Thursday, July 29, 2010

Seoul (10th July - 13th July)

Day #7 - 10th July
Okay it was a bad start of the day. Initial plan was: to check out at 12pm. What happened was: we left at 10am. That was 2 hour less of my sleeping time. Then there was a bit of argument regarding the taxi too but I am amazed now that 4 of us and our luggages managed to squeeze inside that taxi. Upon reaching the backpackers, I was a bit shocked with the alley leading to it. The alley looked super run down!! Bah.. It turned out to be quite a safe area. And it was non sleazy too. So it was not bad after all. The backpackers was pretty good actually, with the free internet, microwave oven, water dispenser, and spacious toilet. The room was a bit small but who cares when I had a huge toilet? Lol..

After dropping our luggage there, we just crossed the street and tadaaa we reached Namdaemun. It was a bit of pasar malam type. I was not in shopping mode because I thought it was so near that we could go back anytime. So perhaps now just checked out the things and price first. We had pretty good meal. I had a super duper red Ramyeon! It looked intimidatingly spicy and red but it wasn't spicy at all. Cool.. But seeing that could not stop me thinking the possibility of getting huge diarrhea. We walked walked through some boring places until eventually we reached Myeongdong!! Weehee this was what I liked. High-end cool shopping malls even though the price deterred me from shopping. Haha what matters to me is ambience!

In the evening, we visited Seoul Tower. It was quite shocking to climb a steep hill from the bus stop to the foot of the tower. We spent quite a few hours having ourselves sketched. Haha.. I am quite pleased with my sketching results lol. But because of that, it was getting too late to see the Teddy Bear Museum. The tower itself was disappointing. Well, I am not a person who like night view and night lights whatsoever. So yeah, simply climbing up just for the sake of  "Since I am in Seoul, must visit Seoul Tower, yeah!".

 Seoul Tower

Day #8 - 11 July
The day I awaited for long was finally here. Yep, I got to visit the palace! Woohoo.. We visited Gyeongbokgung Palace, apparently the biggest out of the 5 palaces. It was really huge. We spent at least 3 hours and didn't even visit every corner in the palace. And guess what: the palace was actually only 40% of its original state. Woa... perhaps can really spend 1 day to explore it when it is back to 100% original state. I had a great time camwhoring. However, honestly I find the palace to be quite boring. Initially I wanted to visit all 5, but after this one, 1 is enough. Although the complex was huge, the buildings looked to similar. So actually it was rather pointless to go see every building also. Anyway the highlight was camwhoring and wearing the traditional clothes ^^ I am a bit disappointed with the clothes though. Firstly, it was all guard clothes! I wanted royalties.. Secondly, the clothes were way too big for me that I looked as if I was wearing a dress! Ew..

Gyeongbokgung Palace

My camwhoring went to another level. As I was boringly waiting my friends charging up their energy, seeing trees made me wanna jump, climb, and camwhore with them! Ya.. they were only trees for goodness sake! Lol.

As a result of my tree hugging feat lol

After that, we went to Insa-dong. It was disappointing again. Mostly souvenirs and the people were quite rude in my opinion. I had seafood bibimbap for lunch. The vegetables were overwhelming that I felt sick enough to have Korean food for dinner. Just had some bread and some fast food from the minimart.

I was a bit emo in the evening. I wanted to go Dongdaemun since it was already late and Dongdaemun mostly opens in the evening. I was damn pissed with the church church stuff. So yeah eventually we went to Myeongdong Cathedral and to me it was so so. Nothing spectacular to take photo. And forgive me God for blasphemy, I saw no point of attending mass in which I understand nothing about it.. I felt very rude and it was my worst mass experience ever: just queued for communion. Oh weell..

 Myeongdong Cathedral
Supposedly the building style is gothic. But I don't see anything gothic about it.

Day #9 - 12th July
Slept until 10am because we had no plans yet. Many shops are not open on Mondays there. Initially I wanted to go to another palace but unfortunately, it was also closed. So we went to Dongdaemun and to our horror: really it was a night market. In the daylight, the malls were all not open -_-. Add some bad luck: some shops were closed on that particular Monday! Gosh. A bit pissed off because of the weather was hot. And also because I wanted to go there the night before! Sigh.. now too late already.. ask me to return in the night I also already no mood because my flight in the next morning was 6am! Bah...

Anyway, after lunch, we went to I' Park Mall since a friend wanted a keyboard. And yeah, we were just unlucky. The mall closed on one monday every month.. and out of so many mondays, wow great they closed on that monday when we were there =.= So basically we just sat down and wait at the train station there until it was late enough for Dongdaemun to open. Before leaving, I insisted on trying Lotteria (Korean McD copycat) lol.. not that fantastic.. I did not go to Dongdaemun because I wanted to rest early for my flight. I only slept about 2 hours.. Spent most of the time clearing my Seoul maps.. only to discover and regret that Dongdaemun got some nice shopping places too :'( One consolation was one of the malls close every Monday so yea... Haiz..

Day #10 - 13th July
My taxi came at 4am and it was too early. Sigh... Expected travel time to airport is 90-120mins but it only took me 45mins-60mins. So ya I reached there too early. Tried to sleep a bit but I could not because the aircon was not on! So ironic for a world class airport to actually have 'closing hour'. Bleah... Had difficulty finding food so end up eating the same McD where I had my very first meal upon arrival in Korea. What an irony eh? Lol..

I will continue with my arrival and the last part of my trip in Korea: Busan! This post also took me about 4 days plus haha so I cannot promise how soon my next post will be done ^^

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