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Public Zone 公開區 => Travelogues 遊記相薄 => Topic started by: hangchoi on 08 January 2015, 12:21:37
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Spent a weekend in Seoul as my wife just got some rather cheap air tickets. We took the early morning flight to Incheon airport. Time was just fit to check in the hotel. Our hotel was at somewhere near Ewha Womans University (梨花女子大學). The hotel was a hot spot for Hongkongers, room is quite decent.
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After we checked in, we went find something to eat before we went to our first sightseeing spot. We went to a BBQ shop at Sinchuen (新川) area. The interesting thing was that they do not offer you a seat, a stand up BBQ. Food is nice, but the sauce is excellent, we enjoyed the sauce more than the food actually.
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After BBQ, we went to a small village called 北村, a place full of old style Korean House (韓屋). The place is quite classic and nicely built, a bit artificial tho.
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Our dinner was at 廣藏市場, a famous market and a hot spot for tourist. This market has over 100 year history. We ate at the stalls and shop. Food?.....ummm very traditional but fresh, because they made to you after you ordered. So you have to sit with a large crowd and wait for your food.
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After dinner, we took a short walk to Dongdaemun (東大門). The famous building was not the Dongdaemun itself, but a rather new building called Dongdaemun Design Center, a landmark building you can see from any advertisement in Korea.
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The facade of the Dongdaemun Design Center can change its colour and the architecture of that was nice, a lot of curvature facade tile which is very labour intensive to build. Irregularity seems to be the theme of this structure, which is evidenced by its internal staircase and foot path.
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It just happened that they had a night light exhibition. A large number of LED flowers was switched on at night.
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Second day, we went to visit Ewha Womans University. This university now turns out to be a hot toursit spot. There are so many tourist there to visit its nice building structure and it was said that the University management had put a banner there asking tourist not to disturb the students there. Even some buildings have signage prohibiting non-students going in. The University is nice, quiet, classic and elegant. Some of the structures is nicely built with modern design.
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One of the famous spots of Ewha Womans University is the so called Ewha Wall (梨花牆). It is located at the entrance of the university. It is said that a girl will find her Mr. right if she took a picture with the wall......
Opposite to the wall is a street for shoppers. The landmark structure is a pink high-heel. The street is very good for ladies, full of cosmetic products.
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After that, we went to 駱山公園. This is a village with lot of grafitti and wall painting. On the footpath throughout the village, you will see a lot of different art work, even on the staircase.
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The village is very quiet, except those laughs and yells from tourist, Chinese tour group especially.
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On our way back to MTR station, we walked through the cultural area near 駱山公園. There are some cultural centers and parks with lot of different sculptures. The weather was so freezingly cold. Even a small ditch was freezed.
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We had our lunch at 明洞, the city center area like Causeway Bay in HK. We had 部隊湯 there, a hot pot with lots of different vegetable, meats, etc in korean style. This pot was originated during wartime that the army put everything they had into a pot and boiled it for dinner. Now it turns to be a famous korean dish.
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We went shopping in the afternoon. Our dinner was at 弘大 area, a place having its name from a university. This is a place for youngsters. We were having BBQ pork at a shop opened by a Korean artist named HAHA. The shop offers only pork, no beef. The menu is simple, food is ok but not very nice. The setting is quite comfortable tho.
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The restaurant is full of picture of that artist, from his childhood till now, good advertisement.
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The 弘大 area has a night market, which is a bit like those in Taiwan, a lot of food stall selling snack, different shops for a large variety of cosmetic, accessories, etc. We bought a big fried squid, larger than my face.....
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The next day morning we went to 仁寺洞, it is usually a place for old stuff but now it mixes with some modern shops. On the way to there, the MTR station has a wall tile art, as in the following picture.
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You can find a lot of shops selling antique at 仁寺洞 but some modern shopping malls are built. I found a Chinese tea shop.....
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三清洞 is just opposite to 仁寺洞. This is a place like Soho area in HK. The area has some designer artwork hanging on the street, quite funny place with lots of cafe, very relaxing indeed. We had our lunch there at a shop offering all day breakfast. We were attracted by this shop because of a variety show "Running Man". Food is very nice too
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The cafe also showed that pictures of artists during the filming of the show. (A side story, after we were back to HK, we watched the Running Man episode about this cafe again, and we found that the all-day-breakfast that the artists had had 2 more eggs than mine....)
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After lunch, we went to an art museum at 漢江鎮, I saw a nice park on the way there.
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The museum is called Leeum 三星美術館. By its name the museum is sponsored by Samsung. The museum has a good collection of stuff from the whole Korean history to modern art, no picture allowed for the old stuff. The surrounding is quite nice. The electronic guide is a samsung phone...
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I can only take pictures of the building fabrics, but some are quite funny and interesting.
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The evening we went to 龍山站. This is a big transportation exchange, but we went there for a Korean sauna (汗蒸幕). The entrance of the sauna looks like a night club or something.....
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This 汗蒸幕 is said to be the largest one in Seoul. It is a 7 storey building, having a lot of recreation facilities. It is good for family and couples, as the entrance fee is not expensive. But you need to pay for food, and other services. They heated up the floor of the rest area and the whole environment is warm and comfortable. They have 7 to 8 different sauna room with different temperature.
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After we had the sauna, it was almost time to go to airport. We went to our hotel and got our bags back and headed to airport. When we arrived, it snows....We are lucky enough to see snow while our journey was not disturbed....we are blessed.
As we were taking a very early flight back to HK (3:xx am flight), the monorail has no one riding except my wife and I.
And that concludes our wonderful weekend.
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The last time I went to Seoul was in 1998. At that time, there was a compulsory guide to take you around. This time I found a more open, modern and relaxing Seoul which I think it is a good place to spend a short holiday.
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The evening we went to 龍山站. This is a big transportation exchange, but we went there for a Korean sauna (汗蒸幕). The entrance of the sauna looks like a night club or something.....
This place is quite attractive. When will u arrange one for our mid-40's StB alumni trip?
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This place is quite attractive. When will u arrange one for our mid-40's StB alumni trip?
Yes, this one is fun. You may even bring you luggage and store there, to save the hotel cost ;D
Want to go? I can arrange at anytime as you wish.
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After we checked in, we went find something to eat before we went to our first sightseeing spot. We went to a BBQ shop at Sinchuen (新川) area. The interesting thing was that they do not offer you a seat, a stand up BBQ. Food is nice, but the sauce is excellent, we enjoyed the sauce more than the food actually.
Friend told me about this place in Tokyo, hiring *** chefs, cooking up very nice food but at cheap price. The place have no seat, so they can turn 7+ times per table per day!
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Yes, this one is fun. You may even bring you luggage and store there, to save the hotel cost ;D
Want to go? I can arrange at anytime as you wish.
Yes, I will sign up.
1. Hang
2. Yan
3. Chin
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The last time I went to Korea was maybe 10 years ago, mainly for business. I don't remember Seoul being a fun place to visit. Maybe it's changed for good.
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The last time I went to Korea was maybe 10 years ago, mainly for business. I don't remember Seoul being a fun place to visit. Maybe it's changed for good.
Yes. I was there in 1998. At that time I joined a tour group and it was compulsory that the group had a "tour guide". You had to take a group photo and you were not allowed to take picture at some spots like the president office, etc. Now, a lot of casual travelers and tourists and you are free to go anywhere. A big change that changed my impression.
Another point is that you can communicate with them in mandarin most of the time. I think Chinese are their major source of visitors.
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Yes, I will sign up.
1. Hang
2. Yan
3. Chin
Well. We could really arrange to have a short trip there, spending a weekend there is fun. Flight time is about 3 hours. Unless you want to buy the whole department store, you need not to carry heavy luggage. Living standard there is comparatively low, at least lower than Japan.
Maybe we can go there again in mid of this year. Anyone wants to join ?? ;D
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great photos. No wonder why you would go back. The LED exhibition was quite amazing and it is something that you don't get to see when you join a tour. I was in Colombia a few years ago, they have the similar lighting (probably not LED) for Christmas. It was the highlight of the trip
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lighting
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Originally I had planned to hike in Japan but my wife somehow found cheap air tickets to Seoul. Then it made up my second trip to Seoul within 2 years.
We took a midnight flight again and settled things down in hotel at 8am. After the breakfast, we went to the city center and had a look at Cheonggyecheon (清溪川)
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Cheonggyecheon (清溪川) was a project by the government to turn a city drain into a beautiful walking park. It really doesn't look like in a city.
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Turning a corner will lead you to the Gyeongbokgung (景福宮), the old palace of the King of Korea. There are a few statutes in front of the palace. Currently there are a lot of anti-government demonstration every weekend.
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The entrance of Gyeongbokgung is Gwanghwamun (光化門). The palace is beautiful and huge, tho the size is comparatively smaller than that in Beijing. Similar style too.
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The main room for the king is a copy of that in the palace in Beijing. The seat and the decoration, even the ceiling.
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Living room, meal room and the surrounding areas of the palace.
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I was attracted the name plate of the study room of the palace. Did this really written by Zhu?
There are a lot of kids with traditional attire to visit the palace.
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After the visit, we went to Dongdaemun (東大門) to see a show. The show was held at the shopping center opposite to DDP (東大門設計廣場). The last time I visited there was at night. This time was at day time and at a different angle.
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We went to a night market at Yeoeuido (汝矣島) for our dinner. This market only opens on Friday and Saturday every week. Quite a lot of people Foods are so so but I found the drink amazingly great.
This drink, Mojito, is made with lime, mint, soda water plus some other natural flavourings. Very fresh and thirst quenching.
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Second day of our visit was the main theme of this trip. We were going to some suburb areas to have some fun. First we took a train to Gimyujeong (金裕貞). The train station is quite nice. We went there for rail biking at rail park just next to the train station.
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Undoubtedly this is a amusement park for fun, with a lot of different stalls for games. But the most important one is the rail bike. You can ride the bike for about 8 km and see the scene along the route.
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They modified the route a bit by adding some special features to make the journey more fun. Most of the tunnel has special effect.....The picture showed the tunnel with bubble.
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After the biking, we went to Chuncheon (春川), the city famous of its spicy chicken. This is so famous that a lot of shops in Seoul were named they offered spicy chicken with Chuncheon recipe. There is a whole street in Chuncheon solely for spicy chicken and the prices of all the shops are closely monitored by the city government. The street has a landmark of a chicken
We went to a shop with seemingly spacious......
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The next day we went to Nami Island (南怡島), a very hot suburb theme park for visitors. The most smartest move of this trip was that we decided to stay 1 night in Gapyeong (加平) so that we can visit there early. When we was there at 8 am, there were already more than 100 people lining up at the entrance. You will see how crowded later from this post.
Nami Island is an island. There are two routes to enter the island, the first one is by ship, which is obvious. The second route is by slide........ :o You can slide into the island from the tower next to the ferry.
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The island emphasized that the tour in the island is romantic. Well, it should be if there are less people touring around. The trees and scene are beautiful and they offered some local korean food. You may choose to stay in the hotel on the island but the rate is rather expensive.
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Lot of trees, beautiful maple, pine, etc. Some turkeys too.
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The park was brought into public attention due to a TV serial, which was about a love story in winter. Hence there are a lot of similar symbols throughout the park.
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Oh, the first time I see a squirrel holding a pine cone.
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We spent the whole morning there and left at about 12:00 noon.
There were a lot of local tour to Nami Island from Seoul. These tours will depart from city of Seoul so they will arrive at about 11:00am. Hence if you visit there late, you will have to line up with thousands of people to enter the island.
I took this picture when I left the island, some other people were going to leave to, but the people waiting to go to the island were so many that they almost filled up the whole carpark.
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After Nami Island, we headed back to Seoul and went to Majang (馬場) for Korean Beef. This place is actually a wholesale market for Korean Beef but some shops have changed into restaurants. The price was cheaper than most of the shops outside this market. There are also landmarks showing the place.
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Korean Beef is not so fatty as Japanese Beef, which gives us a better bite. Do you know what the red cube of the third pictures?
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The red cube is cow liver.
After the lunch, we went to a shopping arcade near Konkuk University. The arcade is built by containers and a lots of stuff for youngsters are sold there. Quite nicely built.
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We had our dinner that night at Hongik Night Market, the place where we went to in our last trip.
We went there again because my wife had made an appointment for haircut there.
I found the shop front panel to this shop was quite creepy.
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The last day morning, we went to Mapo (麻浦) area. Our spot was the Haneul Park (天空公園) and we walk through the world cup stadium.
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To go to the Haneul Park, you need to walk up a long staircase of 291 steps.
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The park is at the top of a small hill. It is beautiful with great panoramic view of the Seoul.
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They have a "slow mail box". The postman will only collect post twice a year. The purpose is to remind people not to rush and hurry, and not to forget the traditional way of communication.
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My model is doing a good job...... ;D
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After the visit, we went to the Mapo seafood market for lunch. We were having lively seafood, i.e. the octopus was still moving when it was served.
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Shopping in the afternoon. Before we headed to airport, we re-visited the place where we can clean up and relax, the Dragon Hill Spa.
We arrived at Yongsan station in the evening, left our luggage at the reception and enjoy our spa till late night before we caught our plane.
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Thanks for the report.
Made appointment for a hair cut?!?!?!
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Thanks for the report.
Made appointment for a hair cut?!?!?!
Yes. made appointment via internet. I went into the salon with her, the whole process was very quick, about half an hour. Tea/drinks were served with both of us, with a stylist using an iPad to show your hair style, very good service. The price was not expensive too.
Good to try. :D