6 In Food in Korea/ hidden gems of Korea/ Korea 대한민국/ Photography/ Seoul 2014

[Seoul 2014] Just loads of food

Congratulations. I’ve outdone myself and I’m soo behind my blogging schedule for the Korea trip (lies, there isnt one) that I barely remembered what I did in chronological order.

In any case, it would be a tad creepy to have all of you know what I did everyday so Im going to blog about certain things I did.

Which essentially translates to eating and shopping and watching my only love’s movie comeback.

Let’s talk about the food.

For two days, I hanged out with a new friend SH whom I met online as a language exchange partner. SH’s from Busan so I was super touched he made the trip up!

SH rented a car at City Hall and Im very very impressed with how easy it is to rent one!! You make the booking via an app and you just have to go to the nearest pickup point (ours was a carpark in a random office building). You have to return it to the same place though so that may be inconvenient for some.

However I was very unimpressed by Seoul’s traffic conditions. I don’t drive but even I know that it’s ridiculous to take over an hour to get to a place that’s probably like 15 mins away on foot. The GPS system lied to us lol. We made the turns according to instructions and all we managed to do is to still circle in that vicinity.

SH was rather flustered and sorry that we had to spend a large part of the afternoon in the car but I was just so amused and rather enjoyed sitting down in an air-conditioned car. We finally managed to reach the place for lunch after 1hr I think.

It’s apparently quite a traditional restaurant and quite famous too (haha sorry don’t ask me where it was)

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They have different set courses and depending on the price level, the amount and type of food will vary slightly too. It starts from 15,000, followed by 22,000 and 33,000won (I think). We got the 22,000won per person set and omg it was like a king’s feast!

THERE WAS SO MUCH TO EAT.

Did I mention that we got a private room to ourselves? I love sitting on the floor 😀

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This is just 1/4 of the food we got.

The two plates besides the bossam contained my favourite side dishes!! The top one is oyster and the bottom one is octopus / squid!!!

They go super well with rice!

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The food just keeps coming!

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Love the crab!!!!!!!

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I love 계란짐 (steamed egg). Egg is like a staple in my diet.

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Photo-taking time! I think the waitress was very amused at how excited I was.

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영양밥! I love the rice and I finished it all lol.

The meal was really good but it’s impossible to finish all the food. I’m no small eater but I still can’t finish them all.

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I always look THIS happy in Korea. I never look like that here!

By the way, I didn’t put any filter or photoshop the photo ok (taken on my phone’s front camera). I always feel insulted when people ask me that. I know I don’t look like that here in SG tsk!

In any case, we decided to return the car after lunch (because there’s no point, the jam’s terrible) and proceeded to tour around a few places.

Dinner at a random 부대찌개 restaurant in Hongdae that SH found online!

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super yummy side dishes

At first I was quite skeptical because the shop was empty save a single customer but it did look very pretty and quaint.

THE FOOD WAS AWESOME.

Now I know you can’t judge a restaurant by the number of patrons haha.

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The stew was excellent (this coming from a person who doesn’t like 부대찌개)!! We had seconds for the banchan and both of us polished off 3 bowls of rice together. I can’t believe I ate 1.5 bowls of rice. It was that good.

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Decided to rent another car and go on a drive again – it was much more pleasant at night since the traffic was better! Nothing very eventful, we wanted to go to hangang but ended up just driving past. The photo above was taken along 반포대교, which is my favourite bridge along Han River. I had very good memories walking across the bridge with a friend 2 years ago – after having a picnic by the river and visiting the floating platform buildings (the lighted up ones in the photo).

aww memories <3

I stupidly suggested to go to 팔각정 because it’s supposedly good for night scenery (google 팔각정 야경). I don’t know much about the scenery part (it was raining, I couldn’t see anything) BUT I never realised how high up it was until we started circling up and up. I’m very glad SH is a good driver.

The stupid thing is that I didn’t know I would have breathing problems in high altitude (to be honest it wasn’t that high……) But yeah, I couldn’t breathe properly in the car on the way up. x.x Now I know I can never climb mountains…

Back to Hongdae for supper!!

I love how it’s so normal to be spontaneous in Korea and meeting friends means going to 2차, 3차 and so on. The day never ends 😛

Went back to a 술집(?) that I frequent quite often during my Korea trips! My camera takes excellent photos in the dark lol. The shop was so dimly lit!

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Had a beer (which I barely drank because I wasn’t feeling that good)

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I love this 안주! Never know what it’s called but yumms.

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We had seafood pancake (which was ok only) and super yums fruit punch thingy (sorry I have memory problems – anyone wants to remind me what is it called??)

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Okay, so much for saying that I don’t want to describe my entire day to you guys. I just did it. lolol. Oh well, at least I’m not going to number it Day XX.

So that was how I spent 2/3s of a day in Korea 😀

I hope you will read this really slowly (and re-read it lol) because I don’t know when I’ll have the mood to blog again 😛

Next Korea blog post should be about the “Man from the stars” 별에서 온 그대 exhibition that I went to!

 

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6 Comments

  • Reply
    Charles Vought
    18 August, 2014 at 10:46 PM

    Wow! Looks like an amazing trip. Actually the first thing that struck me when I loaded this page was the new layout of the website; I like that it’s larger and showcases your images so much nicer. I think it looks more sophisticated. And darn does that food look delicious. Taking a look at the pictures of food…….do establishments really use that many dishes for one setting? I mean…..here in America we’re all about generating the least amount of plates, bowls, and utensils as possible.

    • Reply
      Hangukdrama
      20 August, 2014 at 9:49 PM

      Thanks!! Yeahh it’s amazing how many dishes they use. :/ washing up is gonna be such a chore

  • Reply
    Angela
    18 August, 2014 at 10:50 PM

    Hey Shanna!
    Please continue blogging about your trip! 😀 I’ll be travelling to Korea by myself in Oct and I’m hoping to get more ideas of what I can do in Korea from your blog. (I only started learning korean in April so, erm, wish me luck)

    • Reply
      Hangukdrama
      20 August, 2014 at 9:48 PM

      Will do so!! Wow it’s gonna be fun!! Email me if u need help

  • Reply
    ethel
    19 August, 2014 at 1:15 PM

    is the 팔각정 place very far from hongdae? it looks so pretty! and the fruit punch thing is 화채 haha

    • Reply
      Hangukdrama
      20 August, 2014 at 9:47 PM

      THANK YOU hahah omg i have been cracking my brain over it lol. Hehe nope not v far. It’s in jongro!! But the drive up quite scary lol.

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