[Day 01] Super short trip to Seoul, Korea
After a super super long hiatus, I finally made my way back to Seoul. Thinking back, my last trip was back in 2005, OMG!!!! 18 years ago…. Hahaha sia! Thank god for business trips!
We took a midnight flight with Asiana Airlines as our flight was scheduled at 2300hrs. I got myself a serving of bibimbap during my flight, and I had a pleasant 6-hour+ flight to Incheon. We arrived in Seoul around 6am local time. (do note that Korea is an hour ahead of us.)
After clearing the customs at the airport, we made our exit, and bought bus/limousine tickets which took us straight to our hotel! After about an hour's drive, we finally reached the very posh THE PLAZA Seoul, Autograph Collection. It is located within the City Hall Subway Station.
After leaving my luggage with the hotel concierge, we had a bit of time to kill before the day's appointments, so we walked to Myeongdong which was about 15mins walk from the hotel that we stayed. I went to the e-mart to get my favorite strawberry milk by Binggrae.
It is literally the perfect breakfast toast with a variety of toppings. The butter-toasted bread enhanced the overall flavors. Both Baby and I felt that, we can eat it almost everyday if we were staying in Korea!
After
our breakfast, we walked around Myeong Dong and I bought many beauty products
from various stores such as Busy Mango, Olive Young and Baviphat.
We
walked back to hotel for to do our check-in around 12noon. We were being
upgraded to a premier suite room which consists of a living room and the
bedroom separately. The room was fabulous.
We changed to lighter clothing due to the weather being pretty scorching. It's much thanks to Baby's friend, 'A', who got us the Korean T-Cards on her previous trip to Seoul. She was very kind to load ₩5000 into each card, which helped us immensely. After finally being free for the day, we took a six-stop train ride from City hall to Hapjeong. We headed over for a supermarket shopping spree upon exiting the station! Homeplus is one of the biggest supermarkets in Seoul, and this supermarket is more geared towards the locals as compared to LotteMart or Emart. We spent nearly SGD200 at the supermarket, buying all sorts of Korean local specialties! They even offer beauty products too at a pretty good price too.
After shopping, we went to Mecenatpolis Mall which is also located near to Hapjeong Station!
We settled at Nolboo Budae Jjigae to enjoy a special meal for 2 at ₩29000. The set consisted of Budae Jjigae (Army Stew), a plate of stir-fried Pork Slices, 2 bowls of white rice and an unlimited beverage from the drink counter, and not to mention there were free servings of Banchan!
We bought a lot of things from the supermarket, so Baby suggested to go back to hotel to offload our loots before our late night out! We took the train again to Hongdae. The alighting stop at the station is Hongik University Station which was 5 stops always from City Hall.
Hongdae Shopping Street is a vibrant, busy spot in Seoul. It is a haven for shoppers and bar goers!
We
went for Chimaek (Chicken and beer) as it is common phenomenon seen in Korea’s
drinking culture!
I ordered Boneless Seasoned Chicken oozing with sweet spicy sauce. It was very juicy inside and crispy outside. It was Super addictive, Jinjja Mashisoyo! Naturally, we did not forget to pair the yummy chicken with Korean Draft beers - Terra Beer and Cass Beer. Chimaek cheers!
We made our way back to our hotel after some street shopping, as we were quite tired. We needed to charge up our energy levels in order to explore Seoul the very next free day!
Comments