Day 1

Exhausted.

Of course we would be. Try taking a 1.15am flight to HK, reaching there at almost 5am, transit for 4 hours and then depart for Seoul. We were so tired we crashed at random tables in the food area, as in just simply put our heads onto the table and slept. Afterwards, I could not help but order the meat bun from Tsui Wah because of fond memories few months back when we had marvelled at how nice a simple bun like this could taste so nice.


And then we were finally in Seoul. Collected the smartphone we rented from the S-roaming booth at the arrival hall (63000KRW for 8 days of rental), grabbed a sandwich and then made our way on the Airport Express down to Seoul station.

Upon reaching Seoul station, the advice given to us by our guesthouse was to take a cab, which would only cost 4000-5000KRW (about SGD6). And so we flagged a cab and hauled our luggage into it. Haha, that was when i first realised how little English Koreans spoke. We tried to explain to the cab driver where we wanted to go, but he could not really understand us and luckily for us, i knew it was somewhere near Myeongdong station, so we headed towards that direction first. Thank God the sista knew basic Korean, and started spouting some stuff, somehow managing a stilted conversation with the ahjussi i was stunned.

With some help from my iPhone GPS and map, we finally reached IB Ville guesthouse. It was then i understand why the cab driver didnt know where it was- it was a little secluded, even though it was quite near the heart of Myeongdong. Anyways, we dragged our luggage up to the 2nd level (thank God we were on the 2nd level cos this place didnt have any lifts). It was rather small, the room that is, but as we stayed on the rest of the nights, it became a cosy lil rest stop with very nice blankets, pillow cases and mats. Pardon the mess.


After check-in, we walked down the slope to the nearby Myeongdong for an early dinner, some chicken bulgogi pan fry thing my sis brought us to. The wok they use was so huge!


Basically we just order the meat and the waiter would come with this huge pan and fry the meat for us. We could also add noodles-udon/ramen or rice to it if we wanted to. We only added ramen because it was just two of us.


Then you're supposed to take your own side dishes from a corner station, and refill whenever you wanted to. Side dishes were pickles and thinly shredded cabbage salad. We ordered soju too since it was only 3000KRW.


We went for dessert around the area, in search for the highly recommended O'Sulloc Tea House. They had a great variety of green tea, some matcha cakes/ rolls in the menu. Prices were quite high though, i remember.


After dessert, we walked around the Myeongdong area a little- it was like a mini Orchard Road. All the Korean skin care brands were there, and there were often 2-3 shops of the same brand. Like there was 2 Etude House within 100m. H&M, Zara, F21 were all there too. Something i noticed was that there were salesgirls outside all the skin care shops and very often, they would persuade passer-bys to walk into the shop with their freebies such as facial masks and cotton pads. They usually target the Japanese girls though, for some unexplainable reason. Japanese girls are usually quite easy to spot - translucent fair skin, big round eyes, often in make up.