today was a touristy-kinda day where we went to the places that most foreigners would visit when they come to seoul!
as usual we woke up only in time for lunch so this was something van herself wanted to try in itaewon!
it's called sigol bapsang which is a cosy little eatery that is very famous for serving authentic korean side dishes called banchan. (quick directions: walk straight on from exit 2 of itaewon station for about 10-15min and spot the prominent orange sign)
strangely the maxmimum occupancy of this place is probably about 20-30 people because there's only like 5 tables?
and because there's so many side dishes, the tables are long and even if there's only 2 of you, you'll both occupy an entire table, leaving only 4 tables left!
you can also choose to dine the traditional korean way by sitting on cushions on the ground (tosokchon has this too) or sit on normal chairs/benches.
the interior is really small and cosy but it isn't cramp at all.
it was a really warm place run by 3 ahjummas and 1 male waiter and i felt really welcome.
the menu consists of the banchan (side dishes) for only 8,000won per portion.
you can order other dishes for a separate cost as well. only the banchan is compulsory.
van and i decided to get an additional steamed egg and a haemul pajeon (again!)
look at that spread omg.
i think it was really quite a lot for two people but who cares, we are in korea and we are here to eat!
overall reviews: i'd give it a 10/10 seriously omg
- this was my happiest meal in korea without a doubt, because the delectable spread really reflects the authentic way of life at the dinner table.
- the haemul pajeon is one of the best i've had in korea. they were really generous with both the squids and the spring onions so.... (Y) the pancake itself was super crisp and delicious too!
- the dishes are reasonably priced (for some reason pajeon is always damn expensive in korea idk why)
we sat there for almost 2 hours before finishing all our food and leaving the place.
the only thing we didn't finish was the pickled green peppers which were too strong for our tastebuds to take lol.
^ lol look at that mona lisa HAHAHHAA
because itaewon is most famous for being a foreigner land, there's all these different countries and their plaques engraved onto the ground!
didn't manage to see singapore's one though - we're probably too small and insignificant to make it there.
FINALLY FOUND THE CHANCE TO TRY SOFTREE FOR THE FIRST TIME.
and omg it is the best soft serve i have ever eaten.
i have done research prior to the trip and discovered that softree is the best/original/smoothest milk soft serve there is in korea!
there are a lot of different brands of soft serve like milkcow, sweettruck and milkybee, but softree seems to be everyone's favourite!
decided to try the liquid honey ice cream and omg it was love at first lick.
IT WAS DAMN GOOD OMG IDK HOW YOU DESCRIBE THIS BUT this soft serve is really super creamy and luscious and the honey is really thick and good!!!!!
though the portion's a bit small but the quality is really to-die-for :)
now that i think about honey creme in singapore...... ew, no fight.
there wasn't anything much to explore in itaewon - the only thing i would rejoice over would probably be the fact that i managed to find my favourite pair of floral vans at abc-mart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
so happy that i managed to find my size because it was a crazily discounted pair - i got it only for S$43!!!! damn cheap omg.
thinking of buying a pair of nike roshes too thanks to van who bought a pair ah so gorgeous :'(
itaewon doesn't really have much unless you're with a big group of friends and you wanna drink and chill out in a bar/cafe.
other than that the streets are pretty wind-down and there isn't much activity like there is in hongdae or dongdaemun.
it's a really peaceful place though.
anyway, our time in itaewon ended pretty quick with a cup of churros.
we walked on to noksapyeong station to train back to dongjak, to the han river we go!!!
^ this is noksapyeong station's interior. find these crazy stairs familiar?
yup this is where they filmed the office workers' race (episode 223) where they completed the morning commute mission.
the huge space where kwangsoo destroyed the cleaning ladies' mops and the humongous flight of stairs where sukjin took forever to climb hahaha!
go watch that episode omg it's probably one of the funniest!!!
reached the han river at around 7pm and sigh the view is gorgeous.
the sun sets pretty late in korea that's why i managed to capture the color gradient of the sky on camera!
yes that tiny little circle in the last photo is the moon :P
there were some sort of exhibitions going on and we were hoping to grab a bite because by 8pm all our massive banchan lunch had been digested and our stomachs were in search of dinner.
but boohoo there wasn't anything really nice to eat here so we left.
this is probably the banpo bridge where we wanted to catch the light shows but there wasn't anything that night????
not sure if we were too late or we got lost or whether the weather conditions that night were just not favourable.
what a pity we didn't manage to catch the light show sigh i've read around that it was really good but oh well just our luck :'(
at least we got to see some stunt cyclists trying to master the skill - i salute all the guts that they have man i can't even cycle a 2-wheel bicycle normally.
we walked on all the way to the express bus terminal station whilst following a crowd of girls and boys hahaha.
our hunger pangs were satisfied after i had a bowl full of tteokbokki omg there were at least 50 pieces of rice cakes swimming in there i'm not kidding haha!
the stallowners were pretty nice and the 2 boys talked to us a lot in chinese!
it was quite funny seeing them dance around to the music that was being played while they worked and cleaned.
such humorous and friendly locals heheh i like!!!!!
what a good end to my day despite being unable to catch the light show :'(
we didn't even initially plan to come to the express bus terminal - this was like an impromptu thing after our supper last night lol.
there's at least 200 odd shops in this underground shopping area - all the shopping there can really take you the entire day.
we stopped by for lunch at shinsegae before embarking on our crazy shopping adventure there.
settled for bento-looking stall again and i bought this.
i thought it was some damn good teriyaki chicken and was so eager to dig in.
but guess what.... it was just kinda like minced meat/fishcakes/tofu sighpie i was so disappointed LOL
i had my 2nd cup of softree here and i finally tried the honeycomb soft serve!!!!!!!!
omg it was so damn good - my $6 was totally well spent hahaha.
the honeycombs were so chewy that i lost myself and dropped my spoon 'cos i was so excited and hence careless HAHA.
anyway when our real shopping finally began after a good lunch and dessert, it was time to go crazy spending oh yeah.
i thought i took a photo of the entire stretch of shops lol but i didn't.
the stretch of shops is really endless and there's just SO MANY clothes to look at though they're mostly repeats 'cos i am a cheapo and look at discount racks only.
^ there was even a sanitary pad shop called hannahpad and you can actually buy like patterned sanitary pads that come in different sizes lol. from pantyliners to overnight HAHAHA i wonder how much were these...
express bus terminal has probably like 2 sections, one for clothes and the other for home furniture/flowers/home & living etc.
look at that pretty nautical themed decorations!!!
van and i left the ebt fully loaded with loads of clothes and some other rubbish as well HAHA.
our arms were this close to breaking so we decided to stop by home before heading out again for myeongdong, which was where we planned to do our last-minute spree on facial products ;)
so this was our first and final glimpse of the evening sky outside seoul station because we have never been home at this time.
stopped by for some mouth-watering mandu from an ahjumma ;)
for some strange reason the streets of myeongdong were kinda quiet for a tuesday night?
usually the place is bustling with citizens from all walks of life, be it a young couple on a romantic date or a group of hip ahjummas just hanging out together.
we happened to walk into this little snack mart and i wasn't planning to buy anything (left all the seaweed buying to the last day hahahaa last-minute travellers) but guess what i found?
EXO ON THE PEPERO BOX!!!!!!! (2nd row from the bottom)
all my fangirl fireworks were exploding again so yup i obviously grabbed a box :P
it would've made such a great souvenir for an exo fangirl too lol the packaging was damn nice and it came with an exo photocard.
after 16 days.... we confess that we have yet to try patbingsu (shaved ice) or any kind of korean dessert.
LIKE HOW CAN RIGHT.
so we forcibly searched for the korean dessert cafe and yes we finally found it :-))))
decided on a patbingsu and an injeolmi toast (toasted bread with grilled rice cake in between, topped with soybean, azuki, sesame seeds and honey!)
for all you panivores out there, injeolmi toast is the bomb. it has such a unique texture because of the grilled rice cakes in between but the powdered soybeans really did the trick.
I AM NOW OFFICIALLY MARRIED TO INJEOLMI TOAST.
and this patbingsu was some serious stuff man.
the one at tom n toms in singapore totally pales in comparison to this.
the shaved ice in korea is super fine and melt-in-your-mouth kind but still retains a thick milky taste to it despite its thinness.
and i absolutely love those muah chee-looking things on top hehehe i think their chewy rice cakes but wtv they're muah chee to me ;)
after dessert we did more facial product spreeing again and as i quote van, "jamie has stepped into nature republic (different stores) for at least 10 times".
aiya can't help it there's all the cute boys endorsing right ;)
^ THANKS TO HIS CUTE STANDEE I BOUGHT HAND CREAM WHEN I DIDN'T EVEN NEED IT BUT ALSO THANKS TO THE ANNOYING STAFF THAT FOLLOWS YOU AROUND LIKE A PARASITE THAT I COULDN'T TAKE A PHOTO WITH MY LIFE-SIZE STANDEE HMMPH.
but we ended up buying i think 100 masks that night, some hand cream and other useful but useless facial products like a 7-day anti-acne cream and a tube of lipstick.
van bought a turkish kebab home mmmm while i ate my favourite udon again from my favourite ahjumma again lolol.
need to replenish all that energy/calories lost from carrying all the shopping you know.
i am now crowned nature republic's most loyal shopper.
that night i dare not even count how much i spent hahaha but ah well since the trip was coming to its end it was time to go all out~
27 May. Day 17 - Lotte Mart, Incheon Airport, Home Sweet Home
because we crashed so late last night (5am) due to hectic packing we only woke up at 11 in the morning...
mind you van and i each had like 100+ masks to pack, 20 over clothes, 4-5 caps, heavy artbox hauls, 6 facial cleansers, 6 bags of potato chips (that's me) and a lot of other things plus the souvenirs AND OH NOT TO FORGET MY TOTORO
it was such a hard time packing but we finally stuffed everything in our luggage + duffel bags while handcarrying another TWO bags each.
so in total we had like a bagpack, a luggage, a duffel bag and 2 handcarry bags to lug all the way to incheon.
but we did it :')
we should've taken a victory dance/photo to commemorate our amazing packing skills HAHAHA
so we walked over to emart and grabbed our last-minute supply of seaweed - which also meant that we bought pretty little seaweed because our storage space only had 0.01% available :'(
i'm sorry guys if i didn't buy enough seaweed back.
my last meal in korea was a bowl of soba IN lotte mart lol i love how korean supermarkets have like little eateries for you to sit and eat after shopping!!!!!
we even packed all our seaweed packets into a big cardboard box that we created at lotte mart fastened pretty well with raffia strings hahaha.
so this was goodbye, for real. :'(
took a few final shots of our apartment (that is in a really messy state) before we ATTEMPTED to lug everything down the stairs (there was no lift..... so much for living on the 3rd floor which was the highest sigh what luck)
just in case you're curious how our place looks like, yup here it is!!!
it's just nice for two and maybe a little too cosy for three.
the weird and lucky thing was that we only met our host face-to-face on the very last day of our trip.
we only communicated with him via kakaotalk for the past 16 days and we never actually saw him in the apartment.
but he was a really friendly and patient guy who answered all my stupid questions about operating the floor heater and even gave us directions to nami island :-)
so when he met us in person that day, he saw us 2 struggling so helplessly to carry everything down the stairs.
and he volunteered to help us carry our luggage omg....
ALL THE WAY TO SEOUL STATION SOME MORE?!
he's such a kind soul omg thank u so much :'(
thank you yong!!!!
thanks to him we managed to catch the 2.30pm train to incheon :')
and i cannot imagine what would have happened if we didn't, because....
the story continues below.
on the 45min train ride to incheon which we arrived at about 3.15pm!!!!
our flight was at 6.45pm so we figured hmm yeah thankfully we're early! :-)
this was everything that we had to lug from seoul station all the way to incheon.
i really wasn't exaggerating hahaha see it for yourself!!
but our worst nightmare just had to happen.
so to begin with the ending, we nearly MISSED our flight. no joke, we boarded 2 minutes before the gate closed.
why?
i think it taught us a very painful lesson because we kinda took the efficient administrative processes at the airport in singapore for granted.
we presumed that since incheon is quite a world-class airport itself the waiting time to complete our immigration processes wouldn't be that long and that we might even have the time to stop by my long-awaited charlie brown cafe.
but we were wrong, so wrong.
the queue to check-in was so bloody long and i think we queued for almost an hour just to check in our luggage.
but because we exceeded the baggage weight limit, we had to proceed to another counter just to pay the overweight charges.
and obviously it wasn't cheap - i paid like S$150 for my fatass luggage.
not only was i feeling so annoyed at the inefficiency, having to pay all that cash was even more heart-wrenching.
i thought nothing could get worse then but we were told we had to make our way to ANOTHER counter just to check-in our overweight luggage.
like seriously is having overweight luggage some sort of privilege so much so that we had to check it in separately from the others?????
and the queue was so damn long - and it was ALREADY 5.30pm then.
we still had a shitload of tax refund receipts to deal with.
at that point in time i totally abandoned the thought of even going home.
i'm just like, forget it i'll just book another flight home we'll never be able to make it on time.
thankfully at 6.10pm we found some really kind-hearted souls who let us cut the queue because we told them our flight was at 6.45pm.
"oh you better run along!!!!" - one of them even exclaimed to me brightly.
thank you so much for saving our butts :'))))))
van checked in the baggage while i dealt with the tax refund receipts.
the language barrier was quite bad but all i knew was that i had to report to row 20-something in the departure hall just to claim all our refunds.
and as usual to even check into the departure halls it was pretty slow and we barely made it into the departure hall at 6.25pm.
our flight was at row 45 and row 20-something was all the way at the opposite end.
by this time i thought i was going to cry or something.
so our almost-$300 worth of tax refunds had to be abandoned because we reached our row at 6.32pm.
boarding gates close 10 minutes before departure time right?
so yes we made it just in the nick of time.
it was a relief that we caught our flight, but at the expense of our unclaimed tax refunds that could've covered my overweight baggage charges.
head to the airport at least 6 hours before your flight time.
no wait, maybe i should say, just be there 8 hours beforehand.
if you're catching an evening flight like us, just be there in the morning.
if it's an afternoon flight, you better be there at like 8am or something.
it's not about being kiasu but sometimes as singaporeans i think we take our efficient immigration system for granted, just like how we neglected it.
you never know what is going to hold you up at the airport, throngs of tourists and huge crowds, overweight baggage, wasting time trying to find counters after counters and the list goes on.
i'm pretty certain that there's no other airport like singapore's that is so speedy and efficient.
so please be early and buy an extra luggage beforehand if you know yours is going to explode.
i can't believe it didn't even occur to either of us to buy when we both knew that we had to pay a hefty amount for all the shopping we did (too much of). :'(
ah but anyway, on a more positive note, we were more than relieved to have caught our flight back home.
goodbye incheon, goodbye seoul.
anyway i am finally growing up and out of getting sick on airplane rides!!!!
usually i'd close my eyes and sleep peacefully on the plane because the pressure on board just makes me feel giddy and nauseous.
but this time i couldn't even sleep one wink so i ended up playing a lot of stupid games and laughing at our self-created inside jokes on the plane with van :')
we had a fish fillet rice for dinner and a slice of pizza for a night snack!!!!
yumyum :-)
so after 16 long days, we touched down in our homeland at midnight!!!!!
really going to miss everything about the country sigh :'(
so thankful for this enjoyable overseas trip which wouldn't have been possible without my parents and van aww i love you all so much!!!!!!!!! :')
and with that i've finally finished narrating my 17-day experience in seoul!!!!!
#seoulfarseoulgood
see you sometime again soon korea, you are a beautiful country :)
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