Seoul 2014: Day 7 (Lotte World)

27 MAY: Lotte World

                  Gangnam     

For Day 7, we decided to head down to Lotte World! They have both an indoor and outdoor theme park. The indoor rides caters more for young children while the outdoor one has more thrilling rides. 

To get there: Jamsil Line 2 - Exit 4

Lotte World (Indoor)

Lotte World Adventure

Operating Hours: 09.30 - 22.00

Admission Fee: 46000KRW for Adults

The indoor rides were mostly slow paced like the hot air balloon ride that allowed you to go one round around to get a helicopter view of the whole indoor arena. It was nice at first but you will probably get really bored halfway through the ride. 

They have staged performers for kids that were fun and entertaining, even for adults.

We were lucky to have managed to catch the indoor costume parade with many recognizable characters. The actors and actresses were all really lovely and ready to pose for your cameras. They also had short stops with simple dance moves to engage with the young children. 

Castle Passageway at Lotte World

Here's the passageway leading towards the outdoor Lotte World. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the outdoor arena. The outdoor rides are slightly more thrilling. Unfortunately, two of the more thrilling rides which were down for maintenance when I was there. 

I was disappointed with Lotte World as I expected more in terms of more fun and thrilling rides. There was also only one roller coaster which was indoor. Luckily, we managed to take it a few times before the queue became longer and longer. 

Do visit Lotte World early at around 10am as there is hardly any crowd in the morning. We managed to take most of the rides a few times because there wasn't a queue in the morning. As it becomes closer to noon, most of the rides had queues that was half an hour long.



Here's my two cents worth about Lotte World; I feel that Lotte World is more suitable if you're coming with young children as they have a lot of activities and rides suited for young children. If you're someone looking for thrilling theme park rides, I think there are other better theme park choices for you in Seoul. 

Seoul 2014: Day 6 Part II (N Seoul Tower)

26 MAY: Myeongdong

                  N Seoul Tower

After all the shopping at Myeongdong, we headed to N Seoul Tower!! The must-go tourist attraction spot. 

To get there: Myeongdong station Line 4 -Exit 3

You have to head to Seoul Tower to take a cable car to Namsam Tower. Exit from the station and use the road to the right of pacific hotel and walk 10 minutes up to the namsam cable car station. Then take the cable car to N seoul tower (3 minute cable car ride)

N Seoul  Tower (N서울타워)

Mon-Thur/Sun: 10AM-11PM

Fri/Sat: 10AM-12Midnight

You will reach the place in the image on the left to take the horizontal lift up to take the cable car. Reach before 10pm to catch the cable car.

Price for a Round Trip for the Cable Car: 8500 KRW

You'll need to queue to get on the cable car so I would recommend you to take visit N Seoul Tower on a weekday. Also if you can, leave N Seoul Tower earlier as the queue to return back here is really long after 10 to 11 pm. 

This was the queue we faced when trying to get on the cable car to return. It's longer than this as it gets later cause the queue got longer behind us. 

When you walk up the long stairs to actually reach N Seoul Tower after getting off the cable car, you will pass by this amazing tornado chips. They are seriously delicious but expensive. As you can see from the picture, it costs 5000KRW each. 

You have to try them cause they are really really nice. 

The view at Namsam Tower was breathtaking. I really loved it. You can actually get to see these amazing scenes without paying. It's at the area with the famous love locks and bent bench. 

Or, you can pay to get up to the Observatory. What you get at the Observatory is the souvenir shops and those binoculars that you have to drop 500KRW in to use. Also, as you take the lift up to the Observatory, they play pretty animation on the ceiling of the lift. 

Observatory Admission Fee: 9000KRW

Honestly speaking I wouldn't encourage you to go up to the observatory. Reason being that the brightly lit shops inside reflects light onto the glass windows looking out into the nightview. Hence, it's impossible to take pictures or even view the nightscene without seeing the reflection from the lights inside. The view is also possible to view from the love locks area as I have mentioned above. 

When I visit Seoul again, I would love to visit Namsam Tower during the morning.

For dinner, we settled with Cup Noodles from the convenience store near Banana Backpackers as we were exhausted and it was really late too.

I don't know if it was because I was famished or that the noodles was super nice. 

That's it for the day.  

Seoul 2014: Day 6 Part I (Myeongdong)

26 MAY: Myeongdong

                    N Seoul Tower

Finally! Korea's famous shopping paradise, Myeongdong (명동 쇼핑가)! 

To get there: Myeongdong Station Line 4 - Exits 5, 6, 7 & 8.

When we first exited out from the station, we met the friendly people in red (that I mentioned in this post) Since we had to settle breakfast, we asked for some recommendation and got a free map* of Myeongdong from them as well. We decided on Myeongdong Gyoza (명동교자).

*We navigated around Myeongdong with a lot of help from the free map as well as asking other people in red. 

The prices at Myeongdong or rather the whole menu is displayed at the front of the store. You can zoom in to view them. 

All of the dishes are priced at 8000 KRW. It does seem expensive, but I feel that it was worth for the quality of the food you get. 

We ordered a tray of mandu (dumplings) and a bowl of kalguksu (noodle) to share for a light breakfast. It's not bad for breakfast and we were able to avoid the lunch crowd. 

After breakfast, it's shopping time! Since it was our 6th day, we were running low on KRW. There are money exchange shops around Myeongdong that you can easily find as you walk around. Their rates are not bad and actually, higher than what we got in Singapore. 

Myeongdong Underground Shopping Centre

If shopping above ground was not enough for you, head underground! And this is where you can buy all the Kpop albums!!! The underground shopping area is similar to what you will get at the one at Dongdaemun. However, I believe that it is generally cheaper over here. 

The main priority for most tourists at Myeongdong was cosmetics and skin care besides shopping for clothes. You can check out my other more detailed post on some of my shopping in Seoul. 

Warning: if you are going to Myeongdong to buy a lot of skincare or cosmetic products, buy them last. I bought them quite early and had to lug the HUGE and many bags all around. In the end, we decided to head back to the banana backpackers to drop our shopping loot before heading back to continue shopping again. I didn't take a picture of what we had to carry, especially me because of what I bought from Laneige, but trust me, it was insanely heavy and burdensome. 

The cosmetic/skin care shops in Seoul, especially in Myeongdong is famous for giving samples even if you're just entering the shop and not buying anything. This is true to some extent but don't expect all the shops to give you samples. Also, it's quite awkward to just get the samples and leave. They usually place the samples in those small baskets and pass them to you. So yeah, imagine retrieving the samples and giving them an empty basket back. Awkward. 

However, I was really happy to get two mask samples that had Super Junior on them cause I'm a HUGE fan of them and they weren't selling those masks anymore. 

International and korean brands like Spao (Spao is not an expensive brand but Super Junior are their models and I've always wanted to visit their store) were all around Myeongdong. At the same time, there were shops that were similar to those in Ehwa and Hongdae. It's really the shopping haven. 

We decided to take a break from lugging the shopping bags and visited O'sulloc Tea House. I actually bought green tea leaves from them earlier on at Insadong but we visited them this time round to try out their cafe. 

O'sulloc Tea House

I can't remember the prices but you HAVE to try the green tea drink with the ice cream on top. Something like a root beer float but with green tea drink and ice cream instead. I usually don't fancy green tea products besides the tea itself. But this was amazing. 

The green tea roll cake was soft, moist and absolutely gorgeous. I expected the tiramisu to taste better than the roll cake but the roll cake took me by surprise. The tiramisu was nice too but the roll cake was even better. If you don't want to try both, get the roll cake.  

Seoul 2014: Day 5 Part II (Noryangjin Fish Market, Hongdae)

25 MAY: Noryangjin Fish Market

Hongdae       

At Hongdae: First stop, the Trickeye Museum!

As of now, Singapore already has it's own Trickeye Museum so I feel that you should just go for the one in Singapore. I heard that it's almost similar. But if i'm not wrong, there isn't the Ice Museum which comes together with the Trickeye Museum ticket. 

To get there: Hong-ik University Station (홍대입구역) Line 2 - Exit 9. Make your second left after exit, and then make second right after Starbucks, and walk for about two blocks. 

This is about half of the area. There's a small slide at the
back that you can play with. 

Trick Eye Museum + Ice Museum (트릭아이미술관)

Honestly, there isn't much in the Ice Museum. I went there when it was near summer so I dressed light. But it's extremely cold in the Ice Museum and they don't provide jackets for you or anything. Furthermore, you can't exit to get warm and enter again because the ticket is one-entry. It's quite small and there's just various ice sculptures things for you to take pictures with while you are freezing inside.

Next, we just roamed around the Hongdae area. Unfortunately, it started raining so we headed to the Hello Kitty Cafe* to get shelter and food. Google Maps came to help yet again. 

Interior of the Hello Kitty Cafe at Hongdae

Prices:

Fresh Cream Waffle: 2500KRW

Drinks: ~3000KRW

Tiramisu: ~6000KRW

I loved the fresh cream waffle. Normally, I don't like to eat fresh cream but theirs tasted great with the waffle. 

*The Hongdae outlet has closed based on Tripadvisor.com

Another stopover for us was StyleNanda! We found the place with help from the people in red. Not sure if I mentioned this before but there are people who wear red vests with a big 'i' who are there to help lost tourists like us. They are mostly around tourist attraction areas like Bukchon Hanok Village, Hongdae, Myeongdong, etc.

My friend and I wanted to go there for the free photobooth and not really for the clothes or makeup. Hahaha. Their clothes are relatively expensive but their makeup is really popular. Everyone who was in the shop mainly crowd around the makeup corner. 

I bought their nail polish at 4000KRW because I love painting my nails. Their nail polish is really not bad. The brush is flat and it's really easy to apply the nail polish on your nails. They have a wide range of colours available there. I recommend you to get some to try it out. 

Shopping at Hongdae means slightly higher prices compared to Ehwa but there are a lot of shops that sells things that are less common. Less common in the sense that the shops in Ehwa pretty much sells the same things but Hongdae has more variety which explains the higher prices. 

Now time for dinner!

Being a huge fan of Running Man,I wanted to try the BBQ shop that Haha opened. It used to be called Paljamakchang and Gary has another outlet at Gangnam area as well. But after renovation, it's called 401 now. 

There's no more grilled intestines like in Paljamakchang which I wanted to try so that's quite sad. But there's of course Samgyeopsal!

The menu with the prices.

There's nothing special for the samgyeopsal and all but it was a decent dinner to end the day!

Seoul 2014: Day 5 Part I (Noryangjin Fish Market, Hongdae)

25 MAY: Noryangjin Fish Market

Hongdae       

Day 5, the halfway mark for my 9-day trip!

For breakfast, we headed to Noryangjin Fish Market (노량진수산시장) ! For an absolute seafood lover like me, it was one of my most anticipated destinations. Even though seafood for breakfast in the early morning sounds insane but it was quite out of the way based on the train lines. I was quite worried about heading there because from online reviews etc, it seems like the stall holders may charge you a higher price because you're a tourist. But, it's seafood. Seafood is always worth the risk. 

How to get there: Noryangjin Station (노량진역) Line 1 - Exit 1

When you exit the station, look for this bridge. You will see a small sort of open space carpark area. The stairwell leading to the fish market will be on your left.

Walking down the stairwell, the fishy smell will be the prove that you're in the right direction.








Now for a look at the Noryangjin Fish Market that Google probably has tons of.

Noryangjin Fish Market

A closer look

Everyone sells pretty much the same kinds of seafood so it's really difficult to decide which stall to patronize. I was trying to see which ajumma seems like she isn't out to cheat my money. In the end, we patronized one stall which I unfortunately did not take a picture of. However, it was on our left and on the right of the second stairwell. The first stairwell would be the one you came down from.

They had one worker who was able to speak Chinese and he seemed really friendly (probably cause he was trying to earn our money but anyway) And he told us that everyone around here sells at around the same price which was probably true.

After his suggestions and us asking questions about the pricing of the seafood, we decided on one 'wild' 比目鱼 (Bi Mu Fish), scallops and prawns. I have no idea what specific kind of scallops and prawns we had though. Why I would mention 'wild' for the fish is because they had wild ones and farmed raised ones. Apparently or rather the obviously the wild ones would be nicer but ~15000KRW more expensive if i didn't remember wrongly.

Based on my memory,
Fish - 30000KRW - 40000KRW
Prawns - 10000 - 20000KRW
Scallops - 10000-15000KRW

I think we paid ~75000KRW in total and this is just for the seafood without the 'cooking fee'. The chinese speaking guy then brought us to this restaurant, Ttosune Restaurant (just up the staircase on their left) to get them to cook the seafood for us.

For the fish, there was three choices: Raw fish slices, Steamed or Stew. We decided on Raw fish slices for one half and steamed for the other.

For the prawns and scallop, BBQ!

If you can read Hangul, they have the prices for cooking pasted around the shop.

The shop was empty when we entered probably cause it was early in the morning. But the area was clean and spacious.

Feast your eyes on these AMAZING seafood!!

The raw fish was the definite clear champion out of the four. Even my friend who didn't like sashimi LOVED it! Eating it after dipping it in gochujang is just pure goodness! I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you to try it. And don't steam the fish. The steamed fish was really disappointing. I think the stew option would be better but the raw fish is even better. We really regretted not having the raw fish slices option for the whole fish. It's super addictive. 

After eating, time to pay the bill. For the cooking fee alone, it was ~35000KRW. 

Noryangjin Fish Market definitely TOPPED my list for my next trip to Korea. You MUST come here especially if you're a seafood lover.