The Highlight
Day 7, 15 Sept 2017
If you were to ask anyone for places to visit in Seoul, you will definitely hear Bukchon hanok village. A popular place of interest but in my opinion, it had nothing much. I was not sure if we miss out any famous photog spots or it just looked all the same. I want to believe the latter hahah cos it sucks to feel like we missed out on something. Here are a few shots in the village!
Personally, I am not into donning the traditional hanbok or whatsoever so.. the place did not interest me. However it was a sight to see many locals and tourists alike donning the hanbok at Gyeongbokgung Palace slash Gwanghwamun Gate. I believe the hanbok rental places are around the village and wearing the hanbok to the palace gives you free admission.
As we woke up late everyday, time wasn't on our side.. We didn't wear any costumes nor did I manage to get nice shots, it was really hard to sneak up on people and take nice shots. It's a skill I have yet to master in urban photography. Haha. Moreover the sun was really bright today and floating clouds caused my settings to change very frequently. ( You would understand if you shoot on manual mode, it's really a pain in the ass :x)
Quite frustrating and disappointing to not take back lovely pictures of the royal palace and the people dressed in traditional clothes. Sighs, till next time, a chance to improve myself a lot! Despite not having the time to enter GBG to explore its interior, we still manage to spectate the change of guards parade. :)
We settled lunch at a famous Samgyetang (Ginseng Chicken) restaurant. One bowl of Samgyetang costs close to about 15-18 dollars? if I remembered correctly. It was way beyond our budget so we decided to share one portion, just to have a taste of it. The soup was rich but the chicken inside was sparse. The name of the restaurant was 土俗村蔘雞湯토속촌삼계탕.
By the way, they sold Gongcha just outside the restaurant. And since I haven't had Gongcha ever since Liho took over in Singapore, why not buy myself a good drink right? :) Anyways, we received good news! The Lotte duty free concert tickets have arrived and guess who's gonna see Twice later on? Hahah, so freaking excited man. :D It was about 4pm when we went back to samgakji to collect our concert tickets. Wahh Haha is really the MVP thank you so much :)) Without her we wouldn't be able to see our favourite idols perform. So thankful for the help. 10/10 would recommend you to book your stay in her airnbnb if you are coming to Seoul. From amazing hospitality, a motherly figure to take care of your needs overseas to waking up to free home-cooked korean breakfast, what else can we ask for? Jinjja blessed :)
(I will drop the link below. Alternatively, you could search Haha's Guesthouse in Seoul and it should appear under the airbnb searches. Here's the link for here official website: https://blog.naver.com/cookcook4069)
We went back to Myeong dong for the last time to do some last minute shopping. I got myself Twice's the story begins. :) I finally got my hands on their debut album and I am a happy man. With that album, I have collected the full set of albums to their latest one- Signal. Gonna unbox it when I reach home :) Amongst all these, we lost track of time and left a bit too late.
With cosmetics and albums in my bag, we flagged a cab down in hopes of getting to Jamsil Olympic stadium on time. But sad to say, a traffic jam caused us to be late for a full 30 minutes. The traffic jam was untimely indeed. I swear I panicked and worried that I would miss the whole performance of twice if they became the opening act. Having to experience that uneasiness and rushed feelings on our ride there was one of the worst feelings ever.. It really sucked big time. We finally reached the Jamsil olympic stadium and I was running as fast as my legs could carry me. As we did not understand the language they spoke, we ended up running rounds and got redirected like 3-4 times before finding the right spot. But before that we had to exchange our concert tickets for wristbands before we were permitted entry into the stadium. I was panicking and ankles were hurting. It sucks to be late for a concert that I longed to see so much hahah. After receiving our wristbands, it was at this moment when I heard Signal song playing. It was when I knew I am gonna miss this performance already.
Arghh! Kind of sad but there was no time to waste! Trying my best to forget the pain from my legs, we kept running and we finally entered the stadium and saw twice performing. Even though we missed the whole of Signal and one half of Knock Knock, I was glad and thankful I got to see Twice. That moment was priceless.
We got to see twice live for another 3 more songs. I was panting away but smiling away too. Been long man hahaha :)) The 3 songs they performed after the two songs were their other title tracks. Like ooh ahh, Cheer Up and TT. I was elated and I apologise as it's really hard to contain my excitement :D I know it sounds kind of funny as I am writing this.. but at that moment before entering the stadium was a complete state of frenzy and panic. You would understand if you are a fanboy/fangirl yourself hahah. What an experience for us though, who would have expected ourselves to turn up late for a concert? Hahah apart from all the hoo ha and rushed feelings today, the night ended well. Why? Cos nothing beats watching a kpop concert in Korea :) Apink, exo and hwang chi yeul performed too. I felt that concert wraps up our trip to Korea really nicely and it makes the trip complete. It was definitely the highlight of the whole trip. Thank you guys from the bottom of my heart for sharing this moment with me. Jinjja happy :) What a night for the 3 of us, our hearts were full.
But our stomachs aren't! We had dinner at Dong Dae Mun. Apparently Korea's night life is no joke. Hahaha they have stores that open up till next morning and also restaurants to dine at. We ended up eating Yoogane The cheese was sick and I ate till I was bloated. The restaurant also had my favourite song playing. :) Also, you wouldn't be able to get such cheap Yoogane in Singapore hahah. In Singapore, everything feels ridiculously over priced. Hahaha that one meal just made us feel that we finally treated ourselves to good food. It came to our realisation that we were too busy rushing from place to place in an event-filled week that we hardly sat down just to enjoy korean delicacy. After dinner, we chilled by the Cheonggyecheon stream and talk about life till 2am in the morning. We shared our thoughts on this trip while we enjoyed the tranquility of the night by the stream. The heart to heart talk was a moment to remember!
Supposedly, it was time to head home but we ended up shopping at Doota mall till it was 5am. Crazy, you don't see such malls that open till such timings in singapore. Moreover we weren't the only ones shopping too! Hahah. Pretty much windowed shop and settled our expenses at the cafe. The clothes were very pricey and thick. I believe doota mall is catered specifically for travellers with layover flights or flights that run at the wee hours of the night. It was approximately 5-6am when we returned to our comfortable apartment. Today was long but amazing!
