Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Day 8
Last day :( Never thought I would like Seoul so much, probably because I had zero expectations to begin with.
We headed to the Namsan area to the back of our guesthouse for coffee and breakfast since the cafes there look so cute when we passed it the other evening on our way to Namsan Park. We settled at Coffee Antique, and realised that the cafes at that area don't really serve much food, except of cakes and biscuits to go with their coffees. Nevertheless, we were quite happy to settle a light breakfast at such a nice atmosphere.
I noticed that a lot of cafes in Seoul use white paint to decorate their glass windows. According to the ahjussi at Coffee Antique, he gets the decorated window from this website, which is unfortunately in Korean. I did a search and realised Chalk Ink pens do the same too, and went Art Friend to purchase a similar ZIG Posterman Wet Erasable white pen to experiment on my mirror.
I really like the decor in this cafe!
They even sell homemade accessories in Coffee Antique!
After that, we went to Lotte Mart to do grocery shopping for Korean snacks to lug back home! :)
Check out the CUTEEEEE toilet seat covers on display! I'm gonna get it (I know it's impractical but it's so cute!!) the next time I go there.
The wide range of GoJuJung (spicy sauce)
Fresh Dak (Korean rice cakes)! Too bad they only last for a day... there's doesn't seem to be any fresh rice cakes sold in Singapore. The rice cakes in Korea all taste so nice, chewy and Q-Q, unlike the hard and seemingly uncooked al dente ones in Singapore.
A packet full of samgyetang (ginseng chicken) goodness! Too bad we can't hand carry liquid back home, else it would have gone back with us!
All the spicy red hot kimchi/ radish Koreans always have as their banchans (side dish)
Chong Gwan Jung - the renowned Korean Ginseng brand.
Different flavoured soju. We were searching for ginseng soju after the very potent one we had at the samgyetang restaurant.
Total loot = SGD74 worth of groceries
And then we lugged our bags to the nearby (okay, not so nearby, maybe like 400m) Siloam Sauna. It's actually one of those Korean public bathhouse/ sauna (zzimzilbang) where people go to shower/bathe/sauna. I was quite impressed that they actually have their very own building!
As you can see, the changing rooms are on the 1st floors (men and women separate - duh), showers are in the basement. The common area starts from the 2nd floor onwards, where there's a lounge, children's play area and a small cafe. 3rd and 4th floors are all the sauna rooms and even a small eating place, where we had Jajungmyeon (the Korean equivalent of zhajiangmian). 5th floor is the sleeping room. I think I can just spend an entire day there doing nothing or rather sleeping. We spent close to 4 hours there.
The mentioned eating place and jajungmyeon
Thereafter, we cabbed back to the guesthouse to put our groceries. There was this pretty cafe near our guesthouse that was open but we didn't actually eat there. I thought it looked nice so here're a few pics
Andong Jjimdak - upon recommendation from Huisian.
It's basically a big plate of chicken in some spicy glass noodle sauce with vegetables - quite yummy
We headed to the Namsan area to the back of our guesthouse for coffee and breakfast since the cafes there look so cute when we passed it the other evening on our way to Namsan Park. We settled at Coffee Antique, and realised that the cafes at that area don't really serve much food, except of cakes and biscuits to go with their coffees. Nevertheless, we were quite happy to settle a light breakfast at such a nice atmosphere.
I noticed that a lot of cafes in Seoul use white paint to decorate their glass windows. According to the ahjussi at Coffee Antique, he gets the decorated window from this website, which is unfortunately in Korean. I did a search and realised Chalk Ink pens do the same too, and went Art Friend to purchase a similar ZIG Posterman Wet Erasable white pen to experiment on my mirror.
I really like the decor in this cafe!
They even sell homemade accessories in Coffee Antique!
After that, we went to Lotte Mart to do grocery shopping for Korean snacks to lug back home! :)
Check out the CUTEEEEE toilet seat covers on display! I'm gonna get it (I know it's impractical but it's so cute!!) the next time I go there.
The wide range of GoJuJung (spicy sauce)
Fresh Dak (Korean rice cakes)! Too bad they only last for a day... there's doesn't seem to be any fresh rice cakes sold in Singapore. The rice cakes in Korea all taste so nice, chewy and Q-Q, unlike the hard and seemingly uncooked al dente ones in Singapore.
A packet full of samgyetang (ginseng chicken) goodness! Too bad we can't hand carry liquid back home, else it would have gone back with us!
All the spicy red hot kimchi/ radish Koreans always have as their banchans (side dish)
Chong Gwan Jung - the renowned Korean Ginseng brand.
Different flavoured soju. We were searching for ginseng soju after the very potent one we had at the samgyetang restaurant.
Total loot = SGD74 worth of groceries
And then we lugged our bags to the nearby (okay, not so nearby, maybe like 400m) Siloam Sauna. It's actually one of those Korean public bathhouse/ sauna (zzimzilbang) where people go to shower/bathe/sauna. I was quite impressed that they actually have their very own building!
As you can see, the changing rooms are on the 1st floors (men and women separate - duh), showers are in the basement. The common area starts from the 2nd floor onwards, where there's a lounge, children's play area and a small cafe. 3rd and 4th floors are all the sauna rooms and even a small eating place, where we had Jajungmyeon (the Korean equivalent of zhajiangmian). 5th floor is the sleeping room. I think I can just spend an entire day there doing nothing or rather sleeping. We spent close to 4 hours there.
The mentioned eating place and jajungmyeon
Thereafter, we cabbed back to the guesthouse to put our groceries. There was this pretty cafe near our guesthouse that was open but we didn't actually eat there. I thought it looked nice so here're a few pics
Andong Jjimdak - upon recommendation from Huisian.
It's basically a big plate of chicken in some spicy glass noodle sauce with vegetables - quite yummy
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Day 7
Today is another cafe day! We explored Hongdae this time round, where there were lots of interesting cafes and bars/pubs. I can imagine this place with a happening night scene.
Anyways, plenty of cafes (though most open at 12 noon)
There's even a Hello Kitty Cafe!
We settled on Cafe 1010, which the Sista had done research on and wanted to visit.
Tintin man welcoming us
Cafe 1010 is a travel themed cafe with a very strong theme present in its decor and accessories.
We ordered the American breakfast and Rice Cake Bibimbap. Prices were pretty reasonable at 9,000KRW and 7,000KRW respectively. The receipt came in a cute form of a boarding pass!
After that, was roaming around the Hongdae streets
Trick Eye Museum, the Trompe-l'oeil Museum, an interactive museum. Really interesting and fun place!
An outline of what the Trick Eye Museum is about. There're Optical Illusion rooms, where there are interesting pictures offering different perspectives hung on the wall, there's the Hologram room, which makes use of 3D to view the images, and there's the Magic Mirror room, where there's a maze that you're supposed to walk, but mirrors placed strategically at different angles to confuse you.
So first up, the Optical Illusion room
This is rather interesting! The person is actually standing on a chair board, while the four chair legs are actually further away from him/her (that is, nearer to the photographer).
The walls are painted so real it's almost like 3D.
There's a Greek Mythology room.
This is like a Where's Wally picture, in which you're supposed to find all the small objects on the right of the picture.
So this is the Hologram room I was talking about
There's the picture of Avatar taken from the front of the picture. As you walk from the side towards the front of the picture, Avatar will take aim at you with an arrow.
After the fun we had at Trick Eye, we went roaming around the Hongdae area, getting lost.
I read somewhere saying that the pink lots are reserved for female drivers!
Coco Bruni, another cafe - yes, ANOTHER cafe.
Lots of other interesting cafes in Hongdae/ Sinchon area.
This ahjussi selling all sorts of cuttlefish.
Dinner. How can we come to Korea without eating..... Korean BBQ! Hee
Tadah! The yellow circle thing around the pan is actually really good and soft eggs.
Then it was back to the Myeongdong area again, this time to look for the other soft serve ice cream ahjumma who sells more flavours. (And also to change more money haha. Myeongdong has quite a lot of money exchange booths since it's packed with tourists)
Anyways, plenty of cafes (though most open at 12 noon)
There's even a Hello Kitty Cafe!
We settled on Cafe 1010, which the Sista had done research on and wanted to visit.
Tintin man welcoming us
Cafe 1010 is a travel themed cafe with a very strong theme present in its decor and accessories.
We ordered the American breakfast and Rice Cake Bibimbap. Prices were pretty reasonable at 9,000KRW and 7,000KRW respectively. The receipt came in a cute form of a boarding pass!
After that, was roaming around the Hongdae streets
Trick Eye Museum, the Trompe-l'oeil Museum, an interactive museum. Really interesting and fun place!
An outline of what the Trick Eye Museum is about. There're Optical Illusion rooms, where there are interesting pictures offering different perspectives hung on the wall, there's the Hologram room, which makes use of 3D to view the images, and there's the Magic Mirror room, where there's a maze that you're supposed to walk, but mirrors placed strategically at different angles to confuse you.
So first up, the Optical Illusion room
This is rather interesting! The person is actually standing on a chair board, while the four chair legs are actually further away from him/her (that is, nearer to the photographer).
The walls are painted so real it's almost like 3D.
There's a Greek Mythology room.
This is like a Where's Wally picture, in which you're supposed to find all the small objects on the right of the picture.
So this is the Hologram room I was talking about
There's the picture of Avatar taken from the front of the picture. As you walk from the side towards the front of the picture, Avatar will take aim at you with an arrow.
After the fun we had at Trick Eye, we went roaming around the Hongdae area, getting lost.
I read somewhere saying that the pink lots are reserved for female drivers!
Coco Bruni, another cafe - yes, ANOTHER cafe.
Lots of other interesting cafes in Hongdae/ Sinchon area.
This ahjussi selling all sorts of cuttlefish.
Dinner. How can we come to Korea without eating..... Korean BBQ! Hee
Tadah! The yellow circle thing around the pan is actually really good and soft eggs.
Then it was back to the Myeongdong area again, this time to look for the other soft serve ice cream ahjumma who sells more flavours. (And also to change more money haha. Myeongdong has quite a lot of money exchange booths since it's packed with tourists)
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