Seoul Day 3: Boseong Green Tea Plantation

Day 3. Our plan for the day was to spend our whole day at Boseong Green Tea Plantation. The place is quite far and it takes about 5 hours from Seoul to Boseong. We hired a driver and a van to took us there since we thought going with public transportation would probably took us longer. All4U Korea Tour is the service that we used for the transportation arrangement. The communication for planning and reservation was really easy and the driver and interpreter who met us were really nice and friendly. They even took time to tell us information about the place that we were visiting. I highly recommend this company if you ever thinking of using private transportation service (they offer services in Seoul and outside Seoul).

We started our day very early. 6.30 am, Mr.Choi (the interpreter) met us at our hotel lobby ready to go. We immediately got on to the van and so began our (short) road trip. An hour into the trip or so, we stopped by at a rest area for bathroom breaks. And since we haven’t had any breakfast, we bought some snacks for our breakfast.

After getting some snacks, we continued our journey. The scenery was pretty nice. There were lots of trees and mountains that we passed by. Definitely a different vibe from Seoul’s urban environment.

After almost 5 hours drive, we finally arrived at the plantation. Coincidentally, that day was the first day of the green tea festival. So there were tents set up near the parking lot area. We took a quick look at the festival tents and saw some food stalls and people selling stuff in different stalls. We were going to get lunch since we arrived there almost at noon, but since Mr. Choi recommended us to get lunch inside the plantation—where they sold various green-tea infused food apparently—, we immediately headed for the entrance of the plantation to get in.

We bought our entrance tickets and headed straight to the restaurant.

So the menu on the restaurant is pretty limited, but still give you a decent options to choose from. We ordered a couple of different dishes to try on, and yes, everything on the menu have green tea as their ingredients. So we ordered Naengmyeon (냉면), Jajangmyeon (짜장면) and Bibimbap (비빔밥)—which came with green-tea infused noodle and rice. Everything was tasty. We even ordered seconds.

After we finished our meal, we wanted to start exploring. The view of the plantation was amazing! Although, I have to say, from the beginning, the thought of having to hike to the top of the hill is a little daunting to me.

And surely, after we finished our hike around the plantation, I was completely exhausted. Some of the track was steep and me being not in shape was definitely not helping. Nevertheless, it was a great experience. We ended up going on a slower pace and made jokes along the way to make the hike bearable under the scorching sun. The one thing that I ended up avoiding doing was to look up. It’s just better to not know how far I need to climb :P After we got to the top though, the view was gorgeous. It was worth a hike :)

Halfway to the top, we saw an ahjumma resting with us on one of the rest stop. All of us were really surprise when we looked at what she wore on this hiking trail. High. Heels. Seriously. We couldn’t even begin to understand why would you wear high heels on a hiking trip. I ended up asking the ahjumma if her feet hurts, but she replied, “괜찮아.. 괜찮아” (It’s alright, it’s alright) as if this is something normal that she does everyday. Props to the fashion-concious ahjumma. I would never be able to pull off wearing heels on a hike.

After we finished our hike a couple of hours later, we finally back to the entrance of the plantation. We were sweating and exhausted and in need of something refreshing. So we headed to the dessert stalls and bought green tea ice cream and green tea latte. Afterwards, we took a quick peak at the souvenir shop, bought a couple of boxes of green tea and headed back to Seoul.

On our way back, we stopped by Jeonju for dinner. Jeonju is famous for their Bibimbap, so we thought we give it a try. We visited Go Gung (Mr. Choi picked the restaurant for us) which apparently are famous for their Bibimbap. We each ordered one and after we finished stuffing our stomach with good food, we continued our journey. We arrived at our hotel around 11pm. It truly was a long day.

Seoul Day 2: Banpo Bridge Rainbow Fountain

After dinner, we took a taxi and headed to Hangang Park to see the Banpo Bridge Rainbow Fountain. This is the longest bridge fountain in the world with nearly 10,000 LED lights that run along both sides of the bridge. The fountain operates from April to October so we got to see how it’ll light up.

When we got there, the taxi ahjussi were telling us “No light! No light!” and we were like “What?? Why??” And the ahjussi were just like “I don’t know.” We’re trying to ask if there’s no light tonight or just right now (because there are certain hours that the fountain will light up and when we arrived there we were ahead of the scheduled time). But the ahjussi seemed to not understand what we were saying. But since we’re there already, we thought we should at least give it a try and wait for the show time. If it’s true that there’s no show that night, we’d still have a good time just walking around the park (and burn off all that meat that we ate earlier).

Turned out, the ahjussi was telling us there were no light when we arrived because 20 minutes later, the show began. And you know what, we thought the lights are going to be on both side of the bridge, but oh boy, we were wrong. So once the show began, we were running like mad to the other side of the bridge so that we wouldn’t miss the show. It’s just become one of the things we surely will remember from our trip :) For 15 minutes we just sit there, looking at the lights while listening to the music playing and enjoying the cool breeze of spring.

On our walk back to the subway station, I saw this on the wall.

Seoul Day 2: Garosu-gil, Apgujeong, & Gangnam

After we got our stomach full, we headed to the subway station to go to Gangnam. The subway station is quite different than the ones we’ve been to. And we got lost this time. I wasn’t quite sure where we were, but we were definitely not at the place that we intended to visit. It was pretty funny because we wandered off to a fairly quite area. But, we made the best of it and just laughed it off. What is traveling without getting a little lost right?

On our way back to the subway station, we went through what probably the longest escalator we encountered yet in subway station. I’m amazed on how deep underground the subway system goes in Korea.

Also, I saw this interesting advertisement. Not sure what it’s for or what it means, but it looked intriguing.

After that, we arrived at the famous Garosu-Gil (가로수 길). We were sweating bullets from the hot sun and decided to make a quick pit stop at Caffe Bene for some cold treats.

Mango Bingsu

The area is filled with restaurants, shops, cafes, studios, and galleries that are pretty upscale. So we just started strolling down the street and walked in to some of the shops that interest us.

We saw something that’s totally unexpected: a couple of guys walking donkeys on the other side of the street. Seeing something new everyday here.

After Garosu-gil, we headed to Apgujeong (압구정) also known as the Rodeo Street. The area has a lot of foreign brand shops that are very familiar to us. We just took a quick look around the area since the brands we saw are available in the States.

Afterwards, we took two taxis to Gangnam because our feet kinda gave up on us from all the long walks in the past 7 hours. I have to say Gangnam has some pretty cool and interesting buildings. Tall buildings here and there and kinda reminded me of financial districts in the States.

We were meeting Bella’s college friend for dinner since he worked around the area. He took us to this one awesome samgyeopsal place that I forgot to pay attention to the name of the restaurant, partly because I was tired AND hungry. So as soon as we arrived, we just walked in and sat down on the tables that have been prepared for us. The meat was excellent and we also tried some makgeolli. We also ordered their naengmyeon and ate until we were stuffed.

Seoul Day 2: Gwangjang Market

Day 2. We started our our day with a delicious breakfast at the Gwangjang Market (광장시장). We got there around 10 am and might have arrived a little late because some of the stalls and shops were closed. Even so, many were open, so we got to sightsee the market for a bit. For a market, I think the place is very clean and organized. It felt very different than the markets I've been back home in Indonesia. We ate and tried a couple of different things and after we're done eating we just walked around the market.

Bindaetteok (빈대떡)

Pajeon (파전)

Tteokbokki (떡볶이)

Jokbal (족발) - Pork's Feet // Gimbap (김밥)

Sundae (순대)

I tried it and it doesn't taste as bad as I thought. Very interesting taste and definitely taste better with the sauce/dip that the ajumma gave us.