Day 37 - 30 July (Insa-Dong)

Finally we went to Insa-Dong, one of the tourist place.

Prior to Insa-Dong, Kenny brought us to a famous Stew place near Insa-Dong. It's located near the Anguk Subway Station, Exit 1, walk towards Starbucks, follow through some atas cafe, walk past a school, then to a road with trees by the sideS. And you will see a sign like this:

Follow it and queue up!

Fortunately we went there early, so we escaped the long queue! Phew. Look at the queue in the later pictures. We reached there at around 1145am and after a while, the queue came! Anyway, we order Budae jijae ttubokki, Cheese ttubokki and Beef ttubokki with 1 ramen, 1 Q noodles, 1 plate of mandoo and 1 plate of fried seaweed something. It's all cooked together with the special ttubokki sauce and this is how it looks like!

 Are you salivating? I love this! The sauce is BEST!! Would prefer the darker cheese but this is nice too!

YUM! 

 Apron provided to prevent staining of clothes!

 YUM YUM!! 

 This is the long queue which I mentioned.

After lunch, we went to Insa-Dong, it's just across the street. My main aim was to eat the superb nice Green Tea Ice Cream bing su! And we arrived at the place, O'sulloc Tea House.

 This is the mega nice roasted green tea!! Chao Best de!! I tried it and omg it tastes so qing shuang!! How I wish I can buy like 1 kg of it back! I bought a smaller packet of it though, plus green tea latte and some brain empowering water mix for minghao and myself. LOL!

 This is the tea house. We decided to re visit it after exploring Insa-Dong as we were still full from the jigae.

Walked around Insa-Dong and found this. I didn't buy it cos I'm saving my stomach for the bing su! I bought some snacks for my relatives and tutees, like finally.

 Shit shaped manjoo.

 Insa-Dong

 Roof top.

 Ugly dolls.

After exploring Insa-Dong, we went back to the tea house. It was a long walk back and the weather was hot today. But I'm glad it didn't rain! Nice weather! WHEE!

 Very nice. The green tea is from Jeju, I heard.

We were all so tired and sweaty from the walking, so no more shopping for us as we head back to our dear dorms. Went to gym for a while to cut some calories and blood sugar. Will be going for a run tomorrow. After gym, we went to have dinner, and I finally had bibimbap! It's not bad just that the portion is too small, and there were not much beef also.

 The eatery.

 This is to be shared among 3 people.

 Bibimbap!

Mix it and you can start enjoying!

Went back to dorm, still feeling a little not full, I grabbed this out from the fridge. Black Soy Bean Milk. Not bad quite nice.

Time to study!

Day 09 - 02 July (Anguk and Hongdae Tour with Winny)

Another day of exciting trip! Winny met us at Anguk Subway station and brought us to many many places. I have to take my time to recall each and every of them.

First up: Seoul Education Museum. It displays Seoul's past education items such as uniforms, badges, classrooms, books, toys etc. I can't really remember how to walk there, but it's pretty easy and I believe googling would definitely help, if not there's a tourism info center there. I am really excited to see the past uniforms and we can actually try them on.

Do I look like a student? The bags they use were quite stylish. 

These are the badges of the various elementary, middle and high schools in Seoul. I think. 

 Their past school uniforms, shoes and bags.

 Entrance to Seoul Education Museum.

Next! Time to climb some slopes! We went to Bukchon, a traditional village if I'm not wrong. The traditional houses that we saw are actually residential. So there were some houses with signs like "do not make too much noise because we are sleeping" which is quite interesting. The houses are all very nicely furnished from the outside, not sure about the inside. But living on a slope is not fun at all, though the scenery looks good. There are actually photo spots on the ground along the way, so if you see one, do stand on it and take some photos of the scenery. We took a few!

Winny and I, almost on the top of the hill. 

Outside a Church. 

Then we stopped by some shop to have our lunch. Spicy rice cake, one of my favorites! This shop is funny, Winny told us that the shop was manned by males, so as to attract more females to patronize, sounds like Singapore's bubble tea shops. And really, there were a lot of female customers, and there were only 5 males customers, including the 3 of us. Also, the way they greet us were quite unusual according to Winny. They added some other sound behind their sentences.

The wonderful spicy rice cakes!

After which, we went to Hongdae! The place is mega mega crowded! It's on Saturdays that there will be flea market. And if i'm not wrong there will be on Sundays as well. The things they sell are hand made. So it's like a one and only thing i the world. But nothing catches my eye. oh. Yanzhi got his portrait drew by a uncle.

 Look at the crowd!

The famous Hongdae playground. 

 The artistic lane?

 Welcome to Korea! This is drawn on the wall of the building.

After the portrait drawing, we went to LaLuNa, a dessert place which sells patbingsu! This is heavenly! Nice! The ice were well shaved. LOL! Its not crunchy ice. And it's been a long time since I ate ice cream, and green tea ice cream never fails, especially when it's with RED BEANS!

 Perfect dessert for a hot summer!

Next destination - Trick Eye Museum. We used a lot of time to find this place! Cos it not very obvious and it's at basement 2 of some building. But the illusion artworks inside are bagus (excellent i malay). daebak! We spent like almost 2hours inside. Entrance fee costs 13,000 Won though. But it's worth it.

 Signboard.

 Angel :)

 It's been a long time since I ate sushi!

 This dog looks at you the whole time round!

 If only this LV bag is real and mine!

Last stop of the day! Dinner! Winny brought us to a restaurant which sells one of the best rice wine according to her research! Lol. It's the first time I drink rice wine in Korea. It tastes sweet, and I thought it was like beer. But then again, the alcohol content of rice wine is quite high I think? And I think I drank it down too fast, my face flushed at the end of dinner. Other wonderful stuffs included the egg roll with cheese and a bit of meat inside, and also the pancake! Winny said that Koreans eat the pancake and rice wine when it rains. I think it's to warm them up of something. 

 Rice wine with the side dishes.

 The legendary egg roll which is the best.

 The pancake! OMG! It's super nice!

A group photo to end the day!

Thank you very much Winny for making all the effort to make all these happen!! Really appreciate it!! Gamsahamnida!! haha.

Jun is taking us to try some traditional porridge tml for dinner. Yeah! Then Ginseng Chicken on Monday!

It's been a tiring day. Time to sleep. And study whole day tml!