South Korea 2022 Day 12 & 13: Seoul

  DAY 12: 7 DEC 2022

Namsan Tower

Sadly, this was our last full day in South Korea.

We originally planned to visit Eunpyeong hanok village located in the outskirts of Seoul in the morning.

However, since we have already visited a hanok village in Seoul, we decided to not go there.

Instead, we made a trip to Namsan tower.

We took bus no. 01 near our hotel and alighted at the Namsan tower stop.

The weather today was perfect for outdoors as it was warmest compared to the past few days.

The city views from the lookout points were gorgeous and we could spot our hotel too!

Since we made a trip to Namsan tower, we bought a love lock (13,000 krw) from the souvenir shop and secured our lock amongst many others on the bridge.

The love lock came with a marker pen and we used it to write on the lock!

After securing the lock, I walked away for a short moment and I could not find our lock haha.

Zhi Sheng came up with his own way of locating our lock.

Hopefully he remembers how wide his feet were apart!

We then took 2 different buses to get to Gwangjang market.

Gwangjang Market

At one of the entrances to Gwangjang market, we spotted 2 snaking queues.

One was for traditional donuts while the other was for hotteok.

Donut stall

We queued for the donuts instead as I was going to have my last hotteok fix tonight at Myeongdong.

We bought 2 twisted donuts for 1,000 krw each and 1 red bean donut for 1,500 krw.

The twisted donut coated with sugar was chewy and soft.

Zhi Sheng said the dough tasted like a hotteok dough which I agreed.

We also had 1 serving of mung bean pancake which is a must-eat at the market.

There were several stalls selling this and they were priced at 5,000 krw.

We found a stall with available seats and went for it.

Mung bean pancake

The mung bean pancake was crispy on the outside and moist on the inside.

A dipping sauce with onions was provided which added more flavour to the pancake.

While eating the pancake, the stall owner was busy prepping the pancake mix behind us.

Famous Netflix kalguksu stall

I wanted to try the kalguksu stall which appeared on a Netflix documentary series.

However, the queue was rather long and the both of us may not be able to finish a bowl of noodles each on our own.

As such, we decided not to queue for it.

We continued to walk around the market and all of a sudden, Zhi Sheng stopped me from walking further.

He spotted the Kyoho grape jelly which was recommended on a Korean snacks article online.

We searched high and low for it in Seoul and only found it at 2 places: this market and another convenience store. 

He bought a pack of 3 jellies for 4,000 krw.

As we were not interested in the other food options, we left the market to explore the Seoul city walls located in the vicinity.

Along the way, we popped by a CU convenience store and did the drinks hack!

Finally!

I got the peach ade sachet and the smallest cup of ice for 1,400 krw and made it into an atas looking cup of drink.

It was refreshing but a little sweet.

Seoul city wall

The views from the Seoul city wall were nice.

As we were in a residential area, it was peaceful and quiet too.

Art installation at Ihwa Mural Village

One of the reasons why we went to the city walls is because it is located next to Ihwa mural village.

There were a few murals around the village but the experience was underwhelming.

Maybe we were not in the correct area where the popular murals are...

Or it could be because residents painted over the popular ones years ago due to the unhappiness arising from the many tourists invading their privacy.

All in all, I feel that it was not worth making a trip here to see the murals.

Instead, we took a train to Seoul station for some shopping at Lotte Mart.

I love shopping at supermarkets because I get to see and buy local snacks.

We spent about 1.5 hours at the supermarket and bought 82,000 krw worth of snacks home!

While shopping, we encountered a group of Taiwanese busy filling their shopping carts with snacks.

They had pictures of snacks they wanted to buy and sought the assistance of staff to find the snacks on the shelves.

They also use Papago translator to identify the type of snacks.

We eavesdropped and picked out some snacks which they took!

We brought my reusable shopping bag and an extra plastic bag to store our loots.

You can pay for plastic bags at a small fee at the counter.

In the end, we also had to use Zhi Sheng's backpack to store some items!

After shopping, we headed back to our hotel to offload our shopping loots.

I spent at least 30 minutes trying to search for a dinner place on both Google Maps and Naver, but nothing fancied me then.

Just when I was about to give up, I found a restaurant called Yeji Sikdang which had good Google reviews.

Entrance to Yeji Sikdang

Yeji Sikdang is located in a narrow alley within the Myeongdong shopping streets.

This restaurant sells local korean food at an affordable price and the owners are friendly to foreigners!

This restaurant was featured in Japanese articles and that was the reason why we saw Japanese dining there.

7 side dishes with generous portions

The Google reviews mentioned that the owners were generous with their side dishes and the reviews were all true.

We were given seven side dishes, out of which, 4 were Zhi Sheng's favourites.

I ordered the soybean paste stew (9,000 krw) while Zhi Sheng had the soft tofu stew (9,000 krw).

Each stew came with a bowl of rice.

Both stews were really good and flavourful.

Halfway through our meal, Zhi Sheng asked the owner if he could refill the fishcake and anchovies side dishes.

The owner said ok to Zhi Sheng and then turned to me and said "part-timer!".

This was quite funny because the owner was probably used to refilling the side dishes for customers.

But Zhi Sheng did a self-refill because most of the restaurants we went to had a self-refill policy.

After our meal, the owner gave us a tangerine each for free.

The both of us were really stuffed after this meal.

I will definitely recommend this restaurant to anyone visiting Myeongdong! 

Hotteok

We went into Olive Young to purchase items at the last minute.

We were lucky to be in Seoul then as Olive Young was having a 1 week sale from 1 to 7 Dec.

After some last minute shopping, we went to get hotteok. 

How could we end our last night in South Korea without hotteok?

Last supper in South Korea

I headed back to the hotel room first while Zhi Sheng popped by the convenience stores in the vicinity to search for the Kyoho grape jelly.

That small pack of jelly was seriously hard to find and he could not find it.

Before we ended our last night in South Korea, we had cup ramen as supper.

We paired it with Chilsung cider which tasted like Sprite.

And that's the end of day 12!

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 DAY 13: 8 DEC 2022

It was time to fly home.

Our flight was due to depart from Incheon International Airport at 1pm.

We checked out of our hotel by 9.15am and took a line no. 4 train to Seoul station before transferring to an all-stop train to Incheon airport.

We only arrived at Incheon airport at 10.45am and the queue was rather long at the check in counters.

Zhi Sheng coincidentally met another colleague of his while queuing to check in.

After checking in, we immediately headed to the security and immigration gates and we were greeted by even longer queues.

We also had to take an internal train to get closer to our departure gate.

Because of this, we only arrived at our departure gate at 12.05pm and did not have time to have a proper meal at the airport as boarding time was at 12.15pm.

Instead, we bought some donuts and a sandwich from Dunkin' Donuts as our in-flight meals.

Do arrive at the airport earlier to check in if you want to eat before your flight!

And this is it!

The end of a lovely winter trip to South Korea.

Will I return to South Korea in future?

Yes, probably Jeju and the other parts of South Korea (:

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Click here to retrace our steps for Day 12 & 13 adventures!

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