Asia Day 2: Korean House and Myeongdong

7/17/12


View from my window in Seoul! I stayed at the Westin Chosun (as I mentioned in the previous post), and it was very nice.

This was like right next to our hotel. (I forgot what it was, because it was so long ago ; ;)

The side of our hotel which I thought was pretty.

During our Seoul trip, this was how we got around when we walked (the rest was by bus- that reason will come later on). This was early in the morning so everything is closed, but there's a bunch of shops here. My sister bought a bunch of limited edition CDs in a CD shop in this kind of enclosure (the kind that you can't really find in a book store). It was rainy our entire stay, so this was a good move.

We had to walk a lot to find our bus. ; ; I don't mind walking long distances, but it was really humid, and I can't stand humidity. It was still very early in the morning and I already felt disgusting. The first day in Asia I made the mistake of wearing a full face of makeup, which I quickly abandoned after that.

The smartest way to go around Seoul to be honest. On one particularly rainy day a bunch of students were buying tickets for this bus as well- why? Because it's a very cheap and efficient. You buy a ticket for either the double-decker bus or the normal one (obviously we chose the normal one). You can get on and off as much as you want until the buses stop running (which is 7pm) as long as you have your ticket. Taxis are expensive, and just about everyone we met in Korea could not speak/understand English  (except for the people in the hotel), so good luck getting a taxi driver to understand you. Also, the bus stops at great tourist locations.

They have an audio guide as well!

Our first stop was at the Korean House.

 The Korean on the sign says Korean house, I told you!

The layout of a Korean-style house.

For some reason I love looking at little ponds... especially if they have fish.

Fishhhhh

...sorry.

 Outside there were this street vendor selling fish cakes and sausages. It wasn't very good, but I was hungry. I don't like my food bursting with oil, but this was... dry.

Namsan tower! We didn't go there though. = =

Behind the straw items you, there are two guys weaving!

We camped in a little area that had a roof because we only bought one umbrella (that was tiny) until the rain lightened up a little.

 They had a little check-up thing that you could do (we didn't though).

Even though it said "Watch your head", I didn't have to duck :p (I am really short).

More pictures of the rooms.

 As you can see in the far back, there are two figures that scared me. ; ;

Bedroom!

 Kitchen...

There are a lot of activities you could do...

 Another pond!

 With more fish~

Rice plant

We then left that place and went to go find the bus stop. While waiting we went into this little cafe (I forgot the name, but you'll see a lot of them- they're like a chain) to cool off from the humidity and get some drinks and food.

 Lots of pastries and bread! Asian bread is so good ;A; I miss it so much.

 Strawberry smoothie I got. It was good, but so thick that I couldn't finish it ; ; (Korean smoothies are really thick).

 Peach iced tea that my dad had. In just about every cafe (and there are a lot of cafes) in Korea seemed to sold peach iced tea. It tastes really good! You can really taste the peach in it.

After about 15 minutes of waiting our bus arrived and we drove around some more.

I forgot where we went... I feel like we went to Insadong. I can't remember = =

We went to eat lunch and we ate samgyeopsal 

 They put burning coals in front of us and then put a grill over it.

Water is given to you like this.

It wasn't very good... I prefer the samgyeopsal I eat in Ktown then in that restaurant- but maybe it was just the place we went to eat, I don't know. It was really hard to communicate, but luckily I spent about 2 hours the night before we left and wrote down a shit ton of Korean phrases (I know how to read and basic phrases) and numbers- and trust me, it was worth it. I suggest you to buy a Korean travel guide because it will help you so much.

 It's a 사랑 방(sarangbang) ... which literally translates to Love Room lol. Basically a love motel. They had a few of these around.

Really cute owls ;A;

Walked a longgg way to the next bus stop and we got really hot and so we went into a cafe. There's about 2934893 cafes everywhere you go, so there's no need to worry about if you get thirsty or hungry.

 The cafe we went to- it had really nice looking cakes!

 We went back to our hotel and had some food... the salmon wasn't that good, but the salami next to it and the pineapple was. :p

After resting up for a few hours we went to Myeongdong!

Super large Dunkin' Donuts'!

There were so many makeup shops in Myeongdong. I probably saw 10 Etude Houses lol. They're very small but there are a lot of each makeup shop, so if you pass by one, don't worry- there's 15 more of them.

Lots of street food as well! My dad had mandu because he hadn't eaten- I was just thirsty so I got this concoction of fresh squeezed orange juice and sprite and it was amazingggg.

Damage from Myeongdong- I didn't get a lot, which I really regret ; ; It was dirt cheap.

 I only got stuff from Etude House and Missha because everyone was tired and just wanted to go back and sleep. I also got an EXO-K CD from a CD shop in the underground streets- my sister bought all of her CDs there because they had the special/limited edition Block B CDs that she wanted. It was somewhat hard to communicate with him- I wanted a certain CD, but he gave me the repackaged and gah. ;A; You can't browse in that shop- you tell him what CD you're looking for and he'll magically whip it out of the 2934938 CDs that are in his shop. He was really jumpy and fast- which is good, but it made me dizzy. * *

 What I got from Etude House- the mask, Collagen moistful and box of cotton pads with Dara's face on it are freebies, and the bee is my sister's. It's insanely cheap here in Korea though. The blushes are 6000 (about 6 US dollars) whereas in Indonesia they were marked up to about 20 US dollars (I don't remember the Rupiah) ;A;

 EXO-K CD

 (Blurry) Pic of what I got from Missha. The cleansing wipes were freebies (when I went into the store they gave me a basket and put them in lol)- I just got two lip products, and I regret not getting more because they are AMAZING. ; ;

 I got Kai (and nearly screamed)!

Finished the day off with banana milk~

And that concludes this very, very long and image heavy post.