Sunday, December 29, 2013

Jocelyn & Lennart's Free & Easy Trip to Seoul, Korea 01/11/13 - 06/11/13 : Day 3, Part 2, Lunch at the famous Chuncheonjip Dakgalbi Makguksu & shopping at Sinchon Ladies Street, Finale of the day at Namsan Seoul Tower

After taking countless pictures with many many many different scenes at Trick Eye Museum, time for us to go for lunch! You get hungry very easily in cold weather.

We walked back to Hongik University Station and took the train to Sinchon Station, it's only one stop away. Jocelyn said we should go try the famous dakgalbi there, lots of good reviews of the dakgalbi.
Below is the map that we found from another site to share with you of the location.



Directions to Chuncheonjip Dakgalbi Makguksu:
1) Take Subway Line 2 to Sinchon Station.
2) Exit from Exit 1, go straight turn left onto the first side street and then turn right at the end of the street (Hyundai Department Store is a landmark there)
3) Go straight for 130m and cross the street
4) The restaurant is next to Changcheon Children's Park

Ok for those we don't know, dakgalbi means Chicken Hotplate, it's a Korean dish where the marinated chicken is cooked over a hotplate infront of you, there's vegetables, onions, chicken meat, Korean chilli paste, you can choose to have rice or ramyeon cooked together with it or you can have the rice and chicken separately.

We ordered dakgalbi with ramyeon, the fresh chopped uncooked chicken meats and vegetables were delievered fast to our table by the efficient staffs. At first look, you would think that you need to cook your own food however you are wrong, the staffs would ask you to sit down relax, have a drink and the side dishes while they move around and help you with the cooking. Service is good!

Look at the crowd and this is around 1.30+pm cannot imagine during lunch the crowd would be like how. Lots of tourists and locals come to this shop to eat the dakgalbi, 4 out of 5 stars for the food and service!

And they provide you with an apron to protect your clothings from any spurting from the pan. We added cheese to it, it kinds of mellow downs the spicyness and gave it abit of saltiness to it.


We ordered rice to be added later into it after we finished about 1/2 of the chicken and all of the rice cakes. You can order without Ramyeon and have rice instead because it is really very full afterwards!

After the filling and tasty lunch, getting some directions from Rachel earlier, we decided to walk to Sinchon Ladies Street Market.
It is not very difficult and you can tell if you are on the right track because you can see alot of people walking the same trial, lots of local young and old also walk to Sinchon Ladies Street.


Ok so from the restaurant, we crossed the street and walked along and turn left into the first side street and then go straight again until you passed Pizza Hut and you would see alot of people walking along these street and you would need to cross again at a T-junction traffic light. Follow the crowd and continue walking till you see this!

Sinchon old train station!, that's the landmark, continue walking along the street and straight ahead is Sinchon Ladies Street.
This is the start of the Ladies street, lots of cosmetics, 10,000won shops, ladies tops, street food etc etc.
A place where many locals and tourists alike like to shop.

Well Jocelyn personally like this 10,000won bag shop, all bags, big or small is only at 10,000won at this shop. She bought 2 bags one for her daughter and one for herself. I got myself a sling bag =D

I also got myself a nice lanyard with money clip at 15,000won at one of their road stalls, lots of nice things to buy, look and eat here!

After walking, window shopping, shopping, tasting street food till 4+ we decided to take a cab back to Hotel, drop off our shopping loots, rest for awhile before going to the Concierge and ask for directions to Seoul Tower.

Well silly me, I didn't realise that Seoul Tower is just so close to our hotel hahaha, it is just a walk across the street. Well the walk took us about 20mins - 30mins, as the pathway is rather uphill, good excersise to burn off the Dakgalbi this afternoon and such a nice cooling weather to walk. You won't even break a sweat at 18degrees celsius!


Finally we reached the Cable Car Station! Queued up to buy tickets, there's alot of people since it's a weekend, many locals and tourist alike wants to take the cable up to see the scenery.


Got us both a round trip ticket at 17,000won. Queued to go up to the topmost level of the cable car boarding platform.

The sky started to turn dark around 5.30 real quick, that's the shot of the tower at last light of the day in the cable car

That's a shot of Seoul from the cable car

 We're finally at the base of Seoul Tower! Pretty lights in the night, like a huge light saber hahaha

Bought both of us a ticket up to Seoul Tower, it includes a visit to the Teddy Bear Museum at the base of Seoul Tower.







Oh for couples. this is a very romantic place to come and take photos with your loved ones. A place for families to come have dinner, walk about, take photos.

They even let you and partner write your love down onto a padlock, lock it around the fences and then throw the keys away. It's called a Love Lock =) 

For those who forgot to buy the lock do not worry, the convenience store at the Cable Car Station sells padlock for a cheap fee, just a simple lock. If you are looking for prettier, fancier ones, you can buy them at the shop of the base at Seoul Tower but they are abit more pricier.






 It's really cold up at Seoul Tower in the night, for those who are afraid of the cold please bring your jacket up. You will need to walk abit of steps up once you alight from the cable car. The temperature drops real quick in the night.

Took alot of photos and it's already 8pm, decided to leave and head back down to Myeongdong for dinner.
Need to sleep early tonight as we need to wake up early tomorrow. Tomorrow is the highlight of our trip! Our postponed trip to Everland since Day 2 due to bad weather. In the next post, we will give exact directions on how to get there using their public transport.

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