day 5, seoul

came back very early today...by 7p.m. we were already in the hotel. and of course the weather was even colder today. in the morning, it was -11C. the longer i stay, the colder it gets.
luckily the exploration today was done in a car. phew! and the model is kia forte.

jun came to pick us up at 11a.m. it was a lot of driving around. he tried to stop at a few shopping streets but there were simply no parking spaces. they are really hard to come by, hence, the subway is definitely the best mode of transport here.

first place where we stopped was on one of the bridges that run across the han river, the 4th longest river in korea.


you can see another river and one side of the city.

we went to costco and a local shopping mall. well, my 2 friends here are workaholic and are forever looking for cookwares and glasswares and plastic wares samples for the kitchen.

we had lunch at the mall's food court.
this is a meat brewed soup with rice, their version of bak kut teh.

this is korean noodles. quite plain with only onion in the soup. i am starting to accept the taste of kimchi now and it does not taste as bad as the first time i tried it. but still, i do not take more than 2 pieces.

after checking out the mall and costco, it was some driving in the city looking at the streets full of young crowd until he finally decided to go to namsangol hanok village.
it is an area where they recreate old houses and is a tourist attraction. there is no entrance fee charged. how awesome.

saw groups of tourists from china, indonesia and hong kong coming in buses.
brrr...it was really cold as the area was kinda barren. the landscape in seoul is nothing to shout about. it is flat and one sees buildings everywhere albeit not many tall ones.

the compound area of the village.

just like the look of the solitary tree there.



the main gate to the village.

there are many different types of rooms and they are really small. gosh, i wish i was inside one of the rooms getting cosy.


kitchen





ceremonial hall.


prayer room.

there is a park adjacent to the village and we walked there. it was just a small one.

a time capsule was put here to celebrate korea 600th anniversary with 600 things that captures korean lives.



then we drove to a sushi buffet place for dinner. this place is popular with the young crowd as it is cheap, only 13,900 for adult at dinner time. the variety was not much but it is ok for the price charged.

and that was it.

some of the snacks i bought at the supermarket in the morning. ginseng sweet is a must i guess. everything here is already about rm100. expensive leh?

anyway, tomorrow, my flight home is at midnight. the activity planned is factory visit. yeah, imagine eh? coming all the way to seoul and i get to visit kitchen ware factories. well, it should be interesting. the factories are on the way to incheon international airport.

will take a walk along the streets of itaewon first before i check out. i think i will be doing that alone since my travel-mate is not interested to explore further. and....i have found a shop selling evisu jeans and there is sale!!! haha.....things from japan are cheap here. i found hello kitty fork, spoon and chopstick set which i also have at home, and the price here is only rm15. in kl, they were selling it for rm70! but accessories which korea are famous for, are really expensive. simple ear-rings made of silver is already rm30.

time to pack...just dump everything inside since my bag is quite empty. i guess the next time i blog will be in malaysia. good bye freezing winter.