Seoul Spring '17 - Ep. 10.1 - Cherry Blossom Afternoon

Travel Vlog

After our moms flew back home, we checked-out of our Airbnb and moved to my friends' apartment to stay for the rest of the trip. We took the taxi because we were both too tired to lug around our suitcases and take the bus. Mar looked like she’s ready to pass out after cleaning up our Airbnb and packed up our stuff and it’s not even lunch time yet. After we settled in our new lodging, we legit just laid down on the floor for a good half hour before slowly starting to unpack some of our stuff.

My friends, Deokchun oppa and Eungyo unnie, welcomed us by taking us to lunch at one of the local restaurants nearby called 봉평메밀촌. They ordered perilla buckwheat noodle (들깨 메밀 칼국수), buckwheat bibim makguksu (메밀 비빔 막국수), and buckwheat dumpling (메밀왕만두) for us to share. I think this was my first time having perilla buckwheat noodle and the texture of the dish is very interesting. Everything was delicious and we were stuffed by the end of the meal.

Afterwards, we decided to walk around for a bit and see the cherry blossom that were in full bloom around the neighborhood. There were lots of ahjummas and ahjussis wearing very colorful exercise jackets walking around too, getting their exercise for day so it seemed. We saw a couple of them on the exercise equipments that were placed around the park so we decided to give them a try too. A couple of them were foreign to me and Mar so my friends taught us how to use them. We didn’t exercise for too long, but it was still pretty fun trying new things.

One of the rare proper pictures of us on this trip.

(To be continued in part two.)

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Seoul Spring '17 - Ep. 09 - Paris Croisssant & Sundubu Dinner

Travel Vertical Vlog

After lunch, Mar and I went back again to Gyeongbokgung (경복궁) for some exploration. The cherry blossom hasn’t fully bloomed yet at the palace. Other than a few couple of trees that has started to bloom, the rest of them were still pretty bald. People who came to the palace lined up in front of those few trees to get pictures with a glimpse of the flowers in their shots, just like what happened last time during previous visit.

We ended up passing by Samcheongdong (삼청동) on our way back to Hongdae and saw many couples hanging out around the area. A pretty common sight during the weekends in Seoul.

At the subway station, we made a pit stop at Paris Croissant for an afternoon snack after our excursion at Gyeongbokgung because Mar was hungry. She bought some bread and milk. And it was actually her first time trying their milk. If you ever passed by Paris Croissant and you like milk, it’s worth a try. Their milk taste a little different than regular milk. The one that’s in a clear glass bottle with blue cow, mountain, and trees graphics on it (I think they also have other kinds of milk if I remember correctly) tastes milkier and creamier compared to regular milk, I think. Mar also bought this Japanese Croquettes looking bread that has some kind of fillings inside. What’s funny was that I think just by looking at the shape of the bread, we both kind of expect that it’ll be a warm bread (or even lukewarm since it’s been sitting out on the tray). What we didn’t expect was the bread was cold. Like egg salad cold I think. It was pretty funny watching Mar took her first bite and how her face immediately scrunched in disappointment (watch the vlog and you’ll see what I mean).

Per our moms’ request, we went back to the Korean spicy soft tofu stew (순두부찌개) place that we went to on our first day of the trip for dinner. They’ve been there before too during our previous trip and was craving sundubu. Afterwards, we stopped by this juice place nearby to grab some dessert before heading back to our Airbnb.

(See what we did earlier during the day here.)

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Seoul Spring '17 - Ep. 08.2 - MMM Records & Jokbal Dinner

Travel Vertical Vlog

Later that afternoon, Ken wanted to check out MMM Records (음레코드), another place that we both haven’t been to. And since he was the one who found the place, both me and my cousin just followed his lead when looking for this place. MMM Records is located in the hilly neighborhood of Hannam-dong (한남동) which didn’t exactly made it easily accessible by foot. I’m telling you, we went through so many small alleys and walked up and down so many steep hills when trying to get to this place. Marshellia almost passed out and I seriously thought that I was going to get another asthma attack—which I haven’t had in a very long time by the way—when we were following Ken who’s following the direction from his phone. But then again, both of us are not exactly the definition of fit girls, so please take my comments with a grain of salt ;) But I do have to tell you, if you’re planning to visit MMM Records from Hangangjin Station (that’s where we were before we headed to this place) on foot, do wear comfortable shoes and prepare yourself to do a little bit of cardio.

When we finally arrived, we browsed around the place for a bit (read more about it here) before finally ordered our drinks and decided to bring them up to the rooftop to enjoy the sunset. Nobody was there so it was nice to have the whole area to ourselves. Marshellia and I ordered a drink which we were suppose to share but she ended up finishing almost all of it and left me with only a little left with plenty of ice cubes, again. Oh well. Since it was our last stop of the day, we were all pretty tired from the walking around and hiking the steep hills so we pretty much just chilled there and talked until the sun was down before making our way back to the subway station.

(Read more about about MMM Records (음레코드) here.)

For dinner, we headed back to Hongdae to meet up with our moms at Miss Jokbal Hongdae (미쓰족발 홍대본점). All four of us actually have been here together before when I first moved to Seoul for school and they came with me on that trip. This kind of reminded me of that time. We ordered the Original Jokbal (오리지널 족발) that comes with salad, banchan, three kinds of dipping sauces and a small pot of spicy kalguksu soup on the side. Their jokbal is actually one of the better ones I’ve had in Seoul. The meat is tender and juicy and it’s perfectly balanced when you eat it with with their well-seasoned salad. After we finished our dinner, we walked around Hongdae for a bit and visited the Kakao Friends store (카카오프렌즈 홍대점) before heading back to our Airbnb.

(Read first part of our day here.)

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PLACES:

Miss Jokbal Hongdae • 미쓰족발 홍대본점

Address: 서울 마포구 어울마당로 123-1
Telephone: 0507-1381-2125
Hours: Everyday 12:00 - 23:30

Kakao Friends Hongdae • 카카오프렌즈 홍대점

Address: 서울 마포구 양화로 162
Telephone: 02-6010-0104
Hours: Everyday 10:30 - 22:00

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Seoul Spring '17 - Ep. 08.1 - Seokcheon Lake & Bookpark

Travel Vlog

After Grace left, it’s down to only me, Mar plus our moms who were in town. Our moms had a plan of their own that day and so did we. We took a forty minutes subway ride to Jamsil (잠실) to meet up with Ken. He has asked me earlier that week if I want to hang out and go for a cherry blossom photo hunt at Seokchon Lake Park (석촌호수공원) since spring was at its peak that week. I never actually been to Seokchon Lake Park during spring so of course I said yes.

(See more pictures & read about our Seokchon Lake Park excursion here.)

After we were done with our cherry blossom hunt, we headed to Lotte World Mall (롯데월드몰) to get some lunch. Ended up having Bossam (보쌈) at one of the restaurant inside the mall because Ken was craving it.

Bookpark (북파크) was one of the stop that we went to after we finished our late lunch. It was my first time visiting this place and I liked it there. The bookstore was pretty big and they have a cafe inside where Marshellia ordered a cup of iced milk tea for us to share. But by the time I’m back from exploring the whole place to drink my share, she already drank the whole thing. I guess I was completely forgotten by her when she was busy soaking the warm sun while sipping the ice milk tea at the patio.

To be continued in part two of our day.

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Seoul Spring '17 - Ep. 07 - Rainy Day in Hongdae & Sinchon

Travel Vertical Vlog

By this day, Christina already left for home and Grace’s going to catch her flight home on the next day. My mom and my aunt actually arrived in Seoul to join me and Marshellia for the next couple of days. It was raining that day when we went out to do some exploring.

First stop of the day, we went to get some lunch at Choma (초마), a popular Chinese food restaurant in Hongdae. Ordered some jjajangmyeon (짜장면), jjamppong (짬뽕) and tangsuyuk (탕수육) to share. The food was tasty and we were stuffed at the end of the meal.

Afterwards we roamed around Hongdae to do some shopping. As much as I don’t particularly enjoy shopping, shopping with friends and family is always fun because I get to spend time with them. Even more fun when the group is as funny as this bunch. Plus Grace and Mar always managed to make me laugh with their (sometimes unintentional) funny comments. At one cosmetic store, we actually met a Korean sales assistant who could talk Indonesian. That was a quite a surprise. Usually sales assistants around touristy areas can speak either Japanese or Chinese. But it’s rare to find somebody who can actually speaks Indonesian. So that was fun.

In the evening, I split up from to group to meet up with my friend Hanna in Sinchon. We went for tonkatsu at one of her favorite place for dinner. We then decided to have some tea afterwards so we headed to my favorite cafe, My Secret Mate (마이시크릿메이트), to do some more catching up. After she left, I met up again with Grace and Marshellia at the subway station to walked them back to My Secret Mate since they also wanted to hang out there to get some dessert and milk tea.

By the time we’re done with our night cap, we made our way back to our Airbnb accompanied by the rain that was still pouring from the sky.

Read more about the day here.

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PLACES:

Choma • 초마

Address: 서울 마포구 와우산로 72
Telephone: 070-7661-8963
Hours: Tuesday - Sunday 11:30 - 21:00 (Break Time: 16:00 - 17:00) | Closed on Mondays

My Secret Mate • 마이시크릿메이트

Address: 서울 서대문구 연세로4길 47
Telephone: 0507-1449-2788
Hours: Everyday 12:00 - 22:30
Instagram: @mysecretmate

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