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