Korea Winter Itinerary 2016 / 2017 Day 11

It's a no-rush day!

My main aim today is to go Hard Rock Café Seoul, located at Jamsil, to get the HR city shotglass for my collection. As usual, we had our breakfast in the hotel then back to our room to nua a bit before we leave.

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JAMSIL

Nearest Station: Jamsil Station Line 2 or Line 8 Exit 4

Lotte Departmental Store, Lotte World, Lotte Mart, Lotte Duty Free are all located at the same area. We did not visit their themed park, Lotte World, because 1) I had visited last time and it was rather small, 2) Mic isn't interested either, 3) we planned to visit only 1 themed park this time which is Everland. The deco in the mall was superb and I stood there staring at it as if I was immersed in a fairytale until Mic poked me and said, "got so beautiful or not?" 😤

2 of my fav K stars

After I got my HR shot glass, we proceeded to Seokchonhosu Lake which surrounds the outdoor part of Lotte World theme park. The cherry blossom trees around the lake were all leafless during winter but to me, the view is still stunning. A lot of locals were seen jogging and having slow walk around the park in this cooling weather. Seokchon lake will be filled with beautiful sight of cherry blossom around end of March to April when they bloomed.

Hard Rock Café
Location: 5F, Lotte World Mall

Operating Hours: 10:30AM-12:00AM

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GAROSUGIL

Nearest Station: Sinsa Station Line 3 Exit 8

From Jamsil, we took subway to Sinsa and reached there around 2.30pm. We leisurely walked along the street of Dosan-daero 13-gil which is basically 1 straight road with stores and café lined up along both sides of the street. This place is not crowded, most are young locals but most of the clothing/accessories stores here can also be found in Hongdae.

I finally found the Line Friends 2017 calendar in the The Line Friends Store here. This was the least crowded LINE Friend Store compared to Myeongdong or Hongdae, so I had the chance to take proper pictures around the store.

No queue 😄

Although there were lots of restaurants and café at Sinsa, Mic could not find one that he's keen. With our empty stomach, we proceeded to the our next destination where lotsa local food can be found.

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GWANGJANG MARKET

Nearest Station:
Euljiro-4-ga Line 2 or 5 Exit 4
Jongno-5-ga Line 1 Exit 8
Operating hours: Depends on store owners

We alighted from Euljiro-4-ga station and walked straight to reach Gwangjang Market. We were not very sure of the way because the market is quite huge with multiple entrances. As usual, we followed the crowd and reached the place around 4.30pm. Half the stores were still opened but some stores at certain alleys were already closed. So I think the best time to go there is in the morning if you want to fully explore the place.

Still very crowded in the evening

Gwangjang Market being the nation's first and oldest market where most stores owners are the elderly. Most of them do not know any other language and most store's signboard or menu were in Korean. There were so many alleys in the market but you can also see stalls set up in the centre of the alley which makes the place even more crowded. Basically most stores/stalls sell the same food so we decided to have our meal at this stall because the ahjumma was very friendly. Best thing is the menu has English translation (and even Mandarin and Japanese)!

Mic and I ordered chopped noodle dumpling soup to share because we were unsure if it would taste nice since the picture look a bit too plain. To our surprise, it is 1 of the best noodle and dumpling we had ever had! I was sitting opposite the ahjumma and watching her freshly handmade the dumplings. Because there were so many stores selling the same dish, I wish people will patronise her store because her food is really very delicious.

A bowl of goodness - chopped noodle with dumplings ₩5,000

We saw a snaking queue at a stall selling hotteok. We did not know it was hotteok at first because there were all Korean words at the store. There were some newspaper cuttings displayed at this store so we thought we should give this a try since many people were queueing for this as well. Mic always has the itch to join in the queue whenever he sees one at a food stall and so he went to queue while I walked around and got myself a huge mung bean pancake (bindaetteok).

We finished our bindaetteok but Mic was still at the back of the queue. I think he queued for almost 40mins for it and the verdict..... 😞. It was tasteless and we can't even finished the hotteok. Luckily we bought only one.

Mung bean pancake at the stalls

The stall owner will fold it in a quarter shape if you say you will be eating now.
No regret buying this. It's nice!

Dried persimmon

I kept looking for the famous gwangjang toast which I read in some of the blogs. Since I do not know the exact location of the stall and the place were huge and crowded, I decided to give up and proceed to Dongdaemun. To my surprise, I spotted the stall at the entrance/exit of the market when we were walking out the market (the same entrance I walked into Gwangjang Market earlier but I missed it coz I walked behind the stall).

It was fun watching the ahjumma making the toast. I also realised the ahjumma is actually quite old and I was thinking that if she decided to retire, I will be so sad because I can't eat her toast anymore. Hopefully someone will pick up her recipe and skill to continue making this toast. And oh, please try the silkhye drink at her stall because it was very nice as well (despite the colour).

Silkhye ₩1,000

Super nice Gwangjang toast ₩1,500

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DONGDAEMUN DESIGN PLAZA (DDP)

Nearest Station: Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station Line 2, 4 and 5 Exit 1

Operating Hours: 10am - 7pm (Closed Monday)

We actually walked to DDP from Gwangjang Market. I prefer to walk because I will be able to see the local shops that the locals go to instead of just visiting shopping mall or touristy places. After 25mins of walking, we finally reached Dongdaemun area. I wanted so much to see the sea of LED roses at DDP because I have seen so many friends posted their photos there which looked so cool. In my opinion, the scene actually looks nicer in photos (the flowers somehow looks brighter). In actual, the roses looked a bit dimmed.

We did not shop at Dongdaemun because we were not keen to go into the malls. Both of us
took the subway back to Myeongdong and walked around the place before going back to the hotel.

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