
When we first arrive at Dongdaemun, it's quite overwhelming because there are just so many malls. We went to Doota! (with the exclamation mark) first since I read about it online, but it's mainly full of Korean designer stuff which ranges from 100,000 - 200,000won ($125.00 - $250.00) per item. However, the higher level you go, the cheaper it is, but really, give this mall a miss unless you are into Korean designer clothes.
If you walk to the left of the mall (in the picture), there's a row of malls that look like Platinum Mall in Bangkok - but are still not cheap. Apparently the premium you have to pay is because of the famous Korean "quality", but personally I find the clothes quality on par with blogshops here in Singapore and the jackets/pants were mostly... unlined which I think is a mark of quality (or lack thereof). I paid anywhere between $20-$100 for stuff, but yeah. It ain't Bangkok.
Honestly, the best part of Dongdaemun was... Korean BBQ Dinner!
It was a bit of a miracle we found this place. I had all of a glowing blog review (click here to read it - it has more directions!), a pictorial map and picture of the restaurant facade to find this place it. Oh yes, and the restaurant's name is written in Korean only, so no chance of google-mapping it!
But we found the place! It's quite a funny story - I think they moved shop so the picture map was inaccurate. We kind of just gave up and started wandering around looking for another place to eat. Finally, we asked a local if she could help us find the restaurant, and she looked at the name of the restaurant and pointed at this shop directly in front of us - "there!"
LOL.
The reason why we couldn't recognise the place was because they changed their signage!!! As of April 2015 it looks like this. So glad we found it though!!!
I've had Korean BBQ in Singapore and we also had Korean BBQ another time here in Seoul, but this one is definitely the best. We have the pork belly and spare ribs. Both were delicious but if I had to pick one it would be the spare ribs, which was amazing. Juicy, fatty, tender and sweet with that grilled charcoal taste.
The marinade was quite something but I think the quality of meat is what really made the meal. Have never eaten such juicy meat in my life, seriously. Would love to bring Justin here one day - I know he'd love it!
It's not a buffet - each plate which has a big slab of meat on it cost around 10,000-12,000won (S$12.50 - S$15.00). Since we ordered 3 plates in total (no drinks just free water), our meal cost us about 37,000won (S$46.00~) in total. I think they had a tiny bit of extra charge for something.
BUT WORTH IT! If you feel adventurous or falsely superior in your navigating abilities like I did, try hunt this place down ;) Apparently the kalbi / beef is even more godlike!
And that's all for Day 2 in Korea! We kept shopping till my feet literally couldn't take it. Haha miss it now. If you haven't already, read about our Day 1 in Korea here. Gosh, every time I blog about Seoul I feel the urge to eat some Korean food. Bye.
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