Lunar New Year in Seoul…again

January was a difficult month because Rob was teaching intensives (torturous 12 hour days) and I was taking a few extra classes too (including an extra afternoon kindy trial class which is really hard work!)

We wanted to go on a spa trip or something relaxing for our 4 day Seollal (Lunar New Year) break, but we were offered free accommodation at our friends’ apartment in Seoul, while they were on holiday. It turned out well because we had no money by the end of the month anyway! We planned to do a few things that we hadn’t done yet in Seoul, but it ended up being a pretty stressful holiday because I got really sick 😦

Anyway here’s a quick run-down.

We arrived Thursday afternoon and spent over an hour walking around Gangnam trying to remember where our friends’ apartment was, but eventually found it! Then we headed out on the subway to Lotte World Amusement Park. It was a fun night but there were long queues and a lot of the rides were closed. I really wanted to go on the hot air balloons which circle around the ceiling and give you a view of the indoor rides (sounds boring but the balloons were pretty), but the ride was closed by the time we made it there. We ended up doing: log flume, bumper cars, drunken teacup, watching the parade, haunted house movie and comet express. Rob also did a gravity drop ride. Rob was really looking forward to a roller coaster but the outdoors one was closed.

 

Wet and grey Gangnam

 

We spent Friday morning wandering around the Bukchon hanok village taking photos and going into the little shops. There were lots of cute souvenir/indie jewellery shops that were open despite the public holiday. Then we headed down to Insadong to get some street food, browse more souvenir shops and enjoy the sun. We had the best hotteok (fried caramel pancake) with bits of peanut inside. We also watched a demonstration with 3 men making “16000 string” traditional honey nut sweets – so amazing!

You can see the process here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg28Kx6__88
They’re very tasty too.

 

After Insadong we took the subway to Itaewon and looked around trying to find somewhere to have lunch. We also popped into the foreign food marts looking for Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, but couldn’t find any 😦 We ended up having a late lunch at a really popular South African restaurant called Braii Republic. So glad we made it! We had gourmet Boerewors rolls and I had Amarula cream and bought some Biltong to take home. At that point I was feeling very flu-ish – I was hot, dizzy, faint and had very sore lungs, so I didn’t even really know where I was!

 

 

For some reason we decided to walk from Itaewon to Yongsan to go to the National Museum. It was a long walk which I really struggled with, and I ended up just curling up and sleeping at the benches at the museum because I felt so terrible. After I fell down the stairs on the way out I realised it was probably time to give up and go home haha. We had Vietnamese food (pho and phat thai) in Gangnam and then I fell asleep at 9. I had a terrible feverish sleep and we decided to go home on the Saturday after eating some delicious gourmet waffles and visiting the Art Centre.

 

So all-in-all it wasn’t the best holiday but at least we got away and did a few different things!

 

Seoul Lantern Festival

This weekend we went to the lantern festival held along the Cheonggyecheon stream in Seoul. It’s not a traditional lantern festival with hanging lanterns, but rather one with beautiful sculptures based on a different theme every year. This year celebrated Seoul’s long history and traditions (though I’m pretty sure it’s a very similar theme every year!)

On Friday night I also managed to see a big K Pop concert in Gwangju for free! Sometimes it is nice not working the same hours as everyone else at my work, because I can do things in the evenings (everyone else works like 1.30-9 or 10). The concert was in a park just down the road from work, and I waited in line with everyone else for about 40 minutes until someone came up and gave me her spare ticket! I would never have gotten in otherwise. I sat near(ish) to the front and got to see a few smaller K Pop groups (5 dolls, Speed, Jun) and 2 big ones (b1A4 and G-Dragon). It was so amazing seeing G-Dragon live! I was surrounded by middle school and high school girls so the cheering and singing got quite spirited – it was fun!

G-Dragon — Fantastic Baby

 

We left Gwangju at about 11.30am (after waking up a bit later than we wanted!) and settled into our 3 1/4 hour bus ride. I managed to sleep a little but my head was really crooked and awkward. The weather was exactly the same from the bottom of the country to the top! I know Korea is small, but I still find that strange. Our bus ride turned into 4 1/2 hours because we weren’t counting on the traffic into Seoul. The last time we went was for Chuseok, so of course it was a super quick bus ride in.

We navigated the subway (with mega crowds, quite different from our last trip) and made it to Hongdae where we were staying at a little motel called Twin Rabbit Hostel. It was a cold, rainy and misty day and we were a little grumpy from all the crowds and all the wasted time! We had planned on spending a few hours shopping in Hongdae before seeing the lanterns, but we ended up just having a quick pizza at a nice Italian restaurant in Hongdae, then heading out to Jongno. We walked past huge buses full of riot police and heard lots of shouting as we were nearing the lantern festival, but luckily it sounded like it was coming from quite far away — still don’t know what it was. The lanterns were beautiful — obviously very carefully crafted. I loved the colours and the details. It would’ve been nice though if there were hanging lanterns too! There were also a lot of people which got annoying in the rain because I kept getting umbrellas stuck in my hair and eyes.

Some of Rob’s excellent photos…

Afterwards we headed out to Gangnam to the food/wine buffet at Intercontinental with Jess and Pete (Rob’s friends who we spent time with on our last visit to Seoul). Unfortunately it was quite far away so we only got there at 8.30, and the buffet closed at 9. It was quite expensive too so we tried to hide from the waitresses so they wouldn’t charge us – it worked! We only managed to eat a few bites and drink a few glasses of wine anyway. Later we caught a taxi (which took forever) to Itaewon to have drinks at a bar. We arrived at the hostel around 2 or 3 and slept solidly in our cute little room.

We spent the next morning walking around and shopping in Hongdae. We saw beautiful autumn trees at Hongik University (one of Korea’s big art/design universities), browsed all the cute little stall/shops, found Rob’s art supplies store and bought some winter essentials at a few of the malls. We headed back to Gwangju around 2 and arrived in time to have dinner at a Japanese restaurant in the U Square bus terminal. We managed to order food and drinks using a fully Korean menu too!

Hongdae prettiness