[SOUTH KOREA 2016] Part 2: Seoul

Hello again, Seoul! After our packed two days in Jeju (see Part 1: Jeju), we made our way to Seoul via JejuAir once again! We would have three to four days to explore Seoul again, and it was the perfect weather to experience Seoul all over again.

DAY 4: Gyeongbokgung & Ssamziegill

Once we landed in Seoul, we made our way to Hongdae to check-in to our Airbnb. I loved our cozy Airbnb, which was 10-15min walk from the subway station - we weren't really in the middle of the Hongdae's night life, but a few minutes walk will show you the way to their night scenes. 

After checking-in, my sister had one request... she wanted to go to YG Building. LOL.

I'm a fan of some Korean artists (Casker will remain my favourite artist), but not to the extent of actually going to their buildings in the hopes of a glimpse of these artists lol. Nevertheless, I relented and we made our way to the building, where my sister quickly made friends with several other girls who apparently all had the same idea. Meanwhile, I just sat out in the cold in front of the convenience store nearby, ha.

After several hours (oh fine maybe it was only 30minutes), we were dying to have some lunch before we continued our journey for the day. We walked around Ssamziegill Road, which was surprisingly packed considering it was a weekday afternoon; little did we know that the Koreans actually had a national holiday on the one day we decided to visit Gyeongbokgung Palace, lol - this did work in our favour later on though.

The restaurant we stopped at was in a charming alleyway; we basically chose it based on the fact that it was a vegetarian restaurant, the only option we had at the time lol. Sometimes searching for halal food may not give you the greatest option, but the restaurant we stumbled upon had some nice offerings.

 

After lunch, we then made our way to Gyeongbokgung Palace, the quintessential tourist attraction. As I'd mentioned, apparently there was a public holiday (it was their Election Day!) so there was quite a crowd. Nevertheless, the Palace grounds was beautiful as always. We had a blast touring around the area, especially the gardens as the cherry blossom was in full bloom.

There were a lot of young women roaming around in hanbok on the day, so we decided to try and approach a pair of ladies to ask for a photo with them. Glad they had no problem posing - look at how beautiful they were!

We ended the day with - *drumroll* - shopping! Haha! We decided to just take it easy so had a nice walk around Hongdae at night mostly to window shop (I swear I didn't even buy that much this time around lol) - it was nice to just soak in the atmosphere while we were there.

Odaeng is happiness.

We also had delicious, delicious odaeng again! That Jeju odaeng got us addicted mannnn. What I wouldn't give for an odaeng right now.

DAY 5: Bukchon, Myeongdong, N Seoul Tower, Itaewon

After a well-rested night, we woke up on Day 5 feeling ready to take on Seoul! 

But first, breakfast (lol).

Our plan was pretty free-and-easy to be honest. We started off the day by strolling around the Bukchon Hanok Village, hoping the area wouldn't be too crowded so early in the morning.

There were several other people milling around, evidently thinking the same thing as we were lol. The area itself was beautiful, but I do wonder how happy the residents there really were with so many people walking around their neighbourhood in hopes of a good photo. 

We walked around and took photos for a while around the area, stumbling across Samcheongdong along the way where there was a lookout point. 

We then decided to make our way to Myeongdong in search for lunch - luckily we stumbled upon a great local restaurant serving halal Korean cuisine! I swear that was one of the best meals we had while we were in Korea - highly recommended as it was smack in the middle of Myeongdong. I used the Muslim Pro app to find halal food around the area to locate this restaurant, so you'd probably be able to do the same to find the place. 

The lady serving us the food was absolutely precious and kept trying to talk to us - seriously, all that Pimsleur audio lessons has its uses while we were there lol.

After lunch, we took the bus to N Seoul Tower to get rid of some of those calories lol. 

Honestly burning calories was not our intention, but we inadvertently got that because - funnily enough - we went out of the bus one stop too early and ended up having to walk to the actual N Seoul Tower for almost 2km, which never ceased to amuse me whenever I think back on it.

Definitely not complaining though, because guess what? We got to walk through a beautiful park leading up to the tower with lines of cherry blossom trees greeting us. The walk along the trees was peaceful and beautiful, as there weren't that many tourists around - I think we were the only tourists walking around alongside the locals who were enjoying the beautiful view.

So yeah, I would say the road less travelled has made all the difference on this day.

To be honest, the N Seoul Tower itself felt a bit anticlimactic after that beautiful walk, lol. However, it was a beautiful day out, and even with the crowd, the place itself is undeniably an attractive area. We went inside for a look around, but we didn't opt to go for a view on top of the tower this time around.

 

 

From there, we decided to make our way to Itaewon in search of halal food. In recent years, halal food have been made widely available in Seoul, and there's no better place to look for restaurants than in Itaewon. Itaewon has blended their culture with several other countries' signatures, and a walk along the area is enough to see the influence. Aside from the halal restaurants, one of the must-visit for Muslim visitors in Seoul is the Itaewon Masjid.

After praying at the Masjid, we only had to walk for several minutes in search of EID restaurant. This restaurant was made popular via social media, and of course we had to try and see what the fuss was all about. Final verdict? Well worth the journey for the food.

DAY 6: Nami Island & Ewha University

So a few years back when my other-sister and I went to South Korea, we passed up the chance to go to Nami Island because eh, I wasn't that into Winter Sonata so I didn't really get the hype. I naively thought that Nami Island couldn't possibly offer anything for someone like who doesn't really watch all that much kdramas back then.

I am happy to report that I was proven wrong, because Day 6 had the most photos (excluding Jejudo because no place can beat Jejudo) out of all our Seoul excursions lol.

We decided to take the normal ferry ride to the island - I was interested in the option to zipline there but well, it was way too expensive for our trip budget haha, so maybe next time. We took the earliest train out from Hongdae and took a taxi to the jetty (taxis there are relatively cheap).

Nami Island is  reachable via a train ride + taxi ride + ferry ride

The idea of going to Nami Island itself was initially a throwaway idea when I was drafting up our itinerary in Seoul - there were thoughts of going to Everland and somewhere perhaps a little further out of Seoul - but we finally firmed out our plans the day before and I just thought "eh, why not".

Even though it was pretty early, there were a substantial number of tourists milling around taking photos. To get any good shots, you'd have to have a lot of patience lol because people would just not stop coming in. This is the only downside of Nami Island to be honest.

There's surprisingly a lot of grounds to cover - I personally loved the walk along the seashore, but we didn't manage to cover the other half of the island which was a shame. There's an option of renting a bicycle, which is actually a nice idea, but with the crowd size on the day we opted not to waste our time trying to navigate through the crowd.

Once we had our fill of photos, we had lunch at one of the restaurants there and prayed at the prayer room provided. I loved how far the tourism industry has come in catering to Muslim travellers - back in 2012 it would've been unthinkable that there'd be a prayer room. I'm glad there are a lot of halal options for food, too! Seriously there's a plethora of restaurants to choose from (more on that later).

We made our way back to Seoul by train and decided to stop by Ewha University - I personally only found out about the place through Korean variety shows (hello Running Man & 1N2D pls invite me on your shows), but I'm glad it was made popular because of that.

I loved, loved, loved their campus ground! It's so beautifully laid out and maintained, and the fact that it's a university (almost) exclusively for women is an added bonus. I wish there's a similar university like this in Malaysia back in my time lol. 

We took our time to stroll around the area, and on the way back out we were approached by a few Korean schoolgirls evidently trying to get us to answer some sort of survey or questionnaires. I don't know who was more disappointed, me or them, when I told them we weren't foreign exchange students at the University - girrrlll I wish I go there!

Another thing I loved about Ewha University is its proximity to so many shopping area! LOL. Seriously, the streets were lined with boutiques and stores selling apparels, clothes, food, anything else you can think of to attract young ladies. We were lost in the maze of stores before we decided to call it a day and went back to our Airbnb to nurse out feet lol.

Tomorrow was going to be our last day in South Korea :(

DAY 7: Gwanghwamun, Dongdaemun, Namdaemunn, Myeongdong

The day started off gloomy as it drizzled in the morning; evidently Seoul was sad that it was going to be our last day too ;)

We made our way to Gwanghwamun because we somehow bypassed it when we went to Gyeongbokgung lol. Took a few obligatory shots of the King Sejong statue, and we saw a booth set up offering a free hanbok experience nearby! Score!

Excuse my deer in headlights' face

We obviously weren't going to pass up this (free) cultural opportunity, so we lined up and chose our hanbok while the ladies dressed us up. "This must be what being royalty felt like," I thought as someone dressed me up and tried to make me presentable lol. I mean, there's literally a throne and everything!

(Well, okay, not exactly a throne throne, but you know, it's quite a pedestal!)

Since it was drizzling and it was our last day, we also decided to *drumrolllll* shop! LOL. I mean, Korean skincare is basically a must-purchase, so our last day was obviously going to be dedicated to finding all the latest skincare products, so we went to Dongdaemun.

We took a walk around the Dongdaemun Design Plaza, one of the most recognizable landmarks around Dongdaemun area. Loved the futuristic curves of the area, and it would probably look even nicer illuminated at night.

After that we made our way to Namdaemun, another popular area for tourists who are looking to empty their wallets - bought some souvenirs here as it was one of the cheapest places where we could find everything in one place.

Funny story, while I was waiting for my sister to buy a hotteok for snack (it was drizzling and cold, a perfect weather combination for a hotteok), I saw another Malaysian lady who was just standing nearby to shelter ourselves from the rain. I struck up a conversation with her, just asking her whether she was with a tour group and making small talk while waiting for my hotteok (man was that queue long or what).

Turns out, she was actually a lecturer at UiTM, a local university my sister was currently attending lol. What's more, my sister is slotted to take up the lecturer's course next semester! Talk about coincidence, huh? The world is such a small & intimate space that it's often not that surprising when these kind of things happen, but it's still a nice surprise when it does.

And you know, it pays off to be friendly to fellow Malaysians when you're travelling abroad ;) Always amazing to see how a smile goes a long way.

And so ends our last day in South Korea... It was a pretty fulfilling trip as we managed to pack a lot into our week, although there are still a lot of things I wished I could've covered but you know, one step at a time and all that jazz heh.

This definitely won't be my last visit to South Korea; I won't be back that soon, but trust me when I say *Arnold Schwarzenegger voice* "I'll be back".