Day 6 in Seoul: Hongdae, Namsan Mount & Myeongdong

Happy leap day! This day only comes once in 4 years, and I'm gonna make the most of it.. by blogging my very last post of my Seoul trip. (Day 6 would be my last one because Day 7 was all about wandering around the airport while waiting for our delayed flight). On the last day, we went to three different places; Hongdae, Namsan Mount and Myeongdong. Let's talk about these places one by one.

1) Hongdae

Uhm.. I don't think I went only Hongdae, we were kinda like wandering around Hongdae and Ehwa Women's University area. Yup, these places are full of students, which also means that things are all cheap here! Seriously, the cheapest clothe you can find in Seoul is like 10,000 won.. Even in Myeongdong most of them are like 15,000 won. But hey, these areas sell H&M and Bershka tops at 7,000 won. I was like "OMG. BUY." It's really unworthy to get clothes during winter because not every country experiences winter. At least my country doesn't. But if it's so cheap and not too thick to be worn in 32 degrees then why not. (Yes Malaysia is always around 32 to 36 degrees)

My biggest regret was to forget about Trick Eye Museum, located at Hongdae. I told Daniel many times that I must visit this museum but lol, we were too busy shopping and only realized that we missed it when we were leaving for Namsam Mount. See, I'm this forgetful.

2) Namsan Mount

According to your itinerary, we were supposed to have visited Namsan Mount on Day-3 but due to insufficient time, we missed it and rearranged it on Day-6. There was a reason why I insisted to visit Namsan Mount. All I wanted to see was the Love Locks fences. Lol, I guess every couples would come to this place while visiting Seoul. 

My plan was to reach the top of Namsan Mount by 4:30 pm in the afternoon, because sunset was about 5:30 pm. Couldn't make it because we had to walk up to the cable car station and went to the wrong road. And ended up here when the sky turned dark *sobs sobs*

Got down from the cable car and started to freeze. Too cold that I couldn't even stand still and pose. This explains why I only upload a photo with other tourists taking photos with the scenery. Let's just focus on the love locks!

Credits to the Boyfriend! I promise the sky was way darker than how it looks in the picture above. Thankfully, we found some spot with big light flashing to take photos.

Found a bunny and a hot chick on Namsan Mount.

Of course, we hanged our lock at Namsan Mount too. Daniel and I bought this red lock from a souvenir store directly below N Seoul Tower. It was 10,000 won (equivalent to RM 38 at that moment) for both the locks and the free marker pen. I am still keeping the pen haha.

This was where we hanged our lock. Third tree from the left, if I'm not wrong.

Yuhoo... Spot our red lock. After we were done with our lock, we went down to get a random tree to hang our key. We didn't wanna just throw our key down the hill so we picked the nearest tree on the side of the hill and hanged our key on the branch. I wonder if the key is still on that tree now lol.

3) Myeongdong

Headed to Myeongdong at night for more and more street food! Myeongdong is one of the famous places to chill in Seoul at night. I guess the stalls here sell the best street food in Seoul.. and also the most expensive ones HAHA. Never believe it when people say "Myeongdong sells cheap stuffs" because the truth is, they don't. This place is so touristic so obviously they would want to earn more from tourists right. I saw a few facial products and cosmetic earlier in Dongdaemun and I did not buy, hoping that Myeongdong would sell at a cheaper price. Turned out, the products here in Myeongdong were more expensive even after discounts lol.

Not sure what is this. And I did not try but I saw it everywhere in the market.

Scallop cooked with cheese and corn. This thing costed 5,000 won but worth a try.

Grilled Cheese Stick, very chewy, too chewy. 

I didn't really enjoy eating it.

 Rice cake with chicken. This is by far my best street food from Myeongdong.

And lastly, a huge sausage wrapped by fries.

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Okay, so this post is coming to an end already. No more blog post about Seoul
unless I travel to South Korea again and try new stuff. Oh, and goodbye to February!

Day 5 in Seoul: Vivaldi Park

I was hesitating to post this, because the fifth day of my Seoul trip was all about skiing. But then..our most satisfying meal throughout the entire trip was on this day too, which I must share with everyone!

After living for almost 20 years, finally had my first skiing experience during last winter. Yay! To be honest, this was my first time doing such "adventurous thing". I wasn't the type that could travel around easily, cause of my big family. I just feel so blessed that I'm grown up now and I own a travel partner (who is also my boyfriend), so yay to more trips!!

Initially, we wanted Jisan Forest, which is just 40 minutes away from the center of Seoul. But we were probably too early for winter, the park wasn't opened yet and we gotta switch to another ski park. Later on, we discovered more options and decided to go for Vilvaldi Park, as we could easily reach there by the one-day-tour bus (available to book online). The package costed around 75,000 won per person, including our transport up to Vivaldi park, equipment needed to ski and a half day lift ticket. To people who usually ski, lift ticket would be absolutely useful for them. Basically, it helps to transport people up hills. 

The weather was really misty.. extremely cold.

I tried taking photos of the ski park but nay, all my shots kept failing. 

Definitely satisfied with my ski attire. 

Picked up all our stuffs and got ready to ski. Couldn't bring my camera or any gadgets along into the ski park but I really wanted to capture some photos, so brought my phone with me. Paranoma shot, the weather finally looked better!

Looking awkward, because I couldn't even attach my boots onto the bindings HAHA.

Trained myself for hours at the bottom and decided to go up the hill with Daniel for ONCE. Yes, once means once. I knew that I wouldn't get down once I got up, but since the tickets were paid already, why not give myself an experience, right? Getting up alone because I walked too slow and Daniel was on the lift already. *screamed out loud on the inside* 

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? 

We were on the least challenging slope and wow, I got no guts to ski down HAHAHAHA. Seriously, even the easier slope is too much for me. I ended up at the side sitting down and Daniel just waited next to me till a life guard came and urged us down. Phew, this was so much scarier than thrill rides in amusement park! 

To be honest, lift ticket was unnecessary for me.. Skiing at the almost flat surface was already hard for me. Completely hopeless after felling down for like 86472836480 times. Couldn't ski, therefore entertained myself by playing around with snow. 

Ski adventure achieved! Striking off one of the things in my bucket list. YAY! 

Done with a long day, and the next thing was to have barbecue. After our tour bus dropped us down at Hongdae, we traveled to Sinchon for this recommended restaurant called, Daemyung Ggogi. We found this on trazy.com. According to what has stated online, this is one of the cheapest barbecue restaurants in Sinchon that sells original samyeopsal (pork belly).

It's located at a small alley, about 3-5 minutes walk from Exit 3 of Sinchon station. I've linked the official trazy.com website below, which consists of the map that navigate you to this restaurant.

Doenjang(soybean) Samyeopsal and Gochujang(red pepper) Samyeopsal.

We tried both famous dishes in this restaurant. No regrets! These dishes worth every cent we've paid. We paid about 20,000 won for all the things above. Seriously too good to be true. The owner was extremely helpful as well, she even introduced us a better way to eat kimchi. I was truly satisfied with the meal, everything was just awesome!

Direction / More Information: 

trazy.com