Seoul & Jeju, South Korea

I just got back from my first trip to South Korea, so let me blog about it here. It was our firm's partners' retreat, so they put us up for 4 nights in The Westin Chosun Seoul. It was conveniently located within walking distance near the Myeongdong shopping district and a short taxi ride from the major attractions. The hotel organised shuttle transport for us to and from Incheon Airport. My group of friends travelled without our families this trip, so we had a lot of freedom to plan and explore at our own time.

So anyway, to maximise the short time we had there, we took a flight the night before (as did most of us) so that we would get there early the next morning, and that would give us almost a whole day before checking in for the night. We took Singapore Airlines and the flight was comfortable enough, although I must say the food standard seemed to have dropped.

After putting down our stuff and having lunch at the Lotte Department Store which was just behind our hotel, we went out to Myeondong to search for this:

I see almost everyone who has been to Seoul has Instagrammed this at least once, and I can see why. It was totally yummy - yogurt gelato. The name of the shop is Milky Bee and there are a few outlets in Myeondong itself. Usual price is 5500 won (around RM20) but on that day it was on offer for 3800 won (around RM14). I must say that food (even street food) in Seoul is not cheap.

After having lunch and our ice cream, we headed in the direction of Gyeongbokgung Palace. There are actually quite a number palaces in Seoul, but since this was the biggest and supposedly the grandest, we decided to only visit this one. Before going in to the palace though, we went to rent a hanbok (traditional Korean dress). By wearing a hanbok, entrance to all the palaces are free.

Here are some shots we took on the palace grounds:

That was quite a fun thing to do, and we didn't feel out of place as there were so many other people wearing it, locals and tourists alike. There are plenty of shops around the palace giving out hanbok rentals so we were quite spoilt for choice. In the end we chose a 2 hour rental for 15,000 won (around RM55) which was quite a good deal.

That night, we googled and found a place to have Korean barbeque, and we found this place which came highly recommended. The problem is that it was housed in a commercial building and our GPS just couldn't seem to locate it. We almost gave up, but managed to find it in the end, and we were not disappointed. The premium beef was the best beef we have ever tasted (they used pork lard to cook it haha). It did not come cheap though - we ordered 2 portions of 150g beef for 39,000 won (around RM143) per portion. This restaurant is called "The Me" and I can't find it on Google now or else I would provide the link here. Anyway, look at those great cuts of meat - really melt in your mouth!

The next day, my colleague Ai Li and I took a tour to Jeju Island which we had pre-booked before the trip. It is about an hour's flight from Seoul, so the tour covered our return flight tickets to go and come back in a day. The main reason of us wanting to go to Jeju is because it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and our tour that day would cover 2 of those sites on Jeju.

The transport came to pick us up really early in the morning - 5.45 am so the hotel was kind enough to serve us room service breakfast in our room at 5 am for no extra cost. We reached Jeju around 8.15 am and the tour picked us up from the airport around 9 am. The first stop was horseback-riding, and then we made our own citrus ice-cream as Jeju is famous for it's citrus fruits. We ate the ice-creams which we made ourselves with Jeju's beautiful scenery as our backdrop.

After that, we visited a local folk village, where we were given a tour of how the locals lived.

This is another thing which Jeju is famous for - the black pig.

So obviously we had it for lunch :)

After lunch, we headed to Seongsan Ilchulbong or Sunrise Peak, which is a UNESCO heritage site. The peak is famous for its crater, and even though we did not come at sunrise, it did provide splendid views. I did not climb all the way to the top (as our tour guide told us it was 500 over steps) so I was contented with taking photos of it from below haha.

One interesting thing we witnessed however, were these women divers which are an intangible cultural heritage inscribed by UNESCO. They are elderly women (as we understand from our tour guide that young women no longer wish to do this job) who go down to the sea to gather shell fish such as abalone and sea urchin without the help of oxygen masks.

We had a taste of fresh abalone sashimi straight from the sea for 10,000 won (around RM37) and it was delicious, even for me who does't eat raw stuff. The texture of the fresh abalone was crunchy, not like the usual chewy, rubbery texture we are used to.

Our last stop for the day was to Manjanggul Cave (also a UNESCO heritage site) which is a lava cave. A lava cave or tunnel is formed when the lava that was deep in the ground spouts from the peak and flows to the surface. Only about 1km of the 13,422m Manjanggul Cave is open to tourists. It was really cold and wet inside the cave but quite amazing to realise that volcanic lava used to flow through these tunnels.

We arrived back in Seoul around almost 9 pm and took a bus from Gimpo Airport back to Myeongdong. Even though we were up really early that morning, we had sporadic naps throughout the day on the plane and in the bus, so we were quite awake to have some supper at the Myeongdong night market! Here are some glimpses of the night market food:

The next morning, it was an early morning again for us as this time we booked a tour to Nami Island and the surrounding areas. We didn't have to be as early as the previous morning, so we managed to have breakfast at the hotel's lounge (our rooms came with executive lounge access) before heading to the tour meeting point.

Our first stop in the tour was The Garden Of Morning Calm. There were lots of Instagram-worthy sites in the garden, but to be honest, I think the photos which we saw of it looked better. Maybe all the flowers were not in full bloom yet, but it was still pretty nonetheless.

Next stop was Nami Island itself. We were quite disappointed that we could not get to try the zipwire to Nami Island as the slots were fully booked - maybe next time! So we took the ferry instead. Nami Island is famous for where the Korean drama "Winter Sonata" was filmed.

There were also these cute snowmen things all over the island.

While waiting for the ferry to go back, we mailed postcards back home (obviously we arrived home before the postcards did lol).

The final stop on our tour that day was the Gangchon Rail Park. One rail bike fits 4 persons, so it was just nice for the 4 of us. The rail bike track is built on an actual train track which is no longer in use, but there was an instance where cars had to stop for the rail bikes to pass through!

We pedaled for 8.1 km (around 40 minutes) and we went through "themed" tunnels such as tunnels with bubbles, fairy lights and disco! Along the way, we saw lots of nice scenery too.

That night, it was more eating and shopping at Myeongdong. I managed to try my favourite tteok-bokki (rice cakes) and we also had beef bulgogi.

And then we had dessert at this Korean dessert cafe called Sulbing. It was late at night but it was full house. This was one of their signature desserts. There were others as well but we were too stuffed from dinner, so we just ordered this to share and try.

The next day, I finally got to try the hotel buffet breakfast, and this french toast was the best I have eaten!

We had nothing planned for the day, so we did some shopping around the duty free shops and Myeongdong area and then got ready for our partners' meeting at 4 pm to be held at the hotel. What we thought was a "meeting" ended up being a really fun, interactive taekwondo lesson! That's us with the master.

And in the evening, the firm organised a dinner and performance for us at Korea House. That's my boss wearing a hanbok for dinner :)

The dinner was quite good, ala Korean fine dining but we were quite rushed as we needed to catch the performance which was held right after dinner. No pictures taken of the performance but it was really professionally done, and highly entertaining.

So that's a wrap for Seoul! It was definitely a productive 5 days, considering we saw (and ate!) quite a fair bit. Hope to back someday with the family :)