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.
A 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.
Accommodations
Grand Hyatt Seoul (website)
I had the chance to enjoy Grand Hyatt Seoul as part of a weekend trip and it was an absolute beautiful hotel to stay in. You can sense the second you step in their noble entrance that the hotel was filled with affluent, mature (talking about late 20’s early 30’s and up) persons who enjoy the social scenes floating and socializing around the area. The hotel has a sleek and modern design and is somewhat conveniently located to Itaewon, the district most famous for attracting expats with its bars, foreign restaurants, and nightclubs.
Views from nearby Grand Hyatt Seoul
The Shilla Seoul (website)
The Shilla hotel itself does not shy away from comparison with Grand Hyatt, but they are different. I personally prefer the Grand Hyatt one, but I have had friends who preferred staying at the Shilla instead. If Hyatt is modern and sleek, Shilla is classy and elegant.
Shilla is a top class hotel hosting one of the rare 3 star Michelin Korean restaurants in the world, La Yeon. It’s often stayed by government ministers and celebrities globally as well. They even have a department store next to it selling luxurious brands only.
That said, its location is sub optimal but still convenient enough. You could walk down to the Dongguk University station within a few minutes. Service is excellent. If there was one word that is used to describe the hotel, it would be posh.
The road outside Shilla
At night
The Shilla Duty Free. Many Chinese tourists were visiting this store
The rooftop at The Shilla Duty Free
Transportations
You can refer to the past post for more info, but most of the transportation was done by subway and taxi. There really is no Uber as there is another app, I think found in Kakao, that utilizes the same ride sharing concept.
Some maps:
Map of Itaewon
Map of Insadong
Seoul subway station map
Map of Apgujeong
Things to Do
In no particular order:
Hapjeong, supposedly good for coffee cafes
Ewha University for shopping, especially for girls and women
The Bank of Korea Museum. It’s like a small museum about money in general, not just about Korean won
It’s located near Myeongdong / Namdaemun
My friend took me to this awesome place, this restaurant is Tosokchon Samgyetang, obviously to eat Samgyetang, which means ginseng chicken soup
You can usually tell how good a Korean restaurant is by its Korean radish and Kimchi
So good during the winter! The line may look long outside by the way, but it moves fast as the restaurant is big.
Right next to Tosokchon Samgyetang is Tongin Market
As you can see, this market is like a series of Korean food stalls. If I wasn’t so full from the ginseng chicken soup, I definitely would have tried these stalls~
People trying some food. Maybe there’s live octopus somewhere to eat here… (not interested btw!)
Next stop was Gyeongbokgung Palace, the largest palace for the Joseon dynasty
Inside
In honor of King Sejong, the guy who invented the Korean alphabet Hangul. The ginseng chicken soup, Tongin market, and all these historical items can be found at the Gyeongbokgung station.
This is the Seoul Ferry Disaster Memorial to remember those who have passed away on Apr. 16, 2014 for the disaster that happened. People still come and pray for them.
My friend told me that the police that are wearing the golden eagle are the real police, while the ones silver ones are those that are from the Korean military assisting the police
At night, kept walking around Gyeongbokgung
Cheonggyecheon-ro
Time for some Korean BBQ!
Nom nom
Next up, we went to a shisha/hookah place nearby
This place is interesting. They have a chain to make sure that the hookah stays in place.
The Hyundai Department Store
Inside Carehome
Traditional Korean Porridge
Cheese Buldak – the result of mixing cheese, chicken, and spiciness on this hot plate. It was freaking delicious, but freaking spicy as well!
Shopped around at Sinsa
Sinsa again
Raw beef and raw yolk
Bulgogi
Egg. I love this egg. They have so many appetizers in Korean meals it’s cray cray.
Ben N Jerry’s
Itaewon in Halloween… super packed.
Lego master
The Joker
One of the best hotel bars / clubs in Seoul, J.J. Mahoney! Perhaps it was Halloween so the setup and the amount of people was just perfect… vibe was perfect… mega fun. An older crowd but was worth.. look at how packed Itaewon was!
My thoughts about Seoul is that… you can’t go wrong here, but at the same time as you progressively come here again and again, it turns into a city. Initially from my previous posts, you can see how enthusiastic and fascinated I was by Seoul. But the more I discover it, the more I find the neighborhoods to be somewhat similar to one another, and that what you do in Seoul is what you do in Hong Kong… eating, night clubbing etc. In fact, the diversity of restaurants is wider in Hong Kong than in Seoul.
I still really like Seoul, no doubt, but its familiarity with me also started to lose its mysteriousness and charm and instead I find the cooling winds, autumn leaves, and just the overall city in general more vibrant, elegant and beautiful.
