Seoul#13 Insadong

 Insadong***** a blend of korean culture, unique shops & tea houses~ A must visit, and it's the place to get the souvenirs too~ The tea houses here are quite expensive, but for the feel of it, why not!

Relaxing at a tea house

Persimmon Punch W6000 + Rice cake biscuit

Korea Style Starbucks Coffee Shop

One of the many unique buildings at Insadong~

Shit bread anyone? =P

We are here at the Ssamziegil department store, the design of this building is really unique, with spiral like building levels and graffiti all over, cool.

 

Our dinner at Incheon airport --> Take away ddeokbokki and gimbap from hyehwa.. the cheapest dinner for our trip, but the most memorable. Since it was the last meal here =)

We miss SEOUL already~

and we do remember "1, 2, 3, Kimchi~~"

Seoul#12 Namdaemun Market

Namdaemun Market**** more to a food haven than a shopping place to US. Remember, the market is close on Sundays. To get here, get off exit 7 of Hoehyeon Station [line4]. Once you come out of exit 7, towards the market you will see a shop selling these king dumplings -->

Namdaemun's famous King Dumplings : Kamae Yeanal Son Wang Mandu*****
(가메 엣날 손 왕 만두)

with minced pork filling inside, really YUMS!

Korean version of Jajangmyeon*** (made with black bean sauce) W4000 per bowl~We tried the original jajangmyeon, maybe the jajangmyeon with some minced meat will taste much better =)  These jajangmyeon restaurants are usually located at the second floor of shops in Namdaemun Market, from what we know, these noodles are ordered and delivered just like pizzas.

There are a lot of street food in Namdaemun, one you will want to avoid is the cooked corn. The corn has somewhat a plasticky texture, (not sure how they cook it) and no corn taste at all. Unlike the corns in Malaysia.

 

P: Father only care for the food

A: LOL

This is one of the many sauna or public bath house in seoul, called Jjimjilbang. These sauna houses are normally 24 hours and they provide beds for overnight too. So it can be a real budget stay where you only pay W12,000 per person. You get to enjoy the facilities: all types of bath (like ginseng, green tea, salt), saunas and some even game arcade. Can give it a try, but this time we were not ready yet, cause have to be naked in the public baths, Hey of course gender separated lar... hehe.. Can have a look at this:  http://www.silloamsauna.com

Jokbal (boiled pig feet) bought from Lotte Mart [at Seoul station, just next station of Hoehyeon]. Recommended to go shopping at Lotte Mart*** for the Korean snacks, instant noodle, kimchi, soju or bokbunja (rasberry wine) and so much more! Could easily spend 2 hours there looking at all the cute Korean products.

We had the great shopping experience here and carried all our goods all the way back to Malaysia =)

 

All around Seoul, you will see fancy bakery chains of all names. Tous les Jours literally means 'everyday' in french, here we tried the strawberry custard pastry =) happy food!

Seoul#11 Noryangjin Fish Market

Anyong haseyo~ really gooood Morning! We woke up at 4.30am today, the very last day in Seoul. By 5+ am we reach the metro station, but the first train only reach the Hyehwa station at 5.40am... our half hour of sleep gone. Y so early? Cause we have to reach Noryanging Fish Market***** in time for the auctions~ which starts 1am, ends 6.30am.. Ooohhooo.... About 30min train ride, coming out from the Noryangin Station [ Line 1 ], we could smell the fish already!

WOW, very BIG fish market~~~ It was such an amazing experience, walking around the market, looking at the big octopus, lobsters, giant crabs, abalone, oysters, and Korean people doing business. 

It seems like we were the only tourists there! What a fishy experience =)

 

Even though it was already 7am, we managed to see the auction taking place~

The beauty of visiting the fish market, is to actually select the seafood we want to eat for our breakfast. Seafood for breakfast? How odd can it be for Malaysians... You can come here for lunch or dinner anyway, but we have to see the auction. No choice lor. LOL we took a super long time to choose and finally bought the baby octopus [ eaten live, called the sannakji ] for W4000, abalone (3 pieces for W10,000 = RM10 each ;)  and flounder fish [ "gwang uh" ] (W20,000) for sashimi... Here's the still 'live' baby octopus:

After we select the fish for sashimi, the seller will cut the fish, wrap it, then bring to their designated restaurant, where they will prepare the other food at a cost. For the octopus, it was just cut into small pieces and sprinkled with sesame. The octopus is still wiggling by the way O.o For the abalone, we asked for butter grill (in korean, "butta gooey"). We also ordered the spicy fish stew ("maeoontang"), which was prepared with leftovers of the fish we bought.

The experience of eating sannakji, well, the video says it all:

The flounder fish eaten as sashimi is very chewy, does not taste really good. So in the end, we just put everything raw into the pot of fish stew. The fish is so smooth now that it is cooked. Yes, that's the right breakfast for us! LOL

A: Personally, i think the fish stew is the best! Haha...