Back in July, I headed to Korea with another friend, Alyssa to travel and participate in an International exchange summer program in Pai Chai University, Daejeon that starts in the 5th of August. So my friend and I decided to head to Korea about 9 days earlier to travel and explore Korea by immersing ourself into their culture. But i think Seoul can be finished exploring in about 7 days (not entirely but with a good amount of knowledge + immersion, depending on the speed/rate you travel from places to places).
The flight took about 6 hours and when we finally arrived, we find ourselves lost in the airport. Well, it wasn't very big but the language were so foreign that we struggle to understand even when they are trying to speak in English. So anyhow, we bought a bus ticket (about 10k won) straight from Incheon to where we are going to spend our nights in, Hong Dae. The ticket was for a bus ride that was only 10 minutes away from departure and the bus seriously leaves on time! I was so amazed by their punctuality. The entire ride was about 1 hours. The ride was also extremely comfortable and the bus driver was extremely helpful in notifying us of our arrival to our desired destination.
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| The bus stations. P/S: INCHEON AIRPORT IS EXTREMELY BEAUTIFUL |
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| Taken during the bus ride. |
Anyways, even so, we found ourselves in a very large, people-filled city who mostly are young adults like us. We walked and walked with our luggages for about an hour and finally found our accommodation. Don't get me wrong, Korea has extremely good directions but our accommodation/hostel is like a freaking hidden cottage that you'll never find unless you have magic powers. But once manage to find it, we were never lost again. It was actually pretty easy to find if you know exactly where it is, It's just straight roads and a few small turnings. Anyways, that hostel is called "Kimchee Hong Dae". I know, it sounds extremely cheesy and it even cracked me up but what I can say from my experience is how friendly the staff members are and how the people living there are also as friendly (they seem to be mostly travellers/clubbers). The best part is that it is extremely cheap too! About 20-30k won per night.
I don't have a picture of that place but here's the link to their website! :D
Well, so when we reached, it was already in the evening. So Alyssa and I decided to head over to where all the activity is and look for food there. Since our trip runs on an extremely low budget, we didn't enter restaurants, instead we ate from.....
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FOOD STALLS!
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| A food stall (My fav in Hong Dae) |
It is one of the best methods to save money in the city of Seoul. We get free soup (unlimited) which is amazing for a cold day and we also get amazing food that many people consider it as part of their culture. Some of the things we love eating most is their Odeng (fishcakes), teokbokki (spicy rice cakes), some fried shrimp thingy that resembles tempura, glass noodles wrapped in seaweed and deep fried, and Sundae (blood sausage - my weird friend's favourite while I could not even withstand the taste of it). So do try them out! The prices range from 1000 won to about 6000 won? We both agreed that it's one of the cheapest food that you may get in the city.
And to fill ourselves even more (since we're pretty big eaters), we went to the convenient stores and bought instant rice where we can eat in instantly after microwaving it in the store. If you do not like rice, you can always choose to eat their instant noodles/bread/sausages/triangle shaped rice balls that looks extremely similar to onigiri except they call it the 'sam gap kim bap'/just kim bap - rice rolls.
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| Tteokbokki (picture credits to peterl13.wordpress) |
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| Odeng (picture credits to scarfstealer.tumblr) |
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| Tempura looking things (picture credits to rebloggy.com) |
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| Sundae (blood sausage) - picture credits to hy1004.com |
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| Other foods that you may be interested in which I didn't mention (picture credits to firstwefeast.com) |
If the food in the convenient stores doesn't fancy you, you could try looking at other food stalls by the street selling AWESOME food like...
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| Bungeopbang - Fish shaped cake filled with Red bean paste costs about 2k won for 3-5 of them. (picture credits to lowbudgetkorea.com) |
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| As you can see, they call it the Korean style hotdog but my friend and I understand that it was actually a corndog. Sells for about 2k won each and tastes amazing! P/s: It's flour and hot dog. |
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| The tornado potato! Sells for 2k won each and is amazzzinnnngggg.. Sold in mainly myeongdong, not sure if they have it in Hong Dae. But hey! if anyone does see it, tell me ! (photocredits to migrationalogy) |
Anyways, Hong Dae does not only offer good food but amazing art works as well! Hong dae is famously known for their urban arts, indie music culture as well as their clubs! So we headed around and found a long street where amazing artworks surrounding us and different music was played every 10-15 steps we take! The amazing thing is that with that every 10-15 steps, we can start off listening to a ballad and after that 15 steps, we end up listening to rock music. The genres change and the musicians strut their stuff without interference. Yes, literally no interference. When you step away from their crowd and move on to other artists, you listen to the current artist much more that the others are blocked out and becomes part of the background noise. It's amazing! (yes, i know i'm ranting but it is that amazing and the best part is that they're very good). In this part of town, creativity was everywhere from the street artists to the shops in the area.
Here are some of the best pictures I have taken.
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| One of my korean friends explained that due to a lack of space in korea, they make it up by setting up shops underground and build highly compact building. This is a fine example of it and how they made it look so amazing. T.T |
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| A truck/minivan turned into a shop. |
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| A coffee house that captured our attention so much. I swear to god, it was more beautiful in person. \ |
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| A wall graffiti that stopped me in my tracks. |
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| A painting exhibition in the long street i was telling you about. |
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| A random chair. YES, it's so random that it was then that i realized that Koreans are actually pretty random themselves. That is awesome. |
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| I still cannot believe this is a shop that sells tteobokki. MAN. |
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| Hongik University, where Hong Dae got its name from or vice versa. Not sure. |
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| The side of an extremely beautiful shop. |
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| The front of the extremely beautiful shop. |
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| And a very ancient looking shop. |
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| And then we're back to modern graffiti. Still awesome but very messy looking. |
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| One of my favourite places in Hong Dae (it's both an art academy and a shop that sells inspiringly creative things). |
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| LASTLY, a random picture. |
The best of Hong Dae does not lie in its shopping malls or their clubs (in my opinion) but lies in the expression of their culture and arts (through murals, graffiti, design of shops, music and more) as well as their rare flea markets (in a park near Hongik University) where artists gather to sells their handcrafted goods that range from jewelleries to ornaments.
if you do ever drop by or get the chance to visit, be sure to NOT stay in during the nights and head out to shop/club/just walk.
“The
buildings here are oddly shaped and each differs from one another with a unique
design assigned to each” - A note from my diary during Korea.
Michelle
2 comments:
Michelley :)
I wish I can post a blog like this <3 this is amazing :D
Useful Michelle :P
THANK YOU USEFUL MICHELLE. <3 hahah
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