Shopping in Seoul

Besides eating, the other thing I enjoyed doing is shopping in Seoul! It would have been perfect if I've managed to do some fabric shopping as well, but language and culture was a barrier and I only managed to buy only 1 meter of patch fabric from Dongdaemon. But I did manage to discover some stationery heaven!

And I couldn't understand why people keep asking me to bug face mask for them cause the last time I was in Seoul (in year 2000), it wasn't such a big thing yet, but wow the cosmetic shops in Seoul is crazy! The 3rd photo at the bottom are not even anything I bought, they are samples given out by the shops when you purchase something or when you're visiting or walking by.

I also especially love these chocolates here.

And lastly, bread in Seoul is surprisingly awesome! I later discovered that Fauchon is actually a shopping place in Paris. Why did I not know this when I was in France!

 

Ooops, one more fave thing I got from Seoul, my carrot-wabbit earings! I love them! But I can only wear the carrot cause the rabbit is too big for my ears :(  Still, they are so adorable!

Ref:
Dongdaemon Fabric Market
Fauchon Paris
Fauchon Bakery Seoul

한정식 Hanjeongsik, Korean Set Meal

 One of the highlight of my trip to Korean was a traditional set meal we had in Insadong in one of those traditional restaurant which was probably a tourist trap. But since it had a "Good Restaurant" sign on it (click photo to view in full), we trust that it must be good, right? This is the view of the restaurant before entering.

Anyway, here is the menu with the price printed on it. Even the menu look expensive. We ordered two menus, one costing W38,500(SGD42.70) and W55,000 (SGD60.90), and yes we spend most of our money on food cause I don't really do shopping very well.

We were seated in a private room we shared with a group of japanese tourist who left shortly after we arrived. So it was just us and the waitress through out the meal.

Here are the dishes.

And as we were leaving, we took some nice photos of the restaurant as well. It was totally enjoyable!  I love the fizzy rice wine there!

Ref:
Hanjeongsik
Insadong

안녕하세요 (Hello in Korean)

Catching up post. In desperation for an oversea holiday last year, I did a crazy thing of coming back to Penang on a budget air and reaching Singapore Changi at 10:20pm, rush home to change, and be back in Changi again for my flight out to Seoul, Korea by 11pm. My heart never beat so fast before while taking a flight for a holiday. To think that I trust Air Asia so much to be on time to catch my flight speaks volume of my faith in that airline!

So I ended up in Seoul on 14 December 2012 in winter with only one bucket list item to clear, to see snow for the very first time in my life :)  Guess what. Mission accomplish the moment I landed on Incheon Airport. It was snowing and everything was white! But as we took the rail to Seoul it self, there was less and less snow. But I did manage to see some of it during our visit to the Changdeokgung Palace on 16-Dec-2012.

 

We also briefly visited the main entrance of Gyeongbokgung while we were walking past it looking for a Kyobo bookstore. 

It was a last minute short trip for me. My second time to Korea as my husband requested to go there as he has never been to Korea before. We spend a total of only 5 days there, reaching on 14-December-2012, and leaving on 18-December-2012. Most of the time we were only shopping and eating. Will share more in other post.

Some info on the trip.

• Airport Transfer to Seoul, we went via Airport Rail costing W8,000 (SGD8.90) per person return ticket ( I think)
• For Seoul transport, we got a T-Money card each good for trains in city costing W2,500(SGD2.80) each, and we top it up with W10,000(SGD11) each. It was enough to last us the whole trip, but then again, we did walk all over the city most of the time :P
• We stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel, Myeongdong for  W107,500(SGD120) a night breakfast not included.

Ref:
Changdeokgung
Gyeongbokgung
Kyobo Book Store
Kyobo Official Site
Air Asia
AREX (Airport Rail Express)
T-Money
N Fourseason Seoul