Korea 2024 - Incheon Airport, Bye Bye Korea!

Our final morning, more and more people started checkout out and making their way to the airport. Most of the ladies have so many luggages from all the shopping they did through out the trip! At the airport, we even helped some of them carry their duty free items into the plane cause they just went overboard with their shopping! Lol. 

We were at the airport quite early, sharing an airport transfer with the rest of the group. So early that we had time for a nice lunch, and also explore the airport.

My last Korean lunch before flying off. I also had some leftover side dishes I bought from the Lotte Mart with me, so we finished that up with our lunch as well. Bye bye Kimchi, I will miss you!

On board flight Asiana back to Singapore, we both picked the bimbimbap meal. Careless me totally missed out the sauce that came with it and actually ate my bimbimbal without it, lol. 

We even got a snack before we land, a nice pizza.

Wow, and just like that, our Korean trip ended. A lovely sunset as we reach Singapore. It was a lovely trip, and I'm glad I went because of my husband. I am not sure if I will join again in future. I love Korean food, and the outskirt of Korea and it's people, but I find the language challenging. It's weird I know, but in order to go outskirt of a country, it's always better to know at least some of the language. And I wasn't interested to learn Korean if I can easily get the same experience in Japan, or now, even in China. So I guess we'll see :)  Anyway, so happy to completed this blog series! By the time you read this, I'll probably be back from my Japan Autumn Trip 2024. But for the next series of travel blog, I plan to blog on my Kyushu Trip 2023 instead, so stay tune!

Korea 2024 - Seoul Ginseng Market Breakfast, Tea and Dinner

Almost our last day in Korea, those who wanted to do some ginseng shopping all woke up early to go to a ginseng medicinal market! I've been here before the last time, and I love this place. Basically, I love any market place that sells food. I love looking at fresh produce and fantasised about the dishes I can create with them. Above is what the indoor part of the market looks like. So many stalls!

But before we even started any shopping (or marketing in this case), we went for a very hearty breakfast first. Actually, the restaurant above wasn't even open for breakfast. But seeing there were around 10 or more of us, the boss decided to let us is for breakfast. They actually turned others away when a few tried to come in. Anyway, it was BBQ pork with all the beautiful side dishes and rice. I love breakfast like this! It was practically a full meal! It made me feel like I started out my day right!

Back to the ginseng market, above lots and lots of ginseng on sale. Everyone just browse first, and bought them on our way back. Since part of our group spoke Korean, it was easy to bargain for things. And since we bought in bulks, we could get a good price for it. I don't particularly love ginseng. I only use scraps of the roots in my chicken soup for the scent.

But I was interesting in buying rice. I bought a pack of mixed grain rice back and love it! 

Inside the market, there were also dried fish.

Giant mushroom! I love mushrooms!

All sorts of seaweeds!

And hallabong! 

I wish I had a kitchen in Korea, then I can buy all these ingredients and experiment with it.

Coffee break faster marketing. I bought coffee for my husband, and macaroons to share. Sadly it was too sweet for the others in the group. So I ended up eating most of it, not that I was complaining :P  I love these sweet delicacies!

I also got my favourite canele. Yes, I tend to splurge at the end of my trip cause I hate bringing too much foreign cash back with me, especially countries where I don't go to too often.

On our  last night in Seoul, me and my husband went off to explore on our own, walking around the university town near our hotel. But the food around there was too fusion, too western. We wanted something more traditional Korean. Ended up walking back to Seoul Station, and went to their food court. It was a nice food court, and we found some seats overlooking Seoul City! What a view to end our last dinner here! We both ordered Korean soup dishes as the weather was getting chilly.

Here's my dinner, mandu seaweed soup with rice cake. I'm kinda addicted to this dish! It is just so comforting. And the backdrop of beautiful Seoul City all lighted up :)  Bye Bye Seoul!

Back in the hotel, I tabao-ed back a donut cause I can't help myself. I don't drink sugared drinks, I don't eat sweets or candies. But I absolutely love sweet desserts and cakes!

Korea 2024 - Seoul Myeongdong Dinner

 

We didn't know what to do after lunch, so I suggested that I wanted to go back to Myeongdong to spend more time window shopping. Plus, I wanted to look at all the things in the cute shops, and also maybe some skin care product. Four of us decided to head to Myeongdong together, mainly driven by me and my young friend, causing my husband and her mum to tag along, lol. 

Cuteness overload at Myeongdong!

For dinner, we ended up with fried chicken and beer again, this time at a recommendation of my young friend. We queued around 30mins for a table. 

Mozzarella cheese ball was our appetiser, along with a jug of beed to share.

I don't know why, but we ordered two plates of fried chicken. I wasn't sure we could finish it! But finish we did! OMG, such delicious chicken! Hands down better than the one the day before! Trust the young one to pick a good fried chicken place! I love both the flavour, and this time, I had a good serving of beer too! I was so glad I decided to drag them back to Myeongdong! Unbelievable dinner! 

After browsing around a bit, we also decided to go for bingsu. It would be a shame if I didn't try a bingsu in Korea. We went to Sul-bing. I didn't even know what that was. So glad I drag my young friend with me. She was in the know of all the pop culture and trendy places!

We ordered a strawberry bingsu to share, and OMG again, so delicious! Mainly cause of the fresh strawberries, and partly from the condense milk. Best bingsu I've ever had. I do have craving for this from time to time after coming back from Korea, but it's so expensive here, and they might use strawberry syrup which I  hate!

On our way home after window shopping, my young friend kept bugging me to buy some Delimanju, which is small pancake with corn filings inside. I finally gave in and bought a pack to share.

Sooooooo yummy! Corn custard inside each one just fills your mouth when you bite into them. Totally in love with this snack! Thanks for the recommendation Joy! And for bringing us to eat the best fried chicken in Seoul! 

Korea 2024 - Seoul Seoullo Lunch and Coffee

We were giving a lunch treat to our Korean teacher and her brother for lunch on this day, and everyone was to meet at an Italian restaurant around Seoullo area. Interestingly, this was also one of the places in Seoul that I wanted to explore. It was described as an unknown attraction on top of the roads of Seoul City. Basically it was a very long overhead bridge connecting different parts of Seoul's intersection. And what is interesting about the bridge it, it has gardens and library and free piano on it for you to enjoy. It's basically a kind of a park. 

You can read more about the place around the area on the official information above.

Our lunch at this Italian restaurant. Some of the group were quite happy to have a change of diet as some of them were tired of Korean food. Lol. But not for me. I mean, I went to Korea to eat Korean food. But since this is a kind of farewell lunch, it would be rude not to join. Thankfully the food was quite okay.

After lunch, we took a short walk to a coffee house, a Japanese coffee house. Normally our Korean teacher is quite anti-Japanese, but she said she came here before and like the vibe here. So we ended up here for our after-lunch coffee. 

Here's a souvenir shot of my shoes and coffee! Aren't it cute?

There are three storeys in the shop, and after buying the coffee or cake, you can sit anywhere. We choose to sit upstairs, which has this super cool Japanese style setting. Interestingly, while I ran around exploring the other corner of the shop, I noticed that there were many man enjoying their coffee here! Specifically the ground floor area seems to be a gentlemen club of sort! I always find it amusing to see man in cafe, coffee shop, or even having cakes together! Hahaha. It's just so feminine!

Our order. It's self service, so you have to pick it up from the counter and make yourself up the very Japanese looking stairs to the second floor. The coffee was pretty good, and it was a treat from the teacher for thanking us for lunch :)

A group photo before we parted ways. 

After coffee, we headed off on our own. I went with some friends to explore the overhead bridge, and found this cute pink library in the middle of the bridge! How cute! It was actually very stuffy and very hot inside, but from the photo, it looked so cool!

We also use the bridge to walk to Lotte Mart again just to browse the second floor of the mall since we didn't had a chance the last time we were there at close to midnight! I had my young friend with me, so it was kinda fun hanging out. 

More Line Friends poster!

It was also the season to tulips. So there were many tulips on the connecting bridge as well.

I always think flowers look fake whenever I am overseas. Cause I seldom see these in real life! So pretty.

My husband saw some ladies dropping their phone on the ground of the tulips to take selfies. So we tried that and above is a selfie of us. I think it's pretty cool too.

Korea 2024 - Seoul Old Train Station Part 2

 

As I said, I love old buildings. There is just something very grand about them, so spacious. It like they have seen so much, the secrets that is held in each wall, or each pillar. They always felt so strong, so stable. It's just so cool and comforting to stand inside one. Above, the inside of the old Seoul Station.

The clock, and the beautiful windows that let in the natural lights. I guess train stations sometimes do look a like. This one also reminded me of Bangkok train station.

The beautiful ceiling, so high. Everything looked like marble here. Even if it's just tiles, it felt so solid and cold. And the big metallic ball in the middle, just reflecting everything around it. Just amazing.

You could also see some of the old stained glasses at different part of the buildings.

The upstairs corridors and room. Love the green doors! Love the shinny brown floor. Love the lightings!

And the staircase! So beautiful! 

Here is another one with a unique lighting piece at the ceiling. Such classic look. I wonder if people come here for photoshoots.

I took a lot of photos at the main hall cause it just looked so grand.

I'll end my post here with me in front of an art installation on the 2nd floor. I like this photo for the lack of colours! Lol.