Monday, March 8, 2010

The Last EPIC Journey Part 9: Insadong, Nanishow & Relaxing with Bonjuk...

The Last EPIC Journey Part 9: Insadong, Nanishow & Relaxing with Bonjuk...

Fri Feb 12/10

ON THE WAY TO INSADONG AND NANISHOW
I have discovered that, on most occasions, when I try to get to a place based on memories of when I was last here...I get lost. We decided to go to Insadong to shop at Nanishow, which is a store that sells really nice, unique jewellery.

My friend Sunny, actually owns the store. Well, I led Chris in the direction of what I thought was the right way to Insadong. After 15 minutes of walking, I realized I was going the wrong way...ooops! We headed back in the opposite direction and eventually found Insadong and the Ssamziegil building. I was happy to see Sunny there and she was happy to see me too. We quickly caught up and I introduced her to Chris. We shopped around her store. There are always so many things I'd like to buy there! I asked Sunny if we could plan to eat lunch or dinner together. Monday is the best day for both our schedules, so we made the plans.

Chris and I bought quite a few pieces and Sunny gave us each a free pair of earrings! She's so nice and am overwhelmed by her generosity. Our initial plan was to shop at Insadong and then go to Ehwa Women's University, but we dropped so much cash at Nanishow, that we didn't want to do anymore major shopping for the day.

Ssamziegil Building
We wandered upstairs so that Chris could see the works of other artisans. We went by the glasses shop again and took these hilarious photos with the glasses on. There is one pic of Chris that makes me laugh out loud every time I see it. She just looks so dazed and confused! Chris took pictures of all the great artistic pieces around the building and I showed her the walls where everyone left their mark and added their own graffiti. Chris and I added our messages and I tried to find the ones Nick and I left last time, but I couldn't remember where they were.

TEAstory
I dragged Chris to a tea shop and we had cinnamon tea and five spice tea with traditional sweets. Everything was great except for the green tea dark chocolate, which was superbittter. Chris was taking pictures of me eating it and we made a photostory of our experience there. We laughed as we took photos. The place had a lovely ambiance and we had a window seat overlooking Insadong street where the shoppers and tourists bustled along.

BONJUK
Ever since Chris saw a porridge restaurant featured in a Korean tv drama called Boys Over Flowers (based on a Japanese manga), she has been craving it. Not to mention, this specific place called Bonjuk were able to land two of the cast members as their spokespeople. Chris was hoping that if we ate there or ordered food, she could score the calendar that featured the onscreen couple. It turns out Bonjuk isn't only a porridge restaurant...there are porridge restaurants and regular restaurants with Korean food. We looked through the menu and selected some dishes. Luckily enough the girls that work there saw our disappointment at not getting a calendar, they gave us the special take out bags with them on it. Chris felt a little compensated haha.

SHWEEEETSS
We ordered food to go and headed back to the guesthouse. We also bought bath salts to take advantage of the tub once we cleaned it. On our way back, Chris noticed another UNIQLO. She loves this store! She walked on, but was disappointed to see that the prices were higher than in Japan. While she perused the racks, I dropped by a bakery and bought a slice of cake to go.

We dropped by another bakery and bought a green tea roll cake. It's vacation time, so we wanted to spoil ourselves. On we continued, until our eyes saw another Bonjuk sign. It turns out that it is a brand new location and won't open until the 16th. Chris wants to drop by and try the food kekeke. Chris also hit the GS store to buy some beer. She bought a few different ones to try them out.

PHONE CARDS SUCK
We told my friend at Beewon that we would come down later to drink together with her. She told us to start ahead as her boss would be coming by. We went upstairs to take baths, eat dinner and relax. We watched some korean tv - mostly music shows and then we headed down to do some drinking in the den. My friend wasn't able to join us and I realized that I had to call Tito Eric and Tita Cynthia to make plans for tomorrow.

It's a long complicated story and all I can say is that I was running in and out of the building trying to buy a phone card to call them. After a lot of wasted time, I ended up asking my friend, the receptionist, to help me call their hotel and connect us to their room! Ah thank goodness! Made the plans and headed back to Chris to drink and eat the vendor food we had purchased. Not too long after, we decided to call it a night. It was a productive day and we were exhausted.

Good Night,

Sam ^__^

The Last EPIC Journey Part 8: Snowy Seoul

N.B. I am already back home and these journals have been delayed as we were superbusy and I was very sick at the tail end of the Korean trip and into the Philippines...so sick, we almost didn't make it to the Philippines! It will be in the journals later on.

The Last EPIC Journey Part 8: Snowy Seoul

Thurs. Feb 11/10

Snowy Seoul & Beewon Guesthouse
When we arrived in Seoul it was snowing. The many Japanese people who were on our flight were ecstatic and taking photographs. Japan has not gotten much of it. We found our bus and bought our tickets and were soon on our way to our guesthouse. When we arrived at Beewon, we checked in. The girl at the desk remembered me from previous travels there. Luckily we had a 2nd floor room, because our luggage has already started getting heavy.

While Chris took a shower, I ordered 2 orders of ja jang myun (noodles with black bean sauce and vegetables) and an order of fried mandu (dumplings) delivery. This only cost $11.00. I always order this at some point during my trips to Seoul. So we quickly gobbled this down and got ready to meet Tito Eric and Tita Cynthia. Tito Eric was dad's best friend in school and they only reunited last year. Tito Eric and his wife coincidentally were spending a few days in Seoul for Valentine's Day weekend. We had arranged to meet two days and I would be the tour guide.

Lost
We made it to the Cerestar Mall where the hotel was attached, but we were confused as to where the hotel entrance was. We somehow got lost in the floors in between and were in and out of staircases. I finally asked another person how to get to the right elevators and we were directed to the hotel elevators. We got to their floor, but there was no lobby, so we went back in the elevator and Chris noticed the lobby floor. We finally found them!!

We took them to Myeongdong, since Tito Eric was looking for shoes and we thought Tita Cynthia might like shopping there. It was crazy as always. We popped into CT Records - my friend Song's store. Song and Jin Young were working and we shopped around. I introduced them to Chris and Uncle Eric and Tita Cynthia. Song gave me a free Boys Over Flowers poster for Tita Cynthia.

Chris and I did some shopping and I was able to snag a poster of Hyun Joong who starred in the Korean drama version of Boys Over Flowers for Tita Cynthia at a store called Tony Moly. Apparently we had to spend 10 000 won to get it, but I asked the guy at the cash very nicely ;) Chris has finally seen me in action, using the "dizon charm" to get my way hahaah. She's a fast learner as you will read.

K-BBQ FEAST
We window shopped and power shopped where necessary LOL. Tita Cynthia and Tito Eric were very patient! We stopped by two bakeries to look for snacks. Eventually we got hungry and looked for a restaurant. They had mentioned that they wanted Korean BBQ, so we tried a new restaurant. For some reason we were treated extremely well at this restaurant. I don't know if it was because they were nervous because we were English speakers or what. They called a specific waiter in and he served us the whole night cooking or food, constantly changing the grill and re-filling our side dishes. I used my limited Korean but it seemed that the staff kept checking in to see how we were doing. There was a really random moment when Chris got up from her chair and it tipped and hit the glass wall where we were sitting (probably b/c she had her heavy stuff hanging on it)...well a few of the staff rushed in all worried. I don't know if they were worried about the wall, or if they thought Chris collapsed or something. We were so full afterwards.

We took them back to their hotel in Dongdaemun and then we scooted to the Doota department store. We rushed through as we were tired - Chris especially. We rested for a bit with some smoothies and then headed back to Beewon. We watched a bit of TV before sleeping.

-Sam ^__^