buzzkorea - Day 2 In Seoul

31st May 2010 (Monday)

안녕하세요 !Today is the 2nd day of our Korea trip! Woke up really early today as the weather was really cold! After washing up and changing into a new set of clothes, we went off to take a look at the area at Anguk!

That's our room! No.3!

How our hostel looks like in the morning


A store selling 떡 (rice cakes)

A store selling 한복 (Korean traditional clothes)

After 1hour of wandering around Anguk area, we decided to have our breakfast as our stomach are growling! There are so many food stores, but in the end , we decided to have bread! So we went to this really nice bread shop(I have forgotten the name, opps!). There was a lot of variety of bread! In the end, i chose this bread, where there was a lot of custard! It was really nice!

Our Breakfast

After we are done, we officially starts our itinerary for the day! We will be heading down to Insadong to see Jongno tower and Bosingak Bell. We walked all the way from Anguk station and it takes around 20mins or so. Bosingak Bell is just next to Jongno Tower, across a road. Bosingak Bell is not open all year round, if i am not wrong, it is only open on New Year.

Bosingak Bell (You can't see the bell as it is inside..)

The cute lamp we saw!

The famous

Jongno Tower

After taking photos,we decided to hurried back to our hostel to have our early lunch and to take our luggage as we will be taking the Korail to Busan at 12pm. As i missed the tofu stew from my previous trip to Korea, we decided to have tofu stew for our lunch. In Korean, it is called 순두부찌개. It is really soft and nice. To me, the spiciness is ok because i love to eat spicy food. But for CY, she don't take spicy food so to her, this stew is a bit too spicy. This stew is really cheap. It cost only 4900Won! To add on, in Korea, water is provided free in restaurants and all meals come with panchan(side foods), which you can replenish for free.

By the way, don't worry if you don't know Korean as the store owners are very friendly and most times, there are pictures in the menu and some basic English!

The panchan and tofu stew

Us and our lunch

After we finished eating, it was already 11am. So off we go to Seoul Station to catch our train! We had booked our train tickets at http://info.korail.com/2007/eng/etr/etr02000/w_etr02100.jsp . For foreigners, there is this KR pass where we can buy tickets for 3days unlimited usage, 5days unlimited usage and 7days! Do check out the website for more information! After we gotten our tickets, it was time for us to board the train. All i can say that the trains are really clean and safe. I am really glad that i choose to take the train instead of the airplane!

How the train looks like!

The interior of the train

Reached Busan!

We reached Busan in around 4 hours. We had booked out hostel online and we now have to figure out how to go to our hostel. It is called Zen backpackers. Just a note 1st, this hostel is really cheap and the place is nice and clean and is right in the centre of Busan. The owner is really friendly and will always try to help when you needed one. He also recommends to us the places we should go in Busan! For those interested, do visit http://zenbackpackers.com/ . Ok! Anyway, it is also very easy to travel in Busan. Because as like in Seoul, there is also a subway and we can almost go anywhere with it! We managed to find the place in about 45mins! After settling down, it was already dusk. So we decided to have dinner and roam around in Seomyeon(where out hostel are) area, which is the heaven for youngsters!

As the weather was really cold, we decided to have 삼계탕 Samgyetang (Ginseng Chicken soup). We went to this restaurant and it costs only 600won! We also ordered soju and this is the 1st time we are having it. Well, it is really special! After dinner, we went around the area and we say a lot of roadside stalls! Spicy rice cakes, skewers, fried stuff! Well, it is really special! After dinner, we went around the area and we say a lot of roadside stalls! Spicy rice cakes, skewers, fried stuff! And there is an election currently ongoing in Korea, so we saw a lot of campaigns! Cool! After that, it was rather late and we went back to rest! Hwaiting!

Our Favourite Ginseng Chicken!

Me and Soju

Roadside stall selling 떡볶이 (spicy ricecakes)

Selling some skewers!

~End of Day 2

@buzzkorea

buzzkorea - My long overdue journey to the island of Seoul

30/05/10 (Sunday)

Wow! It's been a year since my last trip to Korea. Although it is my 2nd time to Korea, still, i am looking forward to this trip! This time, I went with my sis, Chin yee, Subing and 2 of my sis friends. Hehe! A weird combination right? As i am able to speak basic Korean and my sis friends wanted to go Seoul free and easy, tt's why they joined us in this trip!

From left to right: Chin yee (CY), Subing(SB), Me, Sis, Sarah and Szeling

Our flight is scheduled at 11am plus and we are taking Cathy Pacific to Seoul. So , we have to stopover at Hong Kong then transit to another flight to Seoul. After checking in, we are off to board the plane at Terminal 1 at Changi Airport!



That is the plane that we will be taking!! (*Pray hard that it will be a smooth journey*) Hehe!!

On the plane~~~This is the meal that we had on board. If i am correct, this is the fish. There is another choice, which is chicken. Although it is not very nice, it still satisfy my hungry stomach! :)

After around 4 hours of flying, we reached Hong Kong! Dark skies are looming over HK and as a result due to the bad weather, our flight from HK to Seoul was delayed for 1 hour. So we took photos at the HK international Airport while waiting for our flight~~


The Airport at HK was really big..but a pity, Krispy Kreme has closed down at the airport already. I had originally planned to buy some back to Singapore for my family...

*Look at the floor, it was all wet after the big rain

After an hour of waiting, we finally board the plane to Seoul! The aircraft we took this time was better than the one we took from Spore to HK! After a few hours, we finally reached Seoul. But it was about 1opm++ Seoul time. As i had won a free cab ride from visitkorea website, i am worried that ther person might not be waiting for us at the arrival gate as we are very late. Incheon International Airport is really big and we have to take an internal train to get to the arrival gate. So we rushed our way out and we saw something interesting!


The spectacles are catered for different age group. This is very user friendly and this act is very considerate for the aged travellers.

Luckily, the person from the Korea Tourism Organisation is still there waiting for us. Really thankful for the lady and we feel so apologetic for making her wait so long for us. Off we go to our hostel! We had booked Banana Backpackers throughout our stay in Seoul. We reached there an hour later!The weather was really very cooling! I realy loved this weather...Unlike Singapore, we only have 2 seasons...rainy and sunny...

*The exterior of Banana Backpackers!

*This is the living room. There is a sofa, TV set, check-in counter and an area where we can get free brochures on Seoul

*This is our room!

After checking in and putting down our luggage, we went to the nearby convenience store, GS25 to get some drinks!

*The vast variety of cup noodles in GS25! Looing at it makes me drool~

*See, there are so many different brand of milk!!

*This is what we got in the end! The famous banana milk which is endorsed by Lee Min Ho!

After bathing and settling down, it is around 1pm.. So we went to bed as we have to wake up early for our trip to Busan!

~End of Day 1

Gmarket again!

It's Gmarket again!! :) This time round, i have only bought around 3kg of goods! Mostly slippers!! And this is my 1st time using DPD and i think it is as good as EMS, but cheaper than EMS! This is how the box looks like!

Hehe! this box is much smaller than my usual Gmarket haul but it looks much more neater! Thanks to the packaging!

Firstly, the shoes!! I have bought quite a number of slippers to be wore at home! All the slippers comes in good condition and the quality is definitely top-notch! Let's take a look!

This pair is a rainbow coloured one and is the one that i loved most!! It's warm when wore and it very smooth to the legs!!!







These 2 pairs are a match! My friend has asked me to bought it for her sis and her brother-in-law!! Hehe!!



and what's more!! This is a free pouch given by the seller! So nice of him/her to give me this free gift!! Tt's why Gmarket give one more when you buy more!




This 2 are the handphone cover i bought for the Iphone!! Its reali nice! I showed it to my friends and they are all tempted to buy! A screen protector is given for free!! Yay~

Ok! this time rd, i bought checkered shirt again!! Its so nice!! Hehe!
I love it! :)

Thanks gmarket for the lovely goods!! I will patronize u again! Thanks!!

Cya!