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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Rainy Day in Hongdae

Walking around town in the rain is not something that I’m particularly fond of, especially during one of those days when I have to visit multiple places or do some kind of exploration. I was hoping that I could avoid having an encounter with the water drops falling from the sky on this trip, but I guess mother nature decided Seoul needed some hydration during one of these spring days.

Grey sky and wet concrete greeted us as soon as we stepped out of our Airbnb that day. We were planning to take my mom and my aunt around Hongdae (홍대) for some lunch and do a little bit of shopping. And that’s also something that I’m not particularly fond of. Shopping for clothes I mean, not lunch. So, during their shop visits, I ended up waiting in front of the stores snapping around the area and observing people walking by holding up their umbrellas.

People walks faster in the rain. Some zig-zag their way through the crowds trying to pass by the slower walkers in front of them, and some just follow the pace of the crowd and trying to keep themselves dry as much as possible under their umbrella. For couples though, I noticed it’s the total opposite. Couples walk slower, as if they’re trying to prolong the closeness between them taking refuge from the rain under one umbrella (well, I’m pretty sure that may well be the whole point). The guy’s arm would be wrapped around the girl’s shoulder, keeping her close while not minding the trickle of water that’s making his other side of the body wet since he’s letting the girl have more coverage under their umbrella.

One guy has a better thinking though. Instead of having half of himself getting wet, he actually carried a bigger umbrella—the ones that look like a golfer would used—which did a pretty good job at keeping both of them dry. I thought that was kinda nice. For them I mean, not for people around them, obviously, cause other people had to maneuvered their umbrellas on the narrow sidewalk around them since his umbrella was so wide.

The day went on and the rain didn’t let up. The steady drops of water kept pouring from the minute we left the apartment until the time we stepped back into it after our whole day of excursion. I was glad to be safe from the rain and ended the day by washing it off of me with a hot shower.

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Seoul Spring '17 - Ep. 06.2 - Hongdae Hangout with Soo Zee

Travel Vertical Vlog

After we finished exploring and taking pictures at Gyeongbokgung (경복궁), I separated from the group and went to Hongdae (홍대) to meet up with Soo Zee for dinner. We went for some dwaeji gukbap (돼지국밥)—hot soup with rice and pork—at Donsubaek (돈수백 홍대직영점). The restaurant is located near exit 8 of Hongdae station and it was my first time there. And just like any other recommendations from Soo Zee, the food was good.

Afterwards, we went to Cacao Boom (click to read more about the place) for dessert and to continue our catch-up session. Soo Zee wanted to get some pictures from the place for @tastestuff and I never been so it was kind of perfect. After we finished our gelato, hot chocolate, and picture taking session we left and called it a night.

See part one of the vlog here.

 

Donsubaek (돈수백 홍대직영점)

Address: 서울 마포구 홍익로6길 56
Telephone: 02-324-3131
Hours: 24 Hours

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Seoul Spring '17 - Ep. 06.1 - Wearing Hanbok at Gyeongbokgung

Travel Vlog

Today was Christina’s last day before flying back home and we decided to rent hanboks and visit Gyeongbokgung (경복궁) for her last day. Opting for a taxi ride this time, we headed to the hanbok rental place near Gyeongbokgung Station before spending our afternoon at the palace walking around and taking pictures.

More story and pictures from this excursion on this post. See second part of the vlog here.

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Hanbok Day at Gyeongbokgung Palace

Renting Hanbok and taking pictures at the palace was probably one of the things that these girls wanted to checked off their bucket list for this trip. So before their trip was ending, we did just that. The weather was pretty warm when we made our way to the hanbok rental place called 경복궁한복대여 (near Gyeongbokgung Station exit 4. See where the location is on the vlog) that Christina’s friend suggested.

Stepping down the wooden stairs, we arrived at the basement of the rental place in the late afternoon. After taking off our shoes, we entered the shop and quickly browse through the selections after being informed about the rental price. Since it was almost the end of the day, I assume most of the good hanboks were already rented out. Either that, or maybe the hanboks available at this place were just not exactly my style. Not sure. But either way, I’m the photographer for this excursion and the girls were the ones who were going to wear the traditional outfit, not me, so I’m not complaining. After minutes of contemplating on which of these colorful long outfits they should pick, they each finally found a hanbok that they like that compliment each other’s and quickly changed into them before heading to the palace and trying to get there before the sun set.

We made our way to Gyeongbokgung palace on foot since it’s not far from the rental place. As soon as we arrived at the palace complex, I quickly bought my ticket and then we headed for the entrance. Since the three of them were wearing hanbok, they can enter the palace for free, using their outfit as their entrance tickets.

The cherry blossom wasn’t really in full bloom just yet that day, but we spotted some trees that have some that bloomed early. Since there were only a couple of trees, we had to lined up and wait for our turns to take pictures in front of the tree since there were a lot of people who had the same idea as us. People was pretty good at taking turns so the waiting time wasn’t so bad.

After we got our shot, I took them around the palace and tried to find good spots where there weren’t too many people around. Since Gyeongbokgung Palace is one of the most well-known attractions in the city—both amongst tourists and locals—taking pictures around the complex can be tricky if you arrived at the same time as large tourist or school excursion groups because it can get really crowded. But fortunately, it wasn’t too crowded when we arrived plus the palace is big enough for us to just switch spot if that happened. I’ve been here so many times so I pretty much know where we should go.

The wind was blowing quite frequently that afternoon and the girls were busy following me while trying to keep the hair that they styled earlier from being blown off by the wind. It was difficult to say the least since, as the afternoon progressed, so did the frequency of the wind. Nevertheless, we still had fun and I took multiple frames of them for good measure.

After they were tired of walking around the vast palace complex and it was nearing the return time of their hanbok, we decided to head back to the rental place as the sun was setting in front of us. It was definitely a fun afternoon at the palace.

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