Seoul lovin' Day 3

Day 3
Hongdae 

After 2 days of exploring Seoul, Nadia and I decided to explore the area we were staying;

Hongdae!

Hongdae is an abbreviation of Hongik Daehakgyo, which means Hongik University.

It's located in Mapo-gu, west end of Seoul. It takes about 20 minutes to Myeongdong, and about an hour to the Gangnam area. It's on Line 2 of the Seoul Metro, which means it takes a couple of subway transfers to get to a lot of places. If you're planning to go to Seoul and not a fan of stairs, areas along the subway Line 1 (like Seoul Station, which is the KL Sentral of Seoul) would be a better choice.

However, although Hongdae might be a lil out of the way, I don't regret staying in this area a single bit! This place is so lively at night and is a fashion mecca of Seoul.

There's also a Hongdae Free Market held every weekend throughout March to November,

they probably skipped December, January and February because Korean winter is vicious.

During the nights, the playground area, which happens to be across the street from where we staying, is always filled with teenagers and 20-somethings crowding around a group of dancers, buskers, henna artists, going to Korean Noraebangs (karaoke rooms), going to clubs, pubs, you name it!

During the day, just like it's visitors, Hongdae sleeps in. Shops around there only open at 11am or at noon, but it starts getting crowded at around 5pm, which is when the students finish class.

So, we started with shopping, naturally.

The shops and the clothes and the sales assistants in Seoul are on a whole other level, mate.

The shops aren't the ones you find back home, nothing like H&M or Zara. They're better.

Back in KL, we do get Korean clothings here and there, but they're usually extremely expensive because the quality of the clothes are visibly a million times better than the ones mass made in China.

The sales assistants, they're.. something else.

In KL, they just follow you around and (if you're lucky) put the things you picked at the counter.

In Seoul, they still follow you around, but the second you even eye something, before you even pick the hanger up, a sales assistant immediately runs and takes out that same design in 5 different colours for you to choose. Then, they give you suggestions and what to pair with it. Pants, skirts, shorts, clutches, necklaces.. A whole outfit planned out for you, and they're all available in the store.

(Most of the things in Korea are free sized, by the way. But I'll save all that for a separate blog post)

After they've put together a whole outfit for you with color options, you'll just be there staring in awe at how incredible beautiful the outfit that was put together in less than a minute is.

The stores would also have some racks of clothes outside their actual store, those racks would be filled with clothes ranging from 5,000won (RM15) up to 20,000won (RM60), and usually cheaper than the clothes they have in the store.

You'd be surprised at how beautiful the clothes are for that cheap.

How does anyone resist when the window displays are these pretty!?

.......And then we found Stylenanda

Wow, this was a dream. I've only seen this store in pictures and on their website, so it was surreal to see it up close.

Stylenanda can be compared to shops like Urban Outfitters in the UK, the clothes are a little on the pricy side and a bit too daring for lil ol' boring me.

But the 3CE Make-Up section was amazing. Never have I gawked over prettily packaged cosmetics until I went in Stylenanda. From the bright pink lipstick cases, to the pastel pink limited editions, to their shimmer highlighters on display..

 *heart-eyed emoji*

Too bad they didn't allow pictures in the store, boo! :(

Then we walked back to the playground area, which was a 10-minute walk from the main shopping street.

The street in the picture below is where all the magical street performance are at, along with a whole stretch of restaurants.

Unfortunately, probably 99% of them aren't halal. I'm not particularly fussy about food, especially when I travel. Not fussy as in I'm okay with any restaurant, and I'd just have their seafood and stuff. Not really particular about having to share the same cooking utensils or plate as they use to cook non-Halal food.

But these restaurants were hardcore.. As in their restaurant logo was a pig.

That one like cari pasal lah if we went in, so we had Halal kebab around the corner.

These were some of the street dancers, there was another one just a few meters from them.

They basically had to fight it out to get the crowd.

Basically, the sexier the girls and the dance, the bigger the crowd 

LOL

Hongdae is easily one of my favorite places..

on Earth.

It really is, and I mean it.

I suggest Hongdae to everyone that plans on visiting Seoul, whether you stay here or you visit this place. Just go.

If a street could be a person, Hongdae would be the coolest kid in town.

The graffiti on the walls, the indie Korean music blaring from shops and restaurants, the cool Korean university students strolling around, everything about this place was just cool.

This place is best for solo travelers or a group of friends, because it tends to get a bit loud at night. Families traveling to Seoul would best stay in places like Gangnam or Myeongdong. Much more peaceful.

But all y'all cool catz better stay in Hongdae, you won't regret it.

I'll be back very soon, Hongdae!

xoxo

Tania

Seoul lovin' Day 2

Day 2
Seoul City Tour Bus 

Since we knew we couldn't (or rather wouldn't) cover all the touristy places in Seoul by ourselves, we decided to save our time & effort and opted for a city tour bus!

It was pleasantly surprising to find out how cheap it was. At least compared to the other tour buses we've gone on, like in London, Barcelona and Paris.

It was 12,000 won, which would be around MYR36. For 21 stops!

The only downside was that it didn't come with an English audio or tour guide.. So you just ride the buses to the stops, and find out about it yourself.

The tour bus was located at Gwanghwamun Square

Yup, the one EXO was at on their 7th episode of EXO Showtime

Ehehe.

Ok back to the tour bus.

First stop: Deoksugung Palace!

Funny story.

We had to wait around 20 minutes for the bus, only to realize that this first stop was literally (and I mean literally) a minute away. 1.. minute.. drive..

-_-

We also witnessed the changing of guards

Wanted to try on the Hanbok, which is the Korean traditional costume, but apparently it was at another palace.

 Oh look, here's another funny story

You see that hill ahead of me (and my terrified expression)?

Yeah, that was the steepest hill I've ever seen in my entire existence. Dude, that shit ain't even funny.

I know there was a cable car somewhere so I was like,

No I'm not climbing up! There's a cable caaaaar!!

And then we saw a sign that said the cable car platform was up there.

So okay lah whatever just climb lah what to do right..

.....

Weh, ni bukan bukit, ni DINDING

It was so steep!! I wanted to cry when I reached the platform

What's so funny, you ask?

The stinkin' cable car was on the other side..

So imagine lah, we climbed up the hill that a cable car was suppose to take you.

I felt like taking that stupid signboard that said the cable car platform was up there and break it into millions of tiny pieces

 Call me delusional, but I'd like to believe that Chanyeol wrote that and that I stood exactly where he stood when he wrote this

The elevator up to the observatory deck of Namsan Seoul Tower was magical!

When we stepped in, the ceiling was a TV monitor and the guide told us to look up the entire time.

It played a video simulator thing that made us feel like we were in a rocket ship going up to space, gotta say.. the music was pretty epic. Haha!

It only takes 30 second to ascend 135 meters to the observatory deck, that's 4 meters a second! 

The view of Seoul from 777 feet above the summit of Mount Namsan

Also found random Big Bang teddy bears.. angry teddy bears.. at the N Seoul Tower gift shop.

Don't know why they're there, don't know why they're angry.

But aw, GD so cute!

The walk down was much better..

I especially loved the fact that I saw more flowers here than I did when I was in London

Hampeh

After all that (and by that, I meant climbing up the bloody hill), we were way too tired to go down on random stops on the tour. So we only stopped at Itaewon, which is basically the foreign district of Seoul. That's because it was initially the area that resided the US military personnels.

This area would have the most international food chains like Taco Bell, and a lot of Halal restaurants selling Indian food, kebabs, etc. Itaewon is also where the Seoul Mosque is located at.

 We ended the day with dinner at a local Korean restaurant.

Nadia and I seriously need to be more adventurous with our food, but it's so difficult here in Seoul because every Korean restaurant we go, there would be like a logo of a pig.

Talk about subtle.

So, we settled for ramyeon.. a.k.a Maggi curry. Hahahahaha.

We walked around Hongdae the next day, which is where we're currently staying throughout our visit. Will blog about it soon.

Til tomorrow, annyeonghaseyo!

 xoxo,

Tania

Seoul lovin' Day 1

Annyeonghaseyo!

Yup you read right, Nadia & I are currently visiting the city of (my) dreams; Seoul!

Duuuude, it has been a dream of mine to visit Seoul since I first got to know about k-pop, I might just cry writing this post.

Day 1

Kuala Lumpur Int'l Airport 2 -> Incheon International Airport

It's Nadia and my first time flying with AirAsia and traveling from KLIA 2, so we left the house earlier than we would if we were traveling from KLIA. We've heard stories about KLIA 2 and how it's huuuge so we wanted to just be early.

Ok so I don't want to go too much into what happened before our flight.

But lemme just tell y'all something, AirAsia: get. your. shit. together.

My God, I get that you provide low-cost flights, but that don't mean your attitudes have to be shitty, which it was. Big surprise..

Not expecting too much from them because well, Malaysians. But looking up when replying a customer's question instead of playing with your phone would be a great start, AirAsia!

Senang cerita lah, we were told to go from one counter to another 'cause nobody had a clue about what they were doing. Last-last Nadia and I just randomly went to this counter that was initially closed, but the guy looked pretty nice so we went and asked (read: begged) him for help.

He ended up being the only decent guy in the whole bloody airport, thank God!

Like I said, the whole row of counters were closed and that specific counter was only open for stewards/stewardesses. But he was nice enough to not only help us, but to also check us in.

He even talked about some good places to check out at Seoul. Cutie bear!

So after all that, we went in and had dinner at the food court.

It's true; KLIA 2 IS HUGE!

So big that it looked more like a mall than an airport. From the immigration check point to our gate was a workout, mateeee.

After the 6-hour flight, Alhamdulillah we reached Incheon Int'l Airport at a bit over 8am local time

We had breakfast at this Mnet cafe called Twosome, and there were probably 7 different TVs showing 7 different K-Pop music videos at one time..

Hello, is this heaven or whaaaat

We then took the Airport Express train from the airport to our accommodation here in Hongdae Station in Mapo-gu, it took us about 50 minutes - which is pretty quick compared to the 1 & a half hour ride by car

Sampai-sampai Hongdae St., we followed the hosts instruction to the apartment and it was conveniently located not even 2 seconds outside the subway exit. Yessssss!

We rang the doorbell and this 20-something Korean lady greeted us with a hug. It's not my first time staying at a Airbnb accommodation, but it was my first time doing it alone without my parents.

I'm so so glad our host, Jenny, was so sweet!

After settling down at the apartment, we decided to go to Myeong-dong which is a famous (if not the most famous) street in Seoul. And my God, was it packed!

It's also a very touristy area, so there were Tourist Information guides walking around in all-red uniform ready to help any lost-looking tourists ....which were Nadia and I..

Met some of my baes along the way, too.

Scoooore.

I've also heard that Myeong-dong was more of a place to go to buy make-up and skincare and not clothes, but how to not buy when they're so prettily displayed like this!!

Seriously, man. Koreans really know their stuff when it comes to marketing their stuff.

Their window display outfits look like something a professional stylist would come up with, but I'm talkin' bout EVERY SHOP HERE. What the.

A sales assistant also managed to sell me a whole load of skincare, and I obviously was sold when I heard "I will give you a free Shinee shopping bag, photo card, makeup bag, TWENTY Shinee masks.."

Twenty, beb. You didn't hear that wrong. She gave me 20 masks..

You don't get that in Malaysia. The most they'll give you is free plastic bag. Kalau tak, bayar 20 sen.

Chait!

After the exhausting (such a good type of exhaustion, though) 5-hour stroll around Myeong-dong, we finally decide to settle on a Western buffet restaurant for our 2nd meal of the day.

We were still too scared to try any of the Korean restaurants, so Western pun Western lah.

Our view of the streets of Myeong-dong from our restaurant on the 5th floor.

Got home at around 7pm and plonked on the bed immediately!

The streets of Seoul is so hilly that you either have to walk up macam naik bukit or climb stairs

No wonder lah these Koreans are all so slim, no choice rupanya..

 Didn't take too many photos that day because Myeong-dong is so crowded and we were still so new to everything so we were excitedly rushing and hopping from one store to another.

Seoul is so so beautiful and it's only been day 1.

Cannot wait for the next few days in this city. From the looks of such a great start to this trip, I'm going to fall in love with city more and more everyday.

Til tomorrow, annyeonghaseyo!

xoxo,

Tania