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.

day 4, seoul

i am still slightly tipsy from rhe soju drink i had for dinner. pikkien and i had 2 bottles of soju, which is korean rice wine and it tastes like sweet vodka. the alcohol level is 19.5%. my face was read after the 2nd bottle and the body was all warm. man, it felt good. we had dinner of fried chicken again at itaewon, the first place where we had supper.

you know what, it was -4C at day time today, hence being out too much in the cold was really torturous. today, we were without our local guide, hence, we had to plan the itenerary on our own. luckily i did my homework before i came and i only had to refer to my list of places to visit.

so today it was all gungs- palace in korean.

this is the street of itaewon where i stay. if you look really carefully, you will be able to see my hotel, hotel d'oro. it is really convenient as the subway is only 2 minutes from the doorstep and there are many restaurants and shops in the area.

so the first place we headed to was deoksugung palace.
it was right at the intersection of city hall, one of the busiest intersections in the city. the palaces in seould blend in with the modern skyline and it makes it so easy to be visited.

the entry fee is only 1000 won, about rm3.
they usually have the change of guard but it was cancelled today due to the weather.....-4C you....i am not kidding. man, it was a challenge staying outdoor for long.

the ceremony hall of the palace.




national museum of art deoksugung. they had a photography exhibition at this time but we skipped it.

these are real plants!! i am not sure if they are flowers. they look more like cabbages to me ;)

desoksugung is really small, so finish it in a breese. then we went out to the city hall intersection before heading to our next palace.

there is an outdoor skating rink right next to the intersection, in front of the palace. gosh, i wish i could skate there, but there was such a long queue. ;( i have never skated on ice before.
the staff working to clear the layer of ice on the rink with water.

so from deoksugung, we walked to gyeongbokgung palace. it is just down the main avenue.

before reaching the main entrance of the palace, we reached gwanghwamun square first. they have big monuments of historical figures in the middle of the avenue. make good photo-taking area.



the main entrance of gyeongbokgung palace.

the entrance fee is 3,000 won.

we were just in time for the changing of guard ceremony which takes place every hour.





see the white surrounding the pavilion??? it is frozen ice on the lake. gosh, it was really cold being out there. i have never experienced this cold weather before even in my travel to europe. don't be fooled by the sunny and clear sky. it does nothing to warm you up. i think it is going to be like this for the rest few days, and snow will only come after i leave. there is not enough moisture to form snow anyway.




this is the national folk museum adjacent to the palace. entry is free.





all the 12 zodiac signs.

from the folk museum, we made our way to cheong wa dae also known as the blue house because of its blue tiles. foreign visitors can get free guided tour, provided they book earlier. maybe months or at least 10 days earlier. haiz...our local friend here does not know such thing and my friend here did not forward the information i found to him. i should have done it myself and submitted our names so we could get a guided tour of the place.

oh, cheong wa dae is the presidential residence and it is situated at the foot of mount bugaksan.
i think this is the place where you can see the most police officers on duty. every 50m you can see them on patrol and i was stopped by one asking me where i wanted to go. haha...do i look like a spy??

the police booth outside the junction of cheong wa dae

trees lining the pavement outside gyeongbokgung palace. cheong wa dae is right behind the palace.

a roundabout near cheong wa dae.

see the blue tiles on the roof?? that is cheong wa dae. so sad, i could not enter. actually i had been to this area yesterday. remember sam cheong? the area is just down the road.

so, after taking all the photos i wanted, we headed to insa-dong. on sunday, this area is a pedestrian area. it is full of art galleries and quiant handicraft boutiques.



we had traditional korean porridge for lunch, bonjuk.

i had shrimp porridge. yummy. gosh, i think this trip is more of discovering korean food. my stomach is already bulging!! we complain that the portion is big every time, but we always forgot about it when we ordered because we just want to try everything on the menu. the bowl of porridge is 8,000 won.

this place is really clean. it is on the 2nd floor. most of their eateries are on top of shops on the 2nd or 3rd floor.

we walked along the street of insa-dong and enjoyed looking at the local handicrafts.

we found this gem, ssamziegil market where local artists exhibit their goods. they were all very interesting but the price was too expensive. the standard of living here is really comparable to japan.
that is the layout of the market and it was bumper to bumper on the alleys.

we also tried some street food. yeah!!! i was still quite full, but the delicious street food was too tempting to resist.

i dunno what this is called in korean but it is not bad for 1ooo won. i think it is made of glutinous flour with caramel sesame and nuts for the filling.

we din but this fried potato. their version of fries maybe.

hotdog covered with batter.

grill chicken and you can choose the sauces you want- bbq, honey, or hot and spicy. we choose hot and spicy of course. yummy.

from insa-dong, we went to dongdaemun to see the gate and the river. the gate is no. 1 treasure and it is called heunginjimun gate.

this is the gate...haiz.....under renovation.

so from there we walked to cheonggyecheong stream.
woooho...look at what we found. they sprayed water continuously on the tree branches and icicles formed on them. beautiful.


you can see murals along the river too if you walk further....but it was too cold and we went back to the hotel from here.

well, that was my day. it is time to call it a night. just 2 more days in seoul. don't think i will freeze to frosty the snowman. my clothes are enuf to keep me warm. phew!

good night.