First Night in Seoul

Our first night in Seoul is a pretty short one. After a 12 hours plane ride (see this post for my recap video), we took a taxi to our hotel and settled in while waiting for my other 2 friends to join us (they took a different flight from Asia). We stayed at Hotel Manu that we found from Agoda website. Since it’s a fairly new hotel, we decided to give it a try. Plus it looks good from all the photos that we look online. The hotel didn’t disappoint. The room that we got looks exactly like the images that we saw and it’s neat and clean. The location is also very convenient. There are restaurants and convenience market nearby and its only about 3 min walk to the subway station entrance (Seoul Station exit 8).

One thing that we weren’t expecting was this: I was trying to figure out how to turn on the air conditioner in the room, but I can’t figure it out since all the instructions is in Korean. So I called the front desk and asked if they could help me turn on the AC in the room, and the response that I got was: “I’m sorry, but this is not the season for air conditioner yet. Only heater is working. Please open your windows.” That was my first time hearing this kind of response, so me and my friends burst into laughter after I hung up the phone. Luckily, the weather is pretty cool and breezy at night so after opening the windows to let some cool fresh air came in, problem solved. Here are a few snapshots of where we stayed for the whole duration of our trip.

After we rest for a bit, we decided to took a short night stroll around the area. The weather was perfect. We walked towards the Seoul gate and grab some food on our way back. That’s pretty much first the first night.

6 Days in South Korea

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’m back from South Korea. Life feels a little mundane here in Seattle compared to the 6 days I spent in South Korea. It was too short of a trip, but it was a sweet short trip that I think I needed, a nice change of pace from my ordinary daily routine.

During those 6 days, I was blessed with good companies, good food, and lots of laughter. I believe having a good company(ies) on a trip is a crucial factor in making or breaking your travel experience. In this case, I’m lucky enough to get to travel with my sister and a couple of my close friends who are pretty laid back and have similar interests, activities and places that we want to do or visit. It really made planning and travelling so much easier and less stressful.

We went to a good number of places (considering our short stay), ate various local Korean foods, shopping in different districts of Seoul, and got lost a couple of times. But hey, what is travel without getting a little lost right? I think that’s the charm of exploring a new city :)

Finding good food is hardly a problem in Seoul. Food stalls and restaurants that open ’til late are everywhere. Everything that we ate taste pretty much delicious to me. They have a good range of selections of dishes. The only thing is, most of the menu is in Korean, so knowing how to read Hangul comes a little handy in this kind of situations. One thing I love about South Korea’s sweet food is that they are not overtly sweet. It’s just the right amount not to make you feel that you just ate a spoonful of sugar like most American sweet foods are.

During my stay, I did things that I haven’t done for a long time. Take walking everywhere around the city and taking subways for example. I once reminded once again that there are so much more to see when you slow down in life. Even though everything is pretty much fast paced in Seoul, walking is still slower than driving around the city, which is what I pretty much do everyday here in Seattle. I saw so many interesting and intriguing things around me and become more aware of my surroundings. It almost feels like all my senses are woken up from a deep sleep. That week could well be the most I walk on foot in the past 2 years :p

Anyways, I’m going to start posting my travel stories from my South Korea trip in the next couple of days. Since there were quite a bit that we did and saw, I’m going to break it down into a couple of different posts. Plus, it’ll give me time to sort through my images too (there LOTS of pictures from my camera that I need to go through still).

South Korea is a place that I definitely want to go back to. I think most of us have ‘Korea Withdrawal’ after we got back from Seoul. There are still plenty too see and do in Seoul and outside Seoul. I feel like I just crossed out one item from my bucket list but then adding another one :)

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Sneak Peak: Seoul Day 5

On day 5, we went exploring the Hongdae/Hongik Area for some sightseeing and lots of shopping. We spent our morning at the Trickeye Museum and went on a shopping spree for the rest of the day. Stay tuned for the full post.

Sneak Peak: Seoul Day 4

Time seems to flew so fast when we were in Seoul. Before I knew it, it’s already day 4! I can’t believe it. We spent the half of our day outside Seoul again today. We went to Nami Island early in the morning and then stopped by Petite French on our way back to Seoul. We spent our afternoon at Namsan Tower and then headed to Myeongdong for some dinner and late night shopping. We were beat, but we managed to go to a lot of places that we wanted to go. It was a great day.

Sneak Peak: Seoul Day 3

Here’s a summary of our third day in South Korea. We took a 5-hours road trip from Seoul to Boseong to visit Daehan Dawon Green Tea Plantation (보성녹차밭 대한다원). The weather was nice, but it got really hot during the day. We were hiking under the sun and a bright blue sky. The view from the top was amazing. Will follow up with a more detailed post. Stay tuned.