Updates from the 3rd day to the 7th day in Korea!!

Hiii!! Haven't been updating for a few days. So here are what happen in the past few days. 

14th of Jan

I decided to go to Namdaemun Market as it is introduced in the map that is provided by the guesthouse. Since it is quite closed to my guesthouse, I decided to walk there using Waze (apparently I don't need to have Wifi and it functions normally even though I got lost).

To my surprise, the market in Korea has famous cosmetics stores as well (Nature Republic, Innisfree,...). Besides, we are allowed to bargain in this market and I actually tried it. I went to a cart that sells dining utensils as my aunt especially likes the spoon in Korea (thought of buying them for souvenirs). However, I did not buy it as I wanted to survey the prices in a few places before buying it.

I also went to the Namdaemun Underground Market. The underground market is more a place of arts. They sell ceramics, art craft and sorts. It is cleaner and has heater in it. So, it is definitely more comfortable to walk in the Underground Market than the market above, if you don't mind taking your jacket or, if you do not plan to shop for long, you can still wear the jacket. 

Later, I bought some kind of Korean style doughnut for my dinner (actually for my lunch, but since it was too late, I ate those for dinner). It costs 2000 won for 3 pieces. In my opinion, it is quite expensive. I was hesitating to buy the food in Korea as most of the starting price of their food is 1000 won, which is equivalent to RM3.72. And that makes the average price of the food in Korea around 5000-7000 won. This makes some of the food that usually don't cost that much, really expensive for me.

Back to the Korean doughnut. Like the usual doughnut, it is topped with sugar. Unlike the usual bread style doughnut, the taste and texture are similar to Baba and Nyonya food, called Jin Tui, without the fillings and the outer sesame. It is quite full after I ate 2 of them. As I ate them around 7, I finished the last one as my supper.

By the way, a few exchange mates finally arrive in Korea and we had a little introduction and chit chat after I had my dinner.

15th of Jan

More of my exchange mates arrived today and we discussed on where to go. After a small discussion, we decided to go to Sinchon to shop and have our lunch there. As we arrived, we decided to have our lunch in a restaurant called KimDae. I supposed it serves various Korean dishes and that was why we chose that restaurant. I ordered a Cheese Kimbap. It cost 3500 won. Although it was really expensive for me (it is considered a cheap food for a proper meal), it tasted really good.

After the lunch, we walked around Sinchon for a little while. As the shops are not fully opened (even though it was about 3 pm), we decided to go in to a cafe. We went to this Hanbing Coffee and Dessert cafe. 

It is famous for its rainbow cakes and that probably explains why most of the cakes there are various versions of rainbow cakes. I did not order anything but my friends did. So, do enjoy the view of the cakes.

Unusual chocolate cake

Quite sweet but not that bad. Quite chocolaty..

Mille Crepe version of rainbow cake

It tasted like the usual Mille Crepe but in different colour.

After the light tea in the cafe, we went to shop for cosmetics as the cosmetics shops are everywhere in Sinchon and the best thing is that they were having sales in almost all of them. We visited to almost every cosmetics shops until around 7 pm and went back to our guesthouse for an induction seminar. 

As we arrived in our guesthouse, we decided to have food delivery before our OCs arrive. After a long discussion, we came to a conclusion. We ordered 2 different styles of fried chicken as we were told that fried chicken is a must try when we visit to Korea and a Jjajangmyeon set.

Original taste of chicken

Jjajangmyeon set

As the delivery arrived quite late, we ate them while the OCs presented their presentations (mainly about Korea and the content of this project). And after some collection of money for accommodation and service fee, that ends the day.

16th of Jan

Went to Myeong Dong with my exchange mates and more shopping. Myeong Dong has more shops than stalls compared to Namdaemun Market. To my surprise as well, there are more cosmetics shops as compared to in Sinchon. There are even repetitions of the same cosmetics shops in one small area. That means you might see 2 or even more Innisfree cosmetic stores in Myeong Dong!!

There is also a LINE store in Myeong Dong. It has 2 floors and it sells various things like cookies, dolls, stickers, shirts, phone cover and etc. Definitely a place to visit for LINE lovers. 

Here's a video of LINE store.

For lunch, we had it light. We went to a shop called ISAAC. It is a shop which sells toast and it is packed with customers. Unlike the usual oven toast, this toast .... is best explained with pictures.

And TADA!! My Ham and Cheese!!

It was delicious!! It tasted a little sweet, probably because their egg has sugar on it and mmhhmmmmhh. SO YUMMY!! And, here's another video on ISAAC.

After lunch, more shopping!!


17th of Jan

The next day, we went for different activities, meaning no more shopping. The plan was to go for outdoor ice skating in City Hall Plaza. Before exercising, we decided to have our lunch to recharge our energy. As there are not many restaurants around, we chose a nearby Korean restaurant and I ordered Pork Cutlet that costs 5000 won. The pork was good but over tendered and the rice was not fully cooked.

After the lunch, we saw a performance on the Changing Ceremony of the Royal Guards right in front of Deoksugung, opposite of the restaurant we went to. It was a long yet interesting performance. I especially like the traditional music and their clothes too.

Since we were right in front of Deoksugung and the entrance fee is only 1000 won per person and there are free volunteer tour guides four us, we decided to go for this tour.

Information on ticket prices

The volunteers are mostly high school students, who have interest in historical places, interacting with foreigners and practicing foreign languages (mainly English).

Beautiful scenery !!

The place where Kings work

When Japanese conquered Korea, they build this. Now, it is an Art Museum. Since no pictures are allowed, so no pictures.

One of the Queens lived here, well actually not here, but they moved it here.

After the visit in Deoksugung and art museum, we wanted to go with the original plan, which was ice skating. As we went there, the ice skating was packed and that the worker told us that we had to wait for 2 hours to skate. After careful considering, we decided to skate another day.

So, we went to Gwanghwamun Square to have a look at Admiral Yi Sun-Sin and King Sejong's statue. There is a museum about them right below King Sejong' s statue. Since it is free, we went in too. These 2, I could say, are some of the legendary people in Korea. King Sejong or Sejong The Great is a great king that thinks of his people and country. To allow the people to express their thought, he created Hangul. During his reign, many amazing technologies are created. Some of which are the water clock (you can see it in Deoksugung), rain gauge and so on. Admiral Yi Sun-Sin, on the other hand is a great commander who defended his country against Japanese invasion. He was considered a huge threat to the Japanese during that time as he constantly won the battles despite constantly outnumbered and outsupplied. It was definitely worth the visit (how can you say you have been to to Korea if you have not visit these great men) and the museum is made as interactive and modern as possible.

After the visit, we went to have a look at Gwanghwamun and headed to Cheonggyecheon Stream.

Gwanghwamun

Cheonnggyecheon Stream and 2 wishing wells

For dinner, we went with Samgyeopsal, meaning Korean style BBQ, in Gokigo. It is said that the meats they served are not frozen meat but fresh meat, so the price is more expensive than other Samgyeopsal restaurant. For 200g marinated pork, it costs 15000 won and the non-marinated pork costs 12000 won!!! The portion is so small that it is not enough for even one person. However, the marinated pork was extremely delicious!!

150g pork T.T

As it was far too less meat for us and it was expensive, some of us decided to have some street food after the dinner. We also went to Lotte Mart to buy some things to eat as we always starved as we woke up. In the Lotte Mart, they also have famous cosmetics stalls (the competition in this industry must be tough -.-|||). And that ends the day. Of all the days, I think this day was the most meaningful one as we learned a few things instead of just shopping.


18th of Jan

Today, is the coldest day throughout the whole winter. It records the lowest temperature, -18 degree Celsius. Anyway the cold did not stop us from going out. Some of my exchange mates wanted to go to the "container market". At first, I wanted to go with them. However, one of my exchange mates wanted to buy a new phone as she lost hers on the first day she arrived in Korea. So, I went to buy a phone with her. As the parents of the manager of the guesthouse we stay in sell handphones, he brought us to his parents' shop after a lunch. Since we do not stay in Korea for long and buying a new phone requires you to buy a phone plan (without it, the smart phone will be extremely expensive), she ended up buying a second hand Samsung Note 3, which was in a pretty good condition at a fair price.

Later, we went to Dongdaemun Design Plaza as the plaza was famous for its design. It was designed by Zaha Hadid and Samoo. Unfortunately, the plaza is closed on the 3rd Monday of every month and the only thing we got to see was the LED roses. As it was really cold that day, we did not walk around much but only had some street foods and cakes in Starbucks. After seeing the roses, we went back to the guesthouse.

Dongdaemun Design Plaza

LED roses

3000 won each @.@

First dessert in Korea!! Can't believe it is in Starbucks ^v^|||

I think I'll write to here for now. The videos will be uploaded much later as I do not have much time to edit them. And sorry for the long post.