The Shilla Seoul in Winter

I’ve been to Seoul a few more times since I first posted about it and mentioned that Seoul was a Shopping Heaven.  As such, I would like to share more information about this city to give you an even more in depth experience of what it’s like to perhaps live in Seoul.

The ShillaA beautiful sky

Surprisingly I didn’t mention about this in the previous post, but one common food item in Korean BBQ restaurants was beef organs.  I remember going to a BBQ restaurant with my friends and asked them, through body language since they didn’t understand English, if the restaurant only served beef organs, and there were no “normal” beef meat, responding that they only do have organs.  We immediately left.

Then of course Koreans also love to eat spicy food, so you cannot get away with not eating spicy food in any Korean restaurants, especially if you want to eat the delicious dishes.

Continue reading The Shilla Seoul in Winter

Seoul – Shopping Heaven

Quick tips about Seoul:

  • It is a shopping paradise
  • It’s also a food paradise (especially if you like spicy and KBBQ)
  • We didn’t do any sight seeing, but based on reading from blogs, books and other guides, there isn’t an astounding amount of cultural / historical / scenic things to do (as compared to places in Europe).  A bit similar to Bangkok.  They EXIST but it’s not abundant and should be able to cover in a few days for the major attractions
  • The people there know very little English.  In fact, the salespeople in the retail shops actually speak Mandarin much better than English so prepare to bring some sort of translation book if you can only speak English
  • Transportation is very convenient
  • Although the transition between different train lines is a fair bit of distance… so plan your time accordingly
  • Many 24 hour restaurants
  • Felt safe the entire trip
  • very affordable (compared to HK)
  • actually Seoul is pretty much like Hong Kong except they speak Korean there instead of Cantonese

It’s definitely a trip well worth going, especially if you are into Korean Pop culture.  I’ll show you the places we went (for shopping and eating) so you can have a rough itinerary for your next trip. Continue reading Seoul – Shopping Heaven