Korea trip diaries: day 6 + day 10

I'm sooooo so sorry that I haven't been updating like in a month... I have been super busy with everything and I've also had some personal issues to take care of so... I'm sorry and I hope you guys understand T.T

But let's get this going and next up is day 6 + day10 from Korea trip diaries~
Just to let you know why I won't tell about the weekend (friday to sunday) is that I was staying in Buyeo in my now ex-boyfriend's house. Yes, ex-boyfriend. That is mainly the reason I haven't been able to update here sorting this all out but let's leave it to that..

DAY 6

Bupyeong and Dongdaemun

In day 6 (thursday) I went to Bupyeong to meet my friend Emilia. She lives in Incheon and I just wanted to visit her and just chat what's up these days. She lives a bit far from Seoul though so we arranged meeting in Bupyeong where is for example underground shopping mall-ish space :D Why I say shopping mall-ish is because it's in underground level and full of small shops selling clothes in affordable prices (there are some cosmetic chain stores also).

If you want to get to Bupyeong from Seoul, take line 1 (blue line) to Incheon direction. It takes approximately 50 minutes from Dongdaemun station.

When I got to Bupyeong I was totally lost lmao. We had agreed to meet at exit 3 with Emilia but I didn't find it anywhere.. I luckily found wifi connection that worked with my cellphone and send message to Emilia and we agreed to a new place. When we met we headed to cafe first because both of us were kind of wanting something cold to drink. I ordered strawberry ade which was pretty good~

We talked for awhile and got hungry so we changed from cafe to restaurant :P We ate pasta and just spend time leisurely talking~ After eating we went to check the underground mall. I found couple shirts with very cheap deal :3 Then it was already evening so I left back to Seoul after saying goodbye to Emilia.

 

After shopping like two hours in Bupyeong and travelling back to hostel over an hour, I was getting quite hungry. I met the russian girl I had talked earlier with and we decided to go to eat together. We went to kind of my regular place to eat (because it's cheap and offers great food). I ordered manduguksu (mandu soup) and it was soooo good.


 After eating ourselves full we just decided to visit dongdaemun square because I hadn't been there yet in this trip even though it was literally the next station from our subway station.

Just a hint: if you want to visit Dongdaemun, visit at evening when all the lights are on. You can also see the beautiful led roses~ If you go daytime, there is big shopping malls right next to each other like for example doota.

To Dongdaemun you can get from two stations: Dongdaemun and Dongdaemun history & culture park stations.  For accessing the park, get off in latter and take exit 14. When you go out from doors head straight and slightly turn to right uphill.
You can also access to shopping malls from that station because it's right next to shopping complex.

We just walked around for awhile and then went inside the plaza complex. There are cafes right opposite side of entrance to plaza museum. Turn right from the doors and you'll see couple restaurants and cafes in there. We saw a smoothie bar Beesket from where I've seen great reviews in different blogs so we decided to try that.

It works that you first choose 3 ingredients for your smoothie yourself from different blocks and then give the blocks to sales person who takes your order. When you pick your order you will get card saying how much proteins etc your smoothie has. So it's kind of interesting concept.

My smoothie was banana-yogurt-cherry. My friend took yogurt-kiwi-strawberry. When we got our smoothies I was thinking that this looks way too dark to be a banana smoothie (but my card was in front of the smoothie), we took them anyway. We were planning to drink them outside while watching the beautiful view... when I tasted my smoothie, it turns out they mixed up our smoothies because I instantly tasted kiwi and my friend tasted banana in hers. But we had already walked out from smoothie bar and were like 300 meters away already so we didn't turn back and complain about it. I have kiwi allergy so my tongue started to go numb and my throat was hurting.. I didn't have any medicine with me but my friend had so as first-aid I took her medicine. So guys, trust your instincts and go complain if you encounter something like this... I was tired so I thought not to go to complain but later I realized it would have been right thing to do because who knows if I would have gotten more serious symptoms later... and I'm still thinking if it would have gotten more serious without the medicine...

After this episode I just wanted to go to hostel and rest. Next day I left to Buyeo and spend whole weekend there. I got back in monday morning.

Day 10

Coex, Express bus terminal, Hongdae

So after being weekend away from Seoul I got back to same hostel but got different room this time. It was little bigger so I was happy it wasn't size of shoebox again :P

After dropping my stuff off I went to grab something small to eat and then decided to go check out express bus terminal underground shopping area. When I was in subway I thought that coex is pretty close so why not visit there.

For Coex take line 2 (green line) and get off at samseong station exit 6. For express bus terminal take line 3 (orange line) or line 7 (dark green) and get off at express bus terminal station exit 8. You will arrive in middle of the shopping underground hallways from exit 8. To right and left hallways goes pretty long so if you plan to go all it through reserve at least 2 hours.

 So I stopped to go to coex; I visited couple shops like Åland (which is funny name because Åland is Ahvenanmaa in swedish which is self-government island in Finland). Funny how everyone keeps saying the name like "A-land" when right pronounciation is more like "Oo-land".

I also visited smtown complex which is in coex. You will see it right when you get off from subway station. I went to smtown shop first but I didn't find anything because I'm not sm artist's fan that much so I didn't want to spend my money on fan merchandises (which were pretty expensive if I may say..) Then I went to sm cafe where was also a little sum market (food shop). Everything was so pretty darn expensive but I got SHINee labeled sparkling water and Girls Generation labeled snack. Then I also ordered f(x) labeled ade from the cafe and you got to keep bottle that comes with the ade drink (ade cost something like 6300won).

By the way in each floors there are different displays of sm artists stuff like awards, clothes etc. And sm cafe has tables where the artists have signed their autographs.

After spending some time in sm cafe I headed to express bus terminal shopping area. Now, I'm used to Seoul underground areas being a little confusing but this wins by far. Every sign were pointing you to different direction and in the end I was like wait wut is exit 8 now this way or is the shopping area really that way. I somehow ended up in right place but it took me awhile lol...

Then it started to get late after an hour of browsing the shops in there and I had to leave because I had to drop my stuff to my hostel before going to Hongdae to see my friend Yeji.

I met Yeji like 7pm-ish and we had so much fun just talking and eating (lol). Yeji is a friend I met in one daum cafe (daum is a korean portal site for news and other stuff like forums and different artists forums are called cafes). I usually talk in korean with her while messaging but I'm really slow talking korean face to face so after awhile we naturally changed to english when I was trying to talk in korean first. Seriously, my brains just go blank with words, even easy words when I try talking in korean... seriously wtf brain.

Anyway, we first ate kind of kimchijjigae and then went for desserts in one famous cafe (I forgot the name but it's in Hongdae's main street on right side right at the end if coming from subway exit 9 direction. Near top10 shop and the parking lot in center of main street).
There was this traditional green tea bingsu and traditional korean tea. So good!!! And Yeji offered me this whole dinner and dessert so I was like OMG thank you xD I ate deliciously :P

Then we visited couple stores before saying goodbyes. We were like we had known each other for years, at least it felt like it. I miss my friend already and I hope to see her next year again (yup, I'm planning a new trip for next year already xD ).



Next up: day 11 when I went to Everland~