5th Korea trip stories part 7 *final*

Hi everyone! Finally last part of my Korea trip stories -series is here! To be honest I'm really busy with school, I have 4 courses and lots of things to do but I took a break to write this post~
I have been a bit stressed lately since I changed my plans for studying and I'm trying to graduate a bit earlier than planned. But things are getting more clearer in next couple weeks so all is good and without further ado let's jump into Korea trip stories~

Day 11

Insadong

First in the morning we grabbed breakfast from cafe near our hostel and then we were ready for a new day :D Me and Sirja decided to visit Insadong in the morning because we wanted to hunt some souvenirs. Insadong is basically a street for tourists because there are so many shops that sell every kind of items related to korea like for example souvenirs, potteries, art etc.
 What we didn't know is that the day was some kind of national day so as soon as we got into subway we met lots of koreans with korean flags and different kind of accessories with korean flags. Luckily, it wasn't that crowded in Insadong but lots of people were wearing hanboks!

Anyway, we walked through Insadong and I visited one shop which sold a lot of bags, I bought one for my mom (she asked me to bring her a nice bag) and bought one for myself also. After walking around for like an hour we decided to head back to Sinchon to drop our stuff and eat lunch.

We found this great restaurant that was located in basement level opposite of cube mall complex in main street. I got a spicy noodle soup while Sirja got bibimpab.

Apgujeong

 

Later on that day we took a subway to Apgujeong where we met with Laura. I wanted to see the famous K-Star road which I hadn't visited before but felt like everyone else had (even though I had visited Korea so many times). You can access there by taking subway to Apgujeong rodeo station, exit 2. It's basically located in the main street of Apgujeong. It's funny because around it the area is very luxurious and full of luxury brand stores.
We had to walk for 10-minutes before we got into start of the k-star road. At the start of it was a small store selling mini figurines of the k-star road figures but they didn't have any group figurines left that I would have liked to buy. So after a quick look of the store we continued our way to k-star road.

We browsed through the area, it's famous also because many big entertainment agencies like SM, JYP and Cube are located in there. We actually went past SM (which was under construction) and JYP and saw Cube from further away. There was a lot of fans in front of JYP with cameras, I guess some of the artist were inside or coming soon to the agency since the group of fans was quite big. The area itself is surprisingly narrow so there wasn't that much space in that road so we decided not to stay in there even though there were couple cafes and we were craving coffee.

At one point it started raining and we walked a while in the rain before spotting a cafe where we went to warm up and eat delicious honey bread dessert.

If you visit korea, try their honey bread toast, it's sooo good (the calories are worth it lol)

Next we braved the rain and walked through the streets when suddenly we remembered that Moomin cafe is quite close to our location. So we headed up to Moomin cafe :D It's funny that in these couple years Moomin craze has fallen also to South-Korea. When I visited Korea in 2012 and 2013 nobody knew about Moomins and now about everybody knows them. Moomin cafe in apgujeong is quite easy to find, it's near the main street and near Uniqlo.

The first floor is Moomin store where you can buy different kind of Moomin stuff, lots of it is made in korea and looks like a "copy" of moomins but there are also stuff from Muurla and Finlayson (although those are reeeeeally expensive compared to Finland's prices). Top floor is Moomin cafe, you should come there in the morning since in the evening they hardly have any pastries and stuff left. Basement floor is kind of playground, you can take photos with sceneries from Moomin tv series. It was quite fun actually, playing there :D

We spend like an hour in there before going out and wondering what to do next. We decided to go to Dongdaemun, you can access there through Dongdaemun History & Culture park subway station, exit 1. There we first just wandered through Design plaza but it was starting to rain really hard so we went inside Doota mall. We were starting to get hungry so we went to the food court in there. It was really full but we were so hungry that we just hunted free tables for ourselves and ordered food. We ate really good pasta and were really full after that. And it looked like a gourmet meal but cost about 12000won so about 10€ so it was actually really affordable!

After eating we said goodbye to Laura and headed to Sinchon to get a goodnight sleep after a long day. We had only couple days left and we were starting to feel sad that days went past so fast.

Day 12

Myeongdong

 

Because it was our second last full day we decided to go to Myeongdong for the last time to do last minute shopping. We walked in Myeongdong about four hours and also went to eat at one place where they cook your food in front of you in a big pan. It was in one of the Myeongdong's side streets and we encountered aggressive restaurant workers and we just wanted to get out of that street. But then when we were almost off of the street we noticed this restaurant and it just looked interesting so we went in. They had very good food and it was very filling also.

Sinchon

We spent the day leisurely and in the evening we met with my friend Hyojoo in Sinchon who was in the same volunteer program as I was when I was doing my volunteer work period in 2012. We went to eat to one place offering samgyeopsal and some other great dishes. Had a really great dinner and Hyojoo offered to pay it for us, it was so nice of her. So when we went to a cafe after dinner coffees were on me. By the way in Korea, this kind of thing is common especially between friends that somebody is paying the whole thing one time and then next time the other is paying the whole thing. Koreans do not expect this from foreigners but I think it's nice cultural thing.

Day 13

Sports complex + Coex

 

Day 13 was a fail to be honest. We were going to Sports complex area because Infinite had a concert in there that day and Sirja is a huge Infinite fan. We didn't get tickets through online because it showed sold out but we were told by online ticketing agency interpark, that they may be selling them at the venue. So we went there and this was second frustrating and maddening thing that ever happened to me with concerts. So, we were lingering around ticketing booth (where people got their physical tickets after showing confirmation slip). I heard one korean fan who didn't have ticket asking from staff that if it was possible to still buy tickets. The staff member then answered that if you wait long enough you may get a chance to buy those tickets that are not picked up before concert so come back later. Almost immediately after this korean girl had asked the staff, came a foreigner who asked in english the exact same thing and I was shocked how drastically the replies were different from another. Because the staff member answered like "no, you can't buy tickets anymore". It wasn't even like "come back later and check" but like straight no... talk about discriminating. I was so angry and mad about that attitude that I wanted to leave. Sirja wanted to be around the area for longer and I was just pissed off. Sirja wanted to ask those illegal sellers that in what price would they sell tickets and I was saying to her that just ask them but she was like she doesn't have the courage.. but she still wanted to stay and linger around those sellers.. so I was getting more pissed off and just went to ask myself. When the price was too high to Sirja, I asked Sirja what kind of price she will pay and then I said the price offer to the seller I got cursed and the seller left us angrily. Imagine how I felt around this point. I was also hungry so I said without even considering Sirja anymore that I'm going to eat so Sirja just followed me. We went to Coex where we got our lunch.

Sirja still wanted to go back to venue area while I didn't want to but I didn't want to go our seperate ways in case we couldn't contact each other again for a long time. So I went but we were there for nothing and finally Sirja also gave up. I was seriously angry and pissed off at that point that we wasted our last day in korea to just hanging out in an area where we couldn't even do anything useful.

Ewha

 

We went to Ewha and messaged to Su if she was available to join us and pretty soon we met her at a cafe in Ewha. I was calming down a little bit but still annoyed. We just talked for a while and then decided to walk through Ewha's streets and do some shopping also. Little by little I got into a better mood and found some stuff I didn't found in Myeongdong or other places.

In the evening we went to eat to this good chicken place I have mentioned earlier in my previous Korean travel posts. There used to be Baskin and Robbins opposite of it but now it had disappeared, anyway this chicken restaurant was in the same place. They offer really good snacks and chicken meals, really recommending it still, it's on the basement level. After eating and browsing the streets a little more we said Su goodbyes and decided to go back to Sinchon since we still had to pack and wake up early.

Day 14

We headed back home. Woke up really early like 5am, went to subway and transferred in Hongdae to airport subway line. We were at the airport around 7 and they opened check-in pretty soon so we just dropped our stuff off and went through security check. All this went by really quickly actually and before we knew we were boarding to the plane. I had fun experience this time also even if the last day wasn't that good.


Next I will start posting about my Japan travels. Also can't wait to get back to Korea again next year~

5th Korea trip stories part 2

Day 2

Sinchon + Hongdae

First night was kind of hard because we were really tired from previous day but on basement level in the same building that our hostel was, was noraebang aka karaoke bar and we could clearly hear the noise from over there.. well, they stopped around 1am but still, it was pretty annoying (korean buildings have really thin walls..)

In the morning we went to find a cafe where we could eat breakfast and after looking around a bit we found two-some coffee and ordered some simple sandwiches and lattes. Our hostel had breakfast but it was until 10am and it was either cup noodles or toast.. and me and Sirja don't really like those things in the morning so that's why we wandered to find our own breakfast (besides, korea is really affordable when it comes to food so we paid like 6000won from our breakfast which is about 4.50€).

After breakfast we walked around Sinchon to see what kind of place it was (the day before we really didn't have energy to) and found for example Moomin store in U-plex mall lmao.

We took our time to go around and then went to meet up our friend Su and her friend who came for exchange program to Korea. And coincidentally their hostel for few days before going to dorm happened to be beside ours. After meeting we went to eat because at least me and Sirja started to be very hungry.
After we stuffed ourselves full of kimbap and mandu we decided to walk to Hongdae from Sinchon because Hongdae is close by and it's approximately only 20-minute walk. If you want to go there by subway or bus, be noted that in english they put the stop up as Hongik University because Hongdae is actually shortened slang word from korean 'Hongik daehakgyo' (Hongik University).
We toured around Hongdae for awhile before we decided to go back to Sinchon and we parted with Su and her friend.

Sinchon is actually really close to Hongdae

We rested for awhile in our hostel room after walking for a whole day. In the evening we met with my friend Laura who was working in Seoul at that time. We went to eat chimaeg (chicken+maegju) which means basically chicken+beer and it's quite popular evening snack thing in korea. Usually these kind of places are bars or late-night restaurants which means they're closed at afternoon. But I highly recommend to try them even if you don't like alcohol (you can order soda or cola like I always do) because korean chicken food is to die for! So if you're in Korea and see the word 치맥, that means that type of restaurant/bar.
We were kind of early (around 6pm) so the restaurant was empty. But after we got in it was like 15 minutes and other people started coming in too. So if you're not up for a really noisy enviroment to eat and talk, it's best to go early because in Korea restaurants start getting full about 8pm. But actually our finnish culture is funny because if you eat dinner after 6pm it's considered very late, we usually eat dinner around 4-5ish pm so eating 6pm was not a problem for us, we were actually quite hungry.

Anyway, we talked quite awhile and then walked around Sinchon. We thought the idea of wanting to visit cat cafe because neither me or Sirja had experienced it before (even though we both have visited Korea before). So Laura searched nearest cat cafes and we ended up in one pretty close by our chimaeg place. Going to cat cafe (or any animal cafe), be sure to read rules and listen to owner. When we got in, we had to take our own shoes off and we got sandals in place of them and had to be very careful with doors so no cats could escape. Also, to these type of cafes you usually pay attendance fee and many cafes like ours included one drink to the fee so basically you get entrance and one drink for the same price. Cat cafe where we went had also one cute dog which was still a puppy, this is quite unusual but it was a pleasant surprise~ In this cat cafe the cats were same breed because owner was concentrated on just one breed but majority of cat cafes have many kinds of cats. We played with the cats and the dog for couple hours before finally leaving since it was getting pretty late.

Day 3

Gwanghwamun, Jogyesa, Bongeunsa, Coex

We decided at the morning to spend time going around famous sightseeing places so what better way to start than going to Korea's most famous square, Gwanghwamun square from where you can also see and access Gyeongbokgung palace. I have visited there many times before but it's always an awesome sight for me. Laura was working nearby so I message her if we could go eat lunch together and she gave ok after she had run some errands. So in the meantime me and Sirja decided to tour Gwanghwamun's Kyobo bookstore which is the biggest bookstore in Korea and located in a big building complex in Gwanghwamun. If you want to go to Kyobo, don't worry it's easy to find. You will see a big sign in the building and you just have to take glass elevator to one floor down from main floor. Besides being bookstore, they have electronics store, accessories store, kpop albums store and cafe complex in the same floor inside Kyobo so it's a good place to spend some time~

And near Gwanghwamun you have for example Cheonggyechong stream, Jogyesa and Insadong so you can easily spend a day in the area just walking and sightseeing.
Anyway, Laura messaged me that her errands took more time than expected so I suggested to Sirja that we walk to see Jogyesa because it's basically next to  Gwanghwamun square (about 15-minute walk).

From this spot if you turn right Kyobo building would be about right in front of you

Jogyesa temple prayer lanterns

So we walked to Jogyesa, took some photos and walked back to meet Laura and go eat lunch. After lunch we parted ways and me and Sirja headed up to Bongeunsa temple which is in Gangnam area and it's famous for having preserved it's historical look even though it's in middle of concrete jungle. And surprising enough, I have never visited there even though this was my 5th time in Korea so I was really excited to see something I hadn't seen before.

Bongeunsa was quite easy to find because I looked from map beforehand that it was next to exit 1 from Bongeunsa temple subway station.
We took our time to sightsee and admire the temple. It was quite peaceful and we didn't see many people around. I heard that Bongeunsa arranges temple stays and that's why you can see also foreigners wearing a traditional temple clothing on temple grounds. Many korean temples arranges these temple stays where you stay in the temple and do a monk's routine which includes meditation etc.

entrance to Bongeunsa, you can clearly see how surrounded by tall buildings it is

We were getting pretty tired after travelling from one place to another and walking alot but because Coex is literally other side of the road from Bongeunsa we decided to check it up. Coex is a mall complex that has for example aquarium inside. I have never actually visited it's aquarium even though I wanted to and we didn't visit this time either because as I said, we were tired. We wandered around Coex like half an hour and then decided that we really need to get to our hostel to rest so we headed back to Sinchon.
Later in the evening we went to eat and I ordered sundubujjigae (soft tofu soup) which was like the most spiciest soup I have ever eaten.. I have eaten sundubujjigae before but not that spicy! I could finish it but I burned my mouth xD After my burning food experience I mainly wanted some cold dessert so we found a cafe and ordered dessert drinks and cake slice which we ate half and half. Seriously, Korea has some of the most delicious looking and tasting desserts I have ever seen.. be careful if you don't want to gain weight because temptation is big xD

Somewhere around Coex

Desserts that taste like heaven

I end my post here, next up is Day 4 and 5. I start school soon so I'm guessing I'll be very busy next couple months but I try to update a new post next month.
By the way, my Japan trip arrangements have been almost done! Flight ticket reserved as well as accommodations, yay no stress from that part anymore~ Our trip will be a tour; Osaka-Nara-Kyoto-Tokyo-Osaka. Can't wait!