Seoul
Which I'm rather familiar with by now haha. Just 1 post for the 6 days I spent here, but it's because the fun I had was a different type than my usual running around all over the place kind xD I had a great time with friends old and new on this leg. So naturally, less pictures, more conversations and more food than I ever imagined myself eating!
14 Apr, 10:30am: Departed from a grey Busan on the high-speed train. It's almost like I exhausted the blue skies in my 3 days there... Knocked out for most of the 2.5h ride to Seoul.
2:30pm: From Seoul station, there was a rather arduous journey to get to my first hotel in Gangnam (part of the SS9 package). So it was late by the time I could start my itinerary. Caught sight of more of these vibrant azaleas otw to the metro.
And also passed by Coex which held good memories from my first trip to Seoul in 2022. Since there was little need to worry about dear covid anymore, I went ahead and measured my hands against the Sujus'. I was surprised by the results... either half of them have tiny hands or I have large ones haha.
4pm: Was walking down Yeouido Park when I saw sights that reminded me of autumn๐ Hmm, it was well into spring, so maybe this variety of maple (? - can never be sure) is red all year round haha.
Crossed over into the Yeouido Hangang Park. I was here in an attempt to glimpse the cherry blossoms but it was indeed too late. In fact, I think I just missed them by a few days and could have gotten to see them if I'd put the Busan leg at the back of the trip instead. But ohwell! There were bigger priorities :)
๊ทธ๋๋ ๋ด์ ์๋ฆ๋ค์ ๋ค. Even then, spring was beautiful. ๐ฎ
All in all, it was a decent day for a riverside walk! Not bitingly cold or anything, as Seoul tends to be sometimes. But before moving further, I bought a cheese hotdog and sat down around here to eat it with my triangle kimbap since there wasn't really time for a sit-down lunch on that day.
5:15pm: Made my way towards my next stop of the day, Seonyudo Park aka the other island. I could have taken a bus, but decided to walk there from the nearest metro station since the weather was inviting. It was also worthwhile because Seoul's walking infra and public spaces are insanely good!
I found myself feeling quite impressed just by getting to the bridge over to the small island. It felt like a perfect balance between functionality and aesthetics.
Caught the view of the Yanghwa Hangang Park on this side of the river. Aside from the awesome (uncomplicated) public transport and walkability, I think I like Seoul very much for its ample blue and green spaces.
5:30pm: Entered Seonyudo and was greeted by a vibrant row of tulips :D It was my first time seeing this many tulips and definitely made up for the lack of cherry blossoms!
Overall, Seonyudo was a sweet, serene little place. It's a bit out of the way so not everyone would choose to visit, but for solo walkers like me, it's a great place to be. I put Apink's latest album on Spotify while wandering around and the lyrics of the songs in there really fit the mood!
Also no cherry blossoms, but there were loads of other beautiful pink flowers!
I spent about a leisurely hour there before having to make a move because the next thing on schedule was time sensitive.
8:30pm: Took some detours but made sure to arrive on time at the Banpo Bridge to see the Rainbow Fountain! I hadn't been able to fit this in on previous trips and this night was literally the only night where I could make the show. I'd missed the 8pm, but there were still 2 shows at 8.30pm and 9pm.
I settled down on some rocks just at the river edge to get an unobstructed view of the first show. This view wasn't super impressive and it felt like I was watching a mall fountain haha. There were a few guys zooming around on brightly lit jetskis just below the fountain, with some girls riding pillion who kept screaming xD
The spouts actually reached quite far.
Another thing was that there happened to be a Seventeen event just next to the fountain. I could hardly differentiate between the event music and the fountain music >.<
9pm: For the next show, I moved to catch the view from under the bridge and whoaaaaa this time it was so amazing! And so, I had a hard time choosing what to upload amongst so many of my photos/videos throughout the 20-min show xD From here, the patterns, colours, and music were all crystal clear! Overall, it was a better angle for seeing and appreciating the show, unlike the riverside angle where many intricacies were not observable. Here are some of my favourite sequences.
In this outstanding sequence, the spouts swayed from side-to-side, filled in with changing rainbow lights!
Another one that I particularly liked was this one where the spouts shot into view from overhead and disappeared into a mist.
It was only from under the bridge where the feathering of the spouts became obvious, looking like a liquid version of the aurora.
Oh yes, I recognised some of the music and noticed that the colours were even synced to represent the singers e.g. purple during BTS's Spring Day and blue/purple during a song from Aespa (oops can't rmb which it was).
It seems like I was getting used to staying out later on my solo travels.
16 Apr, 8am: Skipped forward a bit, coz the SS9 bits will be covered separately. On this day, I was up really early (out of hotel at 6:30am) in an attempt to queue for some limited edition physical Superstar SMTown cards at the concert event booth. I decided that it wasn't worth spending 4h of my life on holiday in that manner and went off to get a quick dose of spring instead (more tulips and assorted flowers!) at Seoul Forest. It was a whole lot more colourful than my first visit in "spring" 2022 haha.
10am: Popped by Haru&Oneday for fun since it was in the area and managed to get in after queuing for about 45 mins... That was because (1) it was SS9 weekend and (2) there was a special SS9 macaron set on sale (pictured). I ended up sharing a table with a nice HK ELF and having a good 1h chat with her! I also gave her the macaron which I wouldn't have eaten anyway and which other ppl kept borrowing to take photos since it ran out of stock... We were both saying that we should've charged for the borrowing and it looked like the "SJ SS9" was written using a marker xD
10:15pm: Fast forwarding again to the post-concert meal that night! I'd already done a lot of eating (for my standards) in Busan, but this was where the real eating started. As a non-foodie, I really needed friends to bring me to the good stuff. So this time it was super fortunate that my trip overlapped with my friend C and her friend K and I had a ton of fun (and food) with them hahaha. It was KBBQ for starters, a classic inaccessible food for a solo small eater~
I stayed over at their hotel in Hongdae that night coz it was too late to travel all the way back to Gangnam which really felt like the Woodlands of Seoul.
17 Apr, 12:30pm: I was up really early again on this day again to get back to my hotel, crash for a bit, pack up and transfer to another place in Myeongdong. I've stayed here 3 times now but it's really the most VfM place to stay. Was also happy to see that Myeongdong was back to its old bustling self!
13:40pm: So the first activity of the day was lunch xD Something new once again with self-picked seafood at Noryangjin Fish Market.
I have no idea how to do these things, so I stood by to let C work her magic and watched the selection squirm while awaiting their fate. The interesting thing was that the staff spoke to us in Chinese. This also seemed to be the go-to language for shopkeepers in Myeongdong when I went looking around later on. Such a contrast to the VTL days when everyone assumed everyone else was Korean haha.
The restaurant that we were taken to was called ํด์ด๋ (Haeundae) hahaha, nice throwback to a place I was already missing. We were served the opening acts and this suaku was amazed at the size of some of the shellfish. The seehums I know in SG would be about a third the size of that monster, and I'd prob choke on the huge oyster if it weren't snipped up haha. I think most of these were either steamed or grilled for us.
And then, the star of the show - the crab! I can't remember the exacts but I think it was a king crab. It was super luxurious ✨ We started off eating the steamed crab as is. But partway through, C handed over the shell filled with bits of meat to the staff and it was returned to us in the form of fried rice!
Last but not least, we also had an unspicy fish maeuntang (lit. spicy soup xD). Still good for the weather! After Busan, Seoul felt like the London of Korea... In fact, I think there was never a time when I got to take off my jacket or put on sunglasses while in the capital city haha.
5pm: Lunch spanned into the mid-day, then I had to return to Myeongdong to check in first because I was staying at a hostel with set office opening hours. By then, the street vendors were already out in full force and full as I was, I couldn't resist buying this cheese custard pancake that kept appearing on my insta feed haha. It was a fun thing to eat, but once again, I realised that Korean cheese is there for visuals and texture xD
6:15pm: Next on the itinerary was a quick shopping tour down Ehwa Womans University shopping street (between that and Myeongdong, I managed to pick up some wearable-in-SG pieces!) and then going to see the university itself. It felt like Europe.
Smack in the middle was this hugeee grey flight of stairs that apparently was used for some fashion show. I also found the little candy-corn shaped shrubs super cute. They looked so perfectly trimmed that I started to wonder if they were actually fake...
7pm: And back to eating, the last item on the day's agenda! This one was also my request, another classic hard-to-eat-alone food - chicken and beer. But also, this kind of funhealthy stuff is soooo much more enjoyable with friends! There was a street in Myeongdong full of chimaek outlets and we went to a place called Daily Beer which had totally relatable vibes~
18 Apr, 10am: The first half of my last full day in Seoul was taken up by a DMZ tour which was a very eye-opening introduction to the whole situation. Our tour guide added a touch of dry humour to the experience and made some parts of it sound like a petty quarrel. But still, I felt very sian for the families separated because of this.
We went to an observation deck to view the North and South sides of the DMZ. That was also the first time I was so heavily interested in using the observation binoculars, coz it was strangely entertaining to find landmarks on the North Korean side e.g. a large propaganda display ala Hollywood sign saying "our country is the best" and blasted factory buildings. Zooming hard into certain points in the below photo will reveal 2 gigantic flagpoles which was the result of a "flagpole war" with both sides vying to have the tallest flagpole -.-
There were some areas where we weren't allowed to take photos. This included an infiltration tunnel dug by North Korea, which was quite a workout for some ppl since it was a sustained 300m slope. We were also not allowed to take photos along the roads towards the different landmarks since this was a military zone. But along those roads, I finally got to see so many cherry blossom trees in full bloom! This was because the DMZ was further north of Seoul and still well in season for the blossoms.
So that was completely unexpected haha. I didn't want to break the rules and admired the blossoms as much as possible as the bus went past. At the end of the tour, we had some time at the souvenir shop and were standing around eating soy bean ice cream when I saw one lone tree from a distance. So here's some photos from the single cherry blossom tree I officially saw haha.
4pm: The tour ended around 2pm and I split off from C and K until dinnertime. In this period, I got hungry and decided it was a good time to have my first Korean macs meal! On recommendation from one of the SG ELFs I met at SS9, I ordered the double bulgogi burger meal with Jeju hallabong cooler and CHEESE STICKS. It was one of the best macs meals I'd ever eaten. The bulgogi burger was like a superior version of the samurai burger and the cheese sticks were warm and tasty. Again, I knew I might have spoilt dinner but these are the things to do on holiday~
7pm: After a tour of the largest emart in Wangsimni, I found myself at the start of one of the walking trails up Namsan. Couldn't let go of a chance to hike after all haha, however short the route. There were a few routes up Namsan and I chose the route following the Seoul City Wall, which was also the most accessible from the metro.
But first, the route passed through a park at the foot of Namsan, brightly decked out in spring.
It was getting dark when I started going up Namsan proper, but the route was well-lit and well-trafficked all the way. As usual, I kept pausing to savour the sky painted with sunset. When paired with good music (the Fan Letter musical OST was just the right length for this hike), the experience was surreal.
7:40pm: It wasn't long before I reached the N Seoul Tower at the peak! Unfortunately, there was a 30-min wait to get up to the observatory and I had to go for dinner. So I still have something to do on my next trip to Seoul haha, and I'll go up using another route on Namsan.
But then again, the plaza already offered such an amazing view of the Seoul nightscape! Then, I walked back down (gingerly on my tired knees) coz there was a long queue for the cable car.
10:10pm: There is a bit of an unintentional jump coz I have no photos of dinner (jokbal) and so skipping straight to Round 2 at a boldly decked out place called Joseon Dynasty! It was themed after a Joseon era university, and there seemed to be many university kids there too haha. This seems like the Seoul equivalent of our prata supper places xD We had eomuk soup and a few different makgeollis, including an interesting peanut flavoured one.
That night, I had to watch the time and make sure to get back to Myeongdong (to pack my stuff) while the metro was still running haha.
19 Apr, 10:40am: The final morning was dedicated to running around Myeongdong, esp the convenience stores to buy my household's favourite B&J mint milk. I made an unplanned stop at Sammie cafe when I happened to walk past, to relive the nostalgia of my first meal in Seoul when I arrived there in the chilly early spring of 2022.
2:30pm: And of course I got hungry again after all the brisk walking and luggage-hefting, so my final meal in Korea was another sandwich at the airport.
4:10pm: Well, all good things have to end, as did this trip. On the journey to the airport and as I boarded the flight, I realised how unusually satisfied and ready to go home I was. Maybe it's coz I'd finally landed on an optimal duration for a trip (9D8N). Or maybe it was coz I had such a wide variety of experiences from Busan to Seoul, with myself and old/new friends, that there was nothing left to want this time around. Haha either way, it was a trip like no other so far and I was very very lucky that it turned out this way.
The flight back was uneventful until near the end when the crew suddenly led everyone on a stretching routine xD Plus point to my impression of Asiana!
Till the next time, when I return to Korea~
-๋-
