Day 4 in Seoul: Lotte World

Exactly two months ago, I was here in Lotte World, exploring both the indoor and outdoor theme parks and taking photos in almost every corner. I remember that it was a weekday (Monday I guess..), but surprisingly the whole place was extremely crowded. It was just weekday... imagine what could happen on weekend! Not just tourists, but there were many many korean youngsters too. They probably were on end-year break and or something. Frankly speaking, I think the admission fee to Lotte World is a little unworthy.. we spent 48,000 won (RM 165) but didn't get to enjoy most of the rides. Nevermind. I still managed to have lots and lots of fun!

When I was younger, I wasn't so interested with this theme park in Seoul. Until a few years back, when Daniel first visited Lotte World and he was like "next time when we have chance, let's come to Lotte World together". That was when I started to pay more attention to this beautiful theme park. I regret for not waking up earlier that morning or else we could have spent more time there.

We went there by subway, about 45 minutes ride from our apartment in Gongdeok..
rested in front of this Trevi Fountain replica while grabbing a quick meal.. no time 
for proper meal because we picked sleep over food. 

Roughly showing y'all how the world's largest indoor them park looks like. All these pictures were taken in Adventure 1st Floor. There are more parks to explore, but mostly are for kids. Everything here is just cute!

Look! Even the stage performance is so cute... Kids are gonna like it a lot. I am not a kid but I somehow got amused by their stage shows HAHAHAHA I actually stopped there to watch the show and Daniel was annoyed and be like "you're such a kid". 

Aeronauts Balloon Ride.

This photo reminds me of a ride that I failed to try (regretting now...). Daniel went up last time and he told me that we could enjoy the entire view of the indoor theme park on Floor 1 while going on a ride. I was a little too rushy to visit the outdoor theme park and decided to come back at night, since there would be lights all over, which I thought would be very beautiful. Ended up, we missed it when we got back at night because we were too hungry and strengthless. Sad life. This time we picked food over entertainment lol.

Magic Land.

 It's an outdoor amusement park, with all the scary thrill rides like roller coaster, 

bungee jump and swings. Isn't it beautiful? 

Woohoo! Credits to Daniel for this fave shot of mine.

People kept passing by and photobombed me. 

Extremely crowded. We spent more than FOUR hours in Magic Land and only managed to visit The Haunted House(a 3-D horror theater) and go on two rides. Which means that we queued for more than an hour for each ride. Take a look at the photos below. Every corner was terribly packed. 

Daniel enjoying his Hot Chocolate.

Bungee.

This was the very first ride I took in Magic Land. It's something like "跳楼机" but at lower height. Basically, this thing goes up to 38 m, falls at the speed of 90 km/h and when it's almost at the bottom, the bungee repeats again and again. There is another ride called Gyro Drop which is so much scarier and higher but only goes one shot from the top to the bottom. I never like anything like this, because I'm not anyone who can bear the fear of sudden fall from a high spot. But, since Daniel wanted me to try and this was probably the least challenging ride there... so I got no choice lol.

Gyro Spin.

I did not lie nor exaggerate when I mentioned about the long queue earlier. 

Can you see how far we were from the ride? Literally lined up for one and a half hours.

Gyro Swing.

This had the longest queue but I got no idea why we still went for it. It's like a circular thing that holds 40 people and swings from left to right while the vehicle spins. VERY TERRIFYING. You may not feel the fear now, just go on a ride and the experience will explain itself. 

How Magic Land looks at night. Amazing view!

Back to indoor and wow, they had more performances at night compared to day time! It was about 7:00 pm in Seoul and we were starving badly. Couldn't stand it anymore and decided to leave Lotte World and head for a good meal at Gangnam (Gangnam is famous with good food!).

Hana Udon.

I forgot why we ended up in this restaurant, but the food was good and not over priced. To be honest, I tried a few restaurants on the previous days and the owner charged unreasonably. But I guess, this one was quite okay. At least the food was in big portion, cheap price and most importantly delicious.

After dinner, we went to Lotte Mart, the branch at Seoul Station to hunt for famous korean products. Overall, it was a good day at Lotte World and Lotte Mart. Satisfied!

DANIEL'S PRE-BIRTHDAY DINNER

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY DANIEL CHAN!"

Hey, gotta stop blogging about Seoul trip for awhile because it's the boyfriend's birthday. Daniel turned twenty on 23rd of January 2016, but as we would be pretty occupied with event on the actual day itself, we've decided to grab a pre-birthday dinner on his birthday eve at Le Midi, Bangsar Shopping Centre. I kinda picked this one because I wanted to try new stuff and Le Midi is just one of the must-try-restaurants in my list (yes, I chose this although its's not my birthday because Daniel probably would suggest to eat McDonalds).

Booked a table at 7:30 pm, but lol Malaysian will never be on time. We spent almost two hours to reach the mall, and yup we were late thanks to the heavy traffic! I was really surprised to find that we were the first table there although it was about eight at night already. 

And no window seats because those are for customers who order the 

French or Italian Menu (4 courses).

Birthday boy.

We had a hard time deciding what to eat. Fortunately, that have this set menu which comes with starter, main course and dessert. More than enough for one person and it's only RM 98++ per set. Very worthy I would say! Of course, one dinner set will not be enough to feed two of us. I wanted to try other stuff too, thus, we just ordered a set for Daniel and I went for pasta. 

Wild mushroom soup with truffle oil as starter. 

Nothing much.. just like what other restaurants can do but at least it's nice. That's all that matters.

Grilled Salmon with orange dill sauce served with roasted potatoes.

For the main dish, we were allowed to choose either grilled salmon or grilled ribeye. Daniel picked salmon because he wanted me to try his food a little and I don't eat beef. I was impressed, because I rarely eat salmon too but I kinda like this, not bad huh.

Walnut brownie served with vanilla ice cream.

And the last thing from the set. Ice cream and brownie... Perfect match!

Classic Escargot a la Bourgogne with herbs and garlic butter. (RM 47+)

Other than the dishes above, we ordered escargot, our all time favourite dish! So far there are two restaurants that serve perfect escargot. The first one goes to The Ship, followed by Cava, Bangsar. The above one tasted good but not as buttery as I expected it to be. I prefer it to taste a little stronger. Anyway, still something that worth a try.

Penne pasta with tomato sauce, smoked duck and mushroom.

Oh, not forgetting the pasta that I've mentioned earlier. Everything in the picture above is just nice and well matched. I remember seeing lots of reviews about the food portion. Many said that the portion served in Le Midi is real small but I don't think so. I think all dishes are served in an appropriate size that could fill up a moderate eater. If you're a super big eater then.. order more perhaps? But, honestly, with the above dishes, both Daniel and I were pretty filled up already.

My truly awkward ootd shot haha. 

The little gift that I've prepared for him. Lol I got him balloons too although he is not a huge fan of all these, just to decorate the gift box. Probably his first time receiving helium balloons too. I am so glad that I have bought the right stuff for him and thank god, he likes his birthday pressie a lot! 

That's all for this post.. Happy 20th Birthday Daniel!

Le Midi, Bangsar Shopping Centre

3rd floor, East Wing,

Bangsar Shopping Centre,

Kuala Lumpur.

Operating hours:

MONDAY - SUNDAY (11:30 am to 11:00 pm)

Contact: 03-20941318

For more information: lemidi.com.my

Day 3 in Seoul: Geongbokgung Palace and Bukchon Hanok Village

It's 2016 already.. and I'm still not done blogging about my Seoul trip. Now you see that I'm truly a big procrastinator heh. Okay, let's talk about Seoul again..

So, for the first two days, I explored a small part of Seoul which is Dongdaemun and visited the well known island, Namiseom. Day three was a little different. It was all about visiting historical places and experiencing their traditional culture in Korea. 

The very first destination was Gwanghwamun. Basically we were there to fill up our empty stomach before we could start exploring places. We walked for some time to hunt for an old small restaurant recommended by some online posts. You wouldn't believe how hard was it to just look for that restaurant. We passed by quite a few times without noticing it.. truely hidden. 

(picture taken from the web because I didn't snap any)

This was the one we were looking for, Gwanghwamun Jip. I didn't communicate much with

the shop owner.. because I couldn't speak Korean. But I guess most of the people who visit this

place would eat the same things. The owner probably already knew what I wanted since I first

stepped into the restaurant.

The well known kimchi jjigae (kimchi stew)

And gyeran mari (Korean-style rolled omelettes)

I couldn't list the specific price of these dishes because I got confused by of the total amount we had paid. Supposedly our meal costed around 14,000 won as we only ordered two dishes and two rice (according to the prices listed in certain blog posts), but our bill turned out to be 19,000 won. Wasn't sure if the prices had increased, we had ordered the wrong stuff or they just charged us more as we appeared to be tourists. Nevermind, the portion was really big. At least, our stomachs were satisfied.

Next stop, headed to Geongbokgung, one of the must-go palaces in Seoul. This place got 

nothing much but all the small houses, big gardens and lake. Most of the small houses inside 

were locked up so there was really nothing much to explore. I saw many people walking around 

with Hanbok, yup they probably rented at the store nearby.  

Oh, and the entrance fee for Geongbokgung Palace is around 3,000 won each. Not pricey at all, because to be honest, with that amount I couldn't even fill up my tummy in Korea. 

After 30 minutes inside, and I got completely bored because everywhere seemed similar.. Just red buildings and trees in all corners.. HAHA.. therefore, we decided to take picture of ourselves instead. Anyways, I did not explore all of the palace as we wanted to have a walk at Bukchon Hanok Village ("hanok" stands for Korean traiditional houses), and it was already three in the afternoon.

No one was there to snap a photo for us... But we brought monopod heh!

While we were still busy taking photos, these guards at the main gate, Gwanghwamun Gate had the Guard Changing Ceremony We saw it! But we didn't snap any photo of the event.. all attention was given to the ceremony. Walked out of the palace and found more guards. I felt really proud of them, it was less than 8 degrees and they could remained in this position. I couldn't even stand still for more than 5 minutes!

Went to Samcheong-dong area, and we explored the beautiful street where many well renovated and big cafes could be found. You couldn't imagine the amount of steps I've walked. Seriously, I could spend a day there just to walk around and try the cafes. Too bad, we gotta spend some time to visit the famous Bukchon Hanok Village which is few minutes away. Then, we bumped into this Godiva store and Daniel suggested to stop by and try their ice-cream. 

Eating ice-cream in cold weather felt awesome!

On the way to the most visited hanok area and this bear left outside of a cafe caught my attention. 

Basically, there are many small streets in this village. We only visited the one that the local people told us to go. We were so lucky to bump into a sweet lady and her boyfriend who were going to the same place and she just asked us to follow her as she would be going to the most visited street. The street was kinda silent although many people were walking around.. you will see signs everywhere requesting you to be silent as these houses are owned by families and obviously they do not want to be constantly disturbed by noises from tourists and visitors.

Some houses are now used as art museums. Look! The red painting is definitely Jesus.

Finally, found a store to rent Hanbok. As you can see, it's a small Hanok with many choices of Hanbok inside. Most of these Hanbok stores close at 5:00 PM. The rental price for the store above would be 10,000 won per person. I heard there's another one located at other street that charges 7,000 won only, nah too lazy to walk so decided to go for the one above. 

Picking our Hanbok...

Heeeheee this is how I look in Hanbok. Initially I wanted to pick a yellow top and pair it with a red or blue skirt as the shop owner told me that's what the young ladies wear before they are married. But then, she saw me holding a light pink top and a translucent floral skirt in grey, and she thought these were gonna match better. She even made my hair for me and I could pick my own hairband.

The shop owner was kind enough to give me one more green fluffy outerwear to try on.
Perfect match with the cold weather!

Daniel wanted to wear like an Emperor and the shop owner got him a purple Hanbok. We were given 10 minutes to walk around the street before returning the garments. 

 Credits to Daniel.