Travel Diary: Seoul 2016 (Part 2)

This post is the second part of my travel diary to Seoul. You can read my first part here. I’ll start from Day 4 till my last day.

DAY 4

We haven’t get our shopping done until the 4^th day of our stay. So on this day we went to Myungdong, the most famous place for shopping. Not only for shopping, but I also met my sunbaes a.k.a seniors there. 

When we arrived at Myungdong, I spotted something different. They have LINE Friends Store&Café there now! I’m so happy and excited. I was planning to go to their Insadong branch. But, since we didn’t have much time left, so the Myungdong branch is enough for me. I bought their soft ice cream both Brown and Cony one. The ice cream are nice, the cookie was okay. I prefer the Brown one than the Cony one for the cookie flavor. 

Then I went to see my seniors, leaving my mom alone. She will do her shopping by her own. My seniors and I ate at Gangnam Myeonok. I’ve never been there before, but this restaurant was featured in The Return of Superman. Lee Hwijae’s twins ate at this restaurant before, but not in the Myungdong branch. The restaurant serves delicious and juicy ribs. They have marinated it for few days before serving it. In conclusion, it was very nice meal!
 

The Marinated Beef Ribs a.k.a Galbi-jjim

Lee Hwijae's Twins

I didn’t spend much time with my seniors because suddenly one of my seniors got a bad news from his father. So he has to go back earlier. I went back to my mom afterwards.
My mom has been craving to eat butter rice from School Food. So, since we have come to Myungdong, we ate there. My other cousin also joined us to eat School Food. Yeah, I know I just eaten with my seniors and now I ate again with my mom and cousin. Well, that’s life when you travel. You cannot resist good food while you travel, right? We ordered Beef Butter Rice, Mari or kimbab or small sushi, carbonara ddeokbokki, and pineapple aide. You should try the butter rice and the carbonara ddeokbokki. It was their specialty, for me. Oh by the way, ddeokbokki is known as rice cake. 

Carbonara Ddeokbokki

Special Mari 1

Beef Butter Rice

Pine Aide

After eating, we went for our shopping. Buying all of our relatives favors. I’ll post all of my purchases on the next post (soon!). I went too Innisfree, Etude House, Holika-Holika, Aritaum, and The Faceshop. Myungdong is a haven for makeup stores. I prefer buying makeup in Myungdong because they provide global tax-free and they provide sales assistant for foreigner. So, if you can’t speak Korean, you can find an English speaking or Japanese Speaking or Chinese Speaking assistant to assist you choosing the products you want. They are also has much more range of products rather than their branch in the downtown. 

After some hassle, we went back home. And also my aunt wants to treat us dinner. I ate (again) at a very Korean vibe restaurant. My aunt treat us a Galbi tang or Beef Ribs Soup. I don’t really eat Galbi tang but this one was pretty good. Their kimchi was also nice. The restaurant name is Ojang Galbi. After having a very meaty day, I slept really well that night. (Shown in the video)

DAY 5

On my fifth day, I went to eat lunch with my aunts at a cold noodles restaurant. The restaurant name is Ojangdong Hamheung Naengmyun, it was the most popular and original cold noodles restaurant in that area. Actually, I didn’t like cold noodles that much, but since I misheard my aunt’s offer so we ended up eat cold buckwheat noodles. Cold buckwheat noodles in Korean are called Naengmyeon. We ate at the famous restaurant specialty in cold noodles. We ordered the spicy cold noodles and a sliced beef. It was quite spicy but nice, even though I didn’t like it. (Shown in the video)

After the lunch, my mom and I went to Dongdaemun Market to buy some lace fabric. Then we headed to Hyundai City Outlet. It was a new department store in Dongdaemun area. It was rainy that day. I have a bittersweet relationship with rain when it comes to traveling. Korea is entering rainy season at the time I went there. My mom bought a rice cooker in Hyundai City Outlet. At the time we went back home, it was raining and I have to brought that rice cooker all the way home. It was a struggle though. 

Meeting them in Hyundai City Outlet coincidentally! I want to take them home!

While we were inside the Hyundai City Outlet, we stopped by at Joe&The Juice, which is a juice and coffee shop. The juices are quite expensive, but they use natural and fresh ingredients. And most of all, the “barista” are quite eye-candy!

We waited until the rain stopped inside the house. Then we headed to Nokbeon area to eat our dinner with my other aunt. I was expecting to eat with my cousin, but he has to work. So I was left again with my aunt and uncle. It’s been a long time since I didn’t saw my aunt’s husband. We ate at UJUMI, the short for Uri Juin Micheosseo. It mean “our owner is crazy”. They named it like that because the foods they serve are spicy and have a big portion. It was one of our favorite restaurants in Korea. Even though it was spicy, but I really like it.
When we finished eating, it was raining heavily! And also we had to walk to the subway station. We usually went there by car, but now we don’t have any car, so we had to walk. Since it was quite dark, we tend to forget our way back. My shoes are wet and skirt is quite wet because it was a windy rain. After much trouble with rain and walking, we arrived at the station and went back home. 

those red madness!

DAY 6

It was sad to leave this city soon, because it was my last full day in Seoul. And, I just realized that I made a mistake on my video. It should be six day travel diary, but in the video I made day five twice. I’m sorry for the mistake. 

On my sixth day, I visit Shinsaegye, one of the big department stores in Korea. They have undergone some renovation, but they are already fully operated, except the highest floor. We wanted to buy Korean Ice Tea in sachets, but they don’t sell it in there. In the end, my mom bought Korean strawberry and peach. We also ate in our favorite sushi bar inside. But, they have changed their system and menu, so I think we won’t be eating there in the future.
Since we are already in the city area, we decided to revisit Myungdong again! This time I was more into window-shopping and café hoping. I also bought a street-food snack (that I regret buying). I bought Ddak ganjeong, it is a sweet sour fried chicken with rice cake (ddeok). We went to LINE Friends Café & Store again and bought some stuff and took pictures with the giant Brown inside! I’ll make a video specially about LINE Friends Store and my hauls! (SOON!!) 

Ddakganjeong a.k.a Sweet Sour Chicken with Rice Cake

After a quite time inside the LINE Friends Store, we decided to try Teenie Weenie Café. We ordered few cakes and drink to chase away our tiredness from shopping. They have a quite good taste for the drinks and cakes. Plus it is in a shape of teddy bear! How cute is it??
After some refreshment, we went back home because my aunt has cooked last dinner meal for my mom and me. We ate galbi-jjim at home for dinner. We also finalized our packing after dinner. 

 

Cutie Chocolate Macaroon

Strawberry Fresh Cream Cupcake

Hot Chocolate

I was so thankful to be back to Korea and treated so nicely by my family. I can’t wait to be back to Korea soon! That’s all for my travel diary to Seoul. Thank you for reading and watching my video! See you on my next post! 

Details: 

Gangnam Myeonok
Address (main branch): 588-9, Sinsa-dong, Gangnam-gu
Phone: +82 2-3446-5539 

Myungdong branch: 5F, 48-2, Myeong-dong 1-ga, Jung-gu
Phone: +82 2-3789-7117

School Food
Address: 83-5 Myeongdong 2(i)-ga, Jung-gu (M Plaza 5th Floor)
Phone: +82 2-3783-4111

Ojang Galbi
Address: 69-5, Ojang-dong, Jung-gu (Dongdaemun Area)
Phone: 02-2267-9328 

Ojangdong Hamheung Naengmyun
Address: Jung-gu, Ojang-dong 90-10
(Korean: 서울특별시 중구 오장동 90-10)

Joe and The Juice 
Address (Hyundai City Outlet): 13-ga, 20 Euljiro 6(yuk)-ga, Jung-gu (Dongdaemun History Cultural Park Station) 

UJUMI (우주미)
Address: 185 Nokbeon-dong, Eunpyeong-gu
Phone: +82 2354-7788
How to get there: Take subway to line 3 and take trip for Gupabal Station and stop at Nokbeon Station. Take exit number 4. Then use your Google maps to direct you from the exit to UJUMI. 

Teenie Weenie Café
Address: It is in Myungdong Street. You should spot a Teenie Weenie boutique, and take a lift to 2^nd floor if you want to go directly to the café. Or by stairs if you want to look around the shop.

Travel Diary: Seoul 2016 (Part 1)

“Oh Hello, Korea! I’ve been missing you so much!!” 

(Especially after I came back to my K-drama addiction mode on).

After 2 years, finally, I WENT TO KOREA!! It was an unexpected trip, because I just got only one week holiday. I went to Korea with my mom only this time. We didn’t spend a lot for this trip because my mom has already bought her ticket last year (she opened the ticket, which mean it doesn’t have a fix date, but there is an expired date) and it was almost expired. I got mine for free because we used our miles point. Just FYI, became a miles member is very beneficial!! Register yourself now to your favorite airline, especially the one that joined alliances. Because if you use other airlines in the alliances, you still can collect your miles point.

Day 1

Arrived at Incheon International Airport. I really love this airport after Changi Airport. Usually the arrival immigration is not so crowded, but I don’t know why it was extremely crowded at the time I arrived. Not only packed with fellow Indonesian, but French, Chinese, Japanese, and others. I got out from immigration for around 50 minutes! Even the luggage bags have already came out of the conveyor belt. My cousin and uncle picked us up this time. Before we went out from the airport, I rent a WiFi router. I know Korea is very generous with Wifi, but my aunt didn’t have Wifi in her house, so I really need this router. Or not I have to stay inside a café to reply messages, update instagram, even calling. It will cause so much stress and much more money.(More info about this, you can leave on the comments below!)

From the airport, we stopped by to eat our lunch near the airport. We ate Jjajjangmyeon or black noodles, which is one of the top food in Incheon. We ate at a matjib, which means famous restaurant with excellent taste. We ordered, Kanjjajjang, Samsungkanjjajjang, kampungi, and jjambong. (It feels awkward to write the names in Korean using latin characters). We made a bad choice, because we ordered too much! The portion was too big for 4 people to finish it. I’ll put the address, tips, and what their specialties down below after the diary ended. (Somehow I didn’t have the video footage for the food, so in my Travel Diary video the restaurant and the food didn’t show up).

Our big feast

Jjajangmyeon or Black Bean Noodles (짜장면)

Jjambong or Seafood Spicy Noodle Soup (짬봉)

Kkampungi or Sweet Sour Chicken (깜풍이)

The sauce is called Kanjjajang (간짜장)

The noodles or myeon (면)

This time I stayed at my aunt’s apartment in Dongdaemun area. I really liked it!! It was the most strategic place to stay in Seoul. So, if anyone of you will visit Korea in the meantime, it is better to stay in Dongdaemun area or City Hall area. Her apartment was extremely convenient. (But I don’t took any picture of it, sorry!)

I’m waiting for my aunt to came back home from her work, but she’s still have a lot of things to do. So, my mom decided to have dinner ourselves. We headed to CJ Food Building near my aunt’s apartment. It only took 10 minutes walk. I went there with my 3 cousins 언니 and one of them has a daughter. Yup, I’ve became an aunt. My nephew is super cute!! I’ll post a video of her here in the blog. We ate at Bibigo inside the CJ Food Building. Basically, CJ Food Building is an office whereas the restaurants inside are the subsidiaries of CJ. There are Bibigo, VIPs, Tour Le Jours, Cold Stone, and others. 

Bibigo is a casual dining restaurant that sells traditional food such as Bibimbap, various of Korean soups, Bulgogi, etc. Their price is also affordable. They’ve open their restaurant in several places in the world, including Indonesia! You can find it in Pacific Place Mall. But their menu in Indonesia and Korea are much likely different. The price was also different. But still, their standards are the same! Both of the branches are delicious!

Beef Tenderloin Rice

After we finished our dinner, we went for a walk to Dongdaemun Fashion Complex. It was 15 minutes walk from CJ Food Building. There are bazaars at night, but at that time it was freakin’ cold, I prefer coming inside a building. One of them is Doota! (Doosan Tower), the building was undergone some renovation 2 years ago (the last time I went there). The inside was done, but the outside was still under renovation. Nevertheless, the products sold inside were still pretty and very eye-candy. I wanna buy it all, if the price was not that high! I prefer buying Zara, H&M, etc rather than the local brand inside it. The reasons are they can’t let you try it, the price is more expensive than the brands I’ve mentioned with a similar design, and they only have one size. You know how small are Korean girls? If you are someone like my size, you’ll be having a hard time buying clothes in Doota, Migliore, AM PM, etc. 

After window-shopping all of the floors, we stopped by at Smoothie King. This is my favorite smoothie shop. All of the flavors are yummy! They use fresh ingredients and no added sugar. Very healthy and yummy.

Day 2

I enjoyed my sleep on the previous night. I woke up quite late but still I can enjoy the beautiful day in Seoul. On my second day, I visited Ihwa-dong Mural Village. It is a very famous shooting location/background/props for K-drama. The most recognizable one is on “Rooftop Prince” drama. But before entering the village itself, I was fascinated by Daehakno Area. It is a youngster, especially university students’ area for hanging around and shopping. There were a lot of cafes and shop with cute stuff inside and also cheap!! I really liked it. You can visit there by taking Hyewa Station (line 4) exit 2. There were signs that lead you the way to the Mural Village.

The Entrance to Daehak-ro Area

Directory

The first mural you will see is the one below. You will also a map that shows you the mural you should take picture with it. But, I couldn't find it all. Maybe they are replaced with new murals. I’ll put the pictures in chronological sequence, so when you visit it, you can follow the picture I took.

Mural #1

 

Mural #2

Some random artsy decoration along the street

From behind and you can see a glimpse of N Seoul Tower

 

Girls with Uniform Trying to Transport Back to 80s

#randomshot

Ta-da! The Famous Spot! (Mural #3)

Hi Bunny and Catty!

Mural #4

Day dreamin'

Mural #5

Pandas Mural that I found when I lost my way back

not the original angel mural, but this is the spot a WGM couple took a shot

You can kiss Kim Soohyun on this mural #KimSoohyunFTW

Flower Mozaic Stairs

Mural #9

The iconic angel's wing (Mural #9)

On the middle of our journey, my mom was thirsty. So, we stopped by at a local café, named Café Travel. Inside we can try out how it feels living in oktabang or rooftop room. Their drinks were also nice and the café were also comfortable. On the other side of this café, it is the entrance for Naksan Park. But, unfortunately I didn’t went there because I wanted to finished my mural tour first.

Cafe Travel on a Rooftop

Naksan Park Entrance

After finished exploring the mural village, we stopped by at a cotton candy stall. It's quite expensive than we have it in Indonesia, but the cotton candy in Korea was too cute, that I can't resist. 

Isn't it cute?

  
We ate our lunch at around 3 PM. It was quite exhausting, yet it was fun! We ate at Pizzeria’O. They’ve been featured in Tasty Road variety show. With such a good credence, we entered the restaurant. We ordered calamari, mushroom pizza, and orange drink. The food we ordered was fantastic! I really liked the calamari, because the seasoning was perfect and the squid were soft and tender. At that time, I was having a toothache, so I couldn’t open my mouth too big and chewing hard food. Their mushroom pizza was also nice and smells good. I guess they use truffle oil to create the nice smells.

Combinations of soft calamari, prawn, and chips!!

Mushroom pijaa!

Finished eating, we were going to Han River, the most recognizable shooting location in K-drama. But, we lost our way when we searched for our main entrance. Even though we were lost, we finally found our way back even though we have to walk around the neighborhood! Getting lost can be very beneficial sometime, but not in a cold windy day. 

Cute poop(s) on the street that I found when I lost my way (again)

Han River is located in Yeouido area, near KBS building, 63 Building, some 5-star hotels, and other offices. You can take Ttukseom Park Station to visit this river. The reason I want to visit this park is because I wanted to see cherry blossom! But, at the time I went there, it was almost gone and rain just came down few hours ahead. In the end I didn’t saw any cherry blossom but I enjoyed seeing some flowers here. Koreans like to have picnic on this season particularly, so there were a lot of human at the park. If you don’t like to saw a lot of people, you can manage to come here before office hours ended. 

Coincidentally found this painted stairs inside Yeouido Station

Seoul Skyline x Han River

Picnic situation at Han River

Some minimalist pond with moving water spray (?)

Hail Korean public toilet!!

Closer look to Han River

With mom in front of butterfly-shaped flower

Hairstyle does make a different!

Colorful roses

Since we didn’t get to see any cherry blossom, we went back home. I was extremely sad, but since it was cold also, I decided to go back home as fast as we can. Before we went to our apartment, we stopped by at Lotte Fittin. It is a department store like Doota, AM PM, etc. But their price is more affordable since they are having sale! Then, after buying few things we stopped by at Sulbing, to get our favorite dessert! Sulbing is a famous red bean shaved ice shop in Korea. Their top menu is their Patbingsoo (Red Bean Shaved Ice) and Injeolmi (mochi-like) Honey Toast. We ordered both of those huge desserts for two. Even though we didn’t finish it all, but our craving have been satisfied. (Shown in the video)

Day 3 

We didn’t plan much for this trip, but every time we came to Korea, we must visit Namdaemun Market. Our first stop is Namdaemun market. We bought some souvenirs here. It was much cheaper than you bought in duty free shops. We went to stationery shops and bought some cute stuff for scrap-booking and cute money envelopes (angpao).

This is the Namdaemun Gate

We make a sudden plan to Hongdae. Before we went there, we stopped by at my cousin’s shop near Hongdae. We picked up her then we ate together in Hongdae. We visited my mom’s favorite restaurant, which is Masan Dallae Agujjim. It is a seafood restaurant specialized in agu-jjim. I didn’t know exactly what kind of fish is “agu”, but it is a fish with big bones. The food is very spicy, but it is very yummy. I didn’t like spicy food but I do love this one. After finished eating all the meat, we ordered rice and they will make fried rice with the leftover sauce, and it was the yummiest part. You should do that whenever you eat this kind of food. 

After finished eating, we stroll around Hongdae and try to be Korean youngster. LOL. I stopped by at Style Nanda. It was their first off-line branch. It has 3 floors and sells both makeup and clothing. I didn’t put any footage of Style Nanda in my video, because they said that no picture and video are allowed inside. I got some footage, but in the end I didn’t insert it because it will make me somehow a criminal. I bought 2 items of Style Nanda and I’ll include it on my Korean Haul (which will be posted after this one).

After strolling around Hongdae, we stopped by at the Hello Kitty Café in Hongdae. They have renovated it and it was bigger than the previous one. I didn’t take much picture because it was dark already. Their menu remains the same mostly, so we ordered what we used to have. Hot chocolate, ice tea, yogurt, tiramisu cake, and banana cake (this one is the new menu). I really wanted to try Sobok Ice Cream in Hongdae, but I was too full and too cold to get an ice cream. I’ll definitely came back to get them.

What we ordered

My Hot Chocolate Kitty

Me and my Korean Cousin inside the Hello Kitty Cafe

I’ll split my travel diary blog post into two parts, because it was too long. I think you will get bored to read all of it in one post. The video itself is a 20 minutes long, so you probably get bored. I’m really sorry with the long delay and a not stable video. But, I really appreciate every watch, like, and comments. Thank you so much!! 

Here are the address of the restaurants and how to get there:
TeukHeo Sonjjajang Maeul (Incheon)
Address: Baekseok-dong, Seo-gu, Incheon, South Korea
(Korean : 인천 서구 백석동 55-14 번지)
Phone: +82 32-561-1457

Bibigo
Address: They have too much branch, so I'll leave the website below so you can search the nearest branch near you. 
Website: english.bibigo.co.kr/
 
Smoothie King
Address: Junggu Jangchungdan-ro 275, Doosan Tower 4^th Floor no.56 (Euljiro 6-ga)
(Korean: 울특별시 중 장충단로 275, 두산타워 4층 56호 (을지 6가))
Website: www.smoothieking.co.kr/

Café Travel
Address: I can’t find the address but when you saw Naksan Park entrance, it is located on the opposite side.

Pizzeria’O
Address: ‪48, Dongsung-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul‬
Phone: 02-3673-5005
Website: http://mpizzeriao.fordining.kr

Sulbing
Address: Junggu, Eulji-ro 245 (Eulji-ro 6-ga)
(Korean: 서울특별시 중구 을지로 245 (을지로 6가))
Phone: 02-2276-0992
Website: http://sulbing.com

Masan Dallae Agujjim
Address: 355-17 Seogyo-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul,
(Korean: (홍대), 서울특별시 마포구 서교 355-17)
Phone: +82 2-333-0846

Hello Kitty Café
Address: 364-14 Seogyo-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul (Hongdae area, Hongik University Station Exit 9)
Phone: 02-333-0846