Seoul 2012 MyeongDong

Starting off the day with Kimbap as breakfast which I finally found it on street. The friendly ahjumma talk alot of korean with me when I ask her whether she selling kimbap in Korean. Honestly I can only understand 60% of what she said.

Got our breakfast and headed to airport for our last fan girls activity of the trip, not leaving Seoul but sending Shinhwa oppa in airport. The whole trip is like a tutorial or to-do-list for fan girls in seoul. From attending fans meeting, camping at star agency, movie premier, camping at live broadcast, camping at blue carpet of events to lastly farewell in airport. We have no idea where to send off the idol but no worries on it. Whenever there is idol, there are always group of fans with professional camera. So we have no problem to find the right gate to camp at. Managed to pass my present to their manager too. 

Since this was the last day of Seoul trip, so our task will be used up our won in shopping! This time we shopped in the famous tourist attraction Myeong Dong. We shopped every corner of myeongdong, the underground market and LOTTE mart. The first shop you will see once you got out from the station will be Nature Republic. Goes up to third floor you will find a shop selling kpop album. Found and bought shinhwa 10th album there which I can't find in many shop.

Lunch was spent inside Lotte food court before grocery shopping and I ordered non-Korean food. (As I craved for Japanese food for some time whenever we walked pass the Japanese restaurant on our way back to hostel)

The MISSHA recycled bag with TVXQ faces was a free gift from buying above certain amount of money. I got two of it since I bought a lot and supposedly the free gift should be another better quality recycled bag but I request to get the one with my beloved TVXQ bag instead. Again, we bought too much that we have to head back to hostel after shopping. Dinner was spent inside the room with cup noodles (Not because we are too broke from shopping =X)

Supposedly we want to visit to Banpo bridge after dinner. However it starts raining when we reached there. In the end we shopped again at underground market of Express Bus Terminals.The rain continues to the next morning when we leaving our hostel to airport at 4am. 

I guess Seoul feel sad that we are leaving. TAT

Our flight delayed from 8am to 12pm when we checked in at the airport. So we have extra time and get to send off another two member of Shinhwa (Junjin and Andy) from the airport. Junjin oppa hurt his back that he walked really slow at the airport. I dare not to walk near him and feel heart pain seeing him trying to smile back to fans despite of the pain. Shinhwa ChangJo are gentle enough too keep the pathway clear for him and keep asking him to take care of himself.

 

Because of the flight delay we get to have one free meal in the airport foodcourt. A kimchi jiggae before leaving the Kimchi land. There goes our 7 days fans girls trip in Seoul in a blink of eyes. 

Seoul 2012 DongDaeMun/KangWonJib KamjaTang - Bukchon

Day 5 begins in Jonggak which initially our plan is to visit the tourism office to have free experience on Korean culture. As usual we got lost again and ended walk to DongDaeMun. Since we are there we decided to have KangwonJib Potato Ribs Soup recommended from the tour guide book as our lunch. With the help of ahjussi who can speak mandarin we managed to find the street that sell potato rib soup.

KangWonJib KamjaTang 강원집감자탕 
Opening hours: 24 hours
Address: 서울특별시 종로구장신동 464-30 

medium size for 22,000won 

We learnt the correct way to eat it by mimic the next table. Next we headed to Bukchon since we were watching InHyun's man drama at that time. A beautiful and artistic street which worth visiting.Walking down the street make you think that you are actor/actress in kpop drama.

Bukchon Hanok Village (북촌한옥마을)
Address:서울특별시 종로구 계동길 37 (계동)
How to get there:Anguk Station (Seoul Subway Line 3), Exit 2. Go straight for about 300m to arrive at Bukchon Hanok Village.

Bukchon is a residential area in Seoul with countless hanoks (traditional Korean houses). We pays a visit to Bukchon Traditional Culture Center. It is a public information hall which exhibits the materials about the entire history and value of Bukchon. There you can find information on Bukchon tours. (the toilet here is clean too) Bukchon is surrounded by Gyeongbokgung(Palace), Changdeokgung(Palace) and Jongmyo Royal Shrine and we eventually bumped into Changdeokgung when walking around. 

Changdeokgung 창덕궁과 
Opening hours: Closed on Monday
Address:서울특별시 종로구 율곡로 99 (와룡동)
How to get there: Anguk Station (Seoul Subway Line 3), Exit 3. Go straight from the exit (east) for about 300 m.

Changdeokgung Palace was recognized as a World Cultural Heritage site by the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Committee in December of 1997. The entrance ticket charged around 3,000 won. Due to budget concerned, we only capture a picture in front of the entrance. (I won't tell you because I spent my money for the IMAX tickets and art exhibition) 

Evening was another fangirl YOLO project again where we attended the blue carpet of Mnet event. We saw alot of Kpop idols from here including SISTAR, fx, SNSD TTS, Mighty Mouth and of course Super Junior. 

We have our dinner settle down opposite Chungmuro hostel since being a fangirl is a very tiring job. Our dinner was pork with beansprout served with cold noodles and seaweed soup. Very tasty in the mean time extremely spicy too. The waitress only ask us whether we can take spicy food or not after she served us. Way too late to regret. T_T Luckily there's naengmyeon and seaweed soup to neutralise the spice and Coca Cola too. (Coca cola actually save my life in Korea by prevent sore throat from all the spicy food)

That's the end of Day 5 where half of our day actually spent camping at Mnet blue carpet.

Seoul 2012 Seoul N Tower-CheonGyeCheon

We went to Seoul N Tower on day 4 evening after our dinner in Chungmuro. We took yellow bus no.2 to get to Seoul tower from Exit 2 of Chungmuro station. After that we have to walk up a pretty steep slope from the drop down point to get to Seoul tower.Another option to N Seoul tower is by cable car. It a little bit complicated compared to taking bus but there have a complete tutorial to get there shown by official site.

Seoul N Tower
Opening hours: Open all years round
Address:서울특별시 용산구 남산공원길 105 (용산동2가)

The view of Seoul under Seoul Tower at 7pm

The tickets for tower observatory costs 18,000won. It was crowded with Korean couples, family and other tourist at the observatory that you can hardly get near to the glass to enjoy night view of Seoul. Personally I don't find the night view attractive. In the end we didn't spend much time on here. 

Once we get down from the observatory, we checked out the merchandise shop of Teddy bear Museum (which is no longer in Seoul N Tower now). 

We get down from N Tower around 8pm and decided to visit CheongGyeCheon in GwangHwaMun Station. 

CheongGyeChyeon 청계천
Address:서울특별시 중구 태평로1가 ~성동구 신답철교
How to Get there: GwangHwaMun Station Exit 8, walk straight and cross the road. The stream is at your left. 

The stream is 8.4km long and started from Gwanghwamun Station to the other end of it at Dong Dae Mun History and Culture Park Station. It is recommended to visit from Gwanghwamun station as special events and concerts are held close to here. Both side of the streams are decorated with art and along the stream there are bridge with different themes. CheongGyecheon, another dating spot for Koreans.(similar to Singapore Clarke Quay) TaecGui came to here for filming of WGM too!

Our plan is to walk along the stream and headed to Jongno 3-ga Station to get back to hostel. However we got lost AGAIN from our night walk. We followed the road sign for cars to get to the station and ended up in empty insadong where all the shop ended their business. Luckily we managed to ask for direction from a ahjussi that tease us he didn't understand our "Korean". Plus point is on our way lost we found a very nice street food! It's ain't bad to get lost actually since we can explore more from it and it's pretty fun to interact with Koreans when asking for direction. After walking the extra miles, we back to our hostel safety and ended our Day 4 in Seoul.