Tag Archives: Seoul 2013

Winter is now drawing to a close in Hong Kong, and I still remember vividly the bitter and biting cold of Seoul.

It has been some months since that trip to Korea, and also some weeks since I last updated this blog. Over the years I have come accustomed to the various lapses in writing about my life (sorry, meals) that an excuse seems unnecessary to explain my absence. I am sure I have been missed but hey, the Internet is a vast, deep ocean of things to keep your insomniac nights occupied. By the way, have they found MH 570 yet?

It was my second trip to Seoul, this time made different and memorable because of my better half. I found that if I do not commit these memories into writing, they often fade into bits of information and flashes of memories that seldom made sense, so during the trip I force myself onto a chair every day to type these posts of what happened the day before, ready to be edited, beautified and published for all to see.

Which I did, four months later. It’s late, it’s untimely and it’s unbecoming but, well, it happened. So here goes:

[catlist tags=seoul-far-so-good numberposts=-1 orderby=id order=asc]

That seems like a long pre-amble to write something and flex my blogging muscles after some weeks of inactivity. Without wanting to make false promises, let’s just hope this post heralds another stream of blog posts – mostly food – to come in the upcoming days.

It was a rainy, rainy day in Seoul.

Just for the record, I discovered that it snowed the day before I flew to Seoul. Which got my hope up a little, seeing how much I love snow and all. But when I get to the city, it was either sunshine in-your-face bright, or raining like today. Then the better half told me it will be snowing again on Wednesday – the day after I have left.

Seriously, I have the worst luck with snow.

Back to my fifth day in Seoul, which was also my last full day here. We braved the incessant rain (I mean, would YOU have stayed in your hotel room because of a little rain?) to find this hole-in-the-wall sandwich joint, Isaac’s Toast which was popular among the locals. We found it after some meandering around Myeongdong. By then the rain got slightly heavier and I got slightly hysterical at the prospect of having my breakfast drenching wet.

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The day started rather late, as we both slept in to compensate for the night out we had in Itaewon the day before. I also realised that with the passing of age, “sleeping in” becomes relative. When you are used to wake up at seven in the morning, waking up past nine is considered luxury. We did take our time and decided to spend our day doing what Seoulites love to do on a weekend – shopping!

The destination of choice was the Gangnam district area, made famous partly thanks to the Korean pop star Psy who took the world by storm. To reach Gangnam, we took the metro up to the Apgujeong and started walking from there. The moment we hit the ground, it took us less than three seconds to realise what else was the area famous for, besides shopping.

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The best of travel days are the ones unplanned for.

Apart for a museum trip later in the afternoon, we had the entire day wide open to all sorts of possibilities. Do we eat to our heart content? Do we want to soak in some culture? How about some shopping till the credit card max out?

We decided to do everything of course. Here’s our tale.

To start the day right we made our way to Tosokchon, probably the most famous place in Seoul to have traditional Chicken cuisine. The restaurant is housed within a complex of traditional Korean houses and even at that hour in the morning, it was already packed with visitors and locals tucking in to pots of samgyetang (chicken stuffed with rice and ginseng, cooked in soup) and plates of roasted chicken with ginseng.

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It was certainly a packed, eventful day.

Every traveler worth his salt knows that the key to starting your day right is – but of course! – having a good breakfast. That’s why we were to be found at Dine Hall, the classy-looking restaurant attached to our hotel for a bit of a noms before we start out for the day. Food was rather uninspiring but sufficient, with portions so little, it was hard to imagine that this was a buffet. The upside was that we were served by a rather surly-looking, Harry Potter-look alike complete with the rounded glasses and suspenders. But it was unfortunate that he wasn’t as hairy as the real Harry.

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The Seoul I remember wasn’t this cold.

What I did remember, though, was the long, meandering journey from the airport into town. This time round I have wised up and took the airport express. Being “express” is relative; it still took us close to an hour to reach the humongous Seoul station.

And then it was another adventure finding our way to the City Hall station. I had my first dunkin’ donut (side note about this creation of awesomeness: did you know they have it almost at every corner of Seoul? It’s like 7-11, only far more delicious). I was happily devouring my choice while waiting for the better half to return from the toilet… to be entertained with his tale of being peeped at the urinals.

Less than one day in, and we already have our first pervert attack!

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