Seoul > Jeju Island > Gangneung > Andong > Geongyu > Busan > Seoul

The flight from London to Seoul was amazing because we flew in Business Class with Finnair and I was so excited that I watched movies and read the whole time in my flat-bed, eating delicious foods.

I regretted not sleeping once I got to Seoul in the early hours of the morning (around 6am). Caught the train directly to the Hongik University train station and was absolutely blasted by the humidity. I was silly and had no other pants other than jeans. Exhausted, I stopped in the first big cafe I could find and sat there until check-in time, which was 3pm. I’m no good when I’m tired and I’m sure a lot of people can relate, but I basically fell in and out of sleep at the cafe until 3pm – it was cool and no one bothered me, so it worked out really well.

After checking into the apartment, I slept for another 2 days (haha!). After the jet-lag it was time to explore Seoul and get some proper Korean food.

The handiest thing about South Korea was that every Airbnb apartment I stayed at, they came with Wi-Fi “eggs”, this meant that I had pocket Wi-Fi where ever I went, which I needed, especially when it came to eating at a restaurant.

Most restaurants had coloured menus with lots of pictures, but translating this was very difficult, so Google Translate came in very handy with their ‘photo’ feature. There were quite a few restaurants that I had to leave because 1. I couldn’t understand the menu still, 2. The waiters didn’t understand me.

The confusion was a little overwhelming at times.

And then it was all a little weird… the following photos are from the Trick-Eye Museum.

Ok, now that I’ve got that out of my system, I will focus on some of the most amazing street food I’ve ever eaten and crazy cafes that I went into.

One of the first cafes I went to was the aptly named Poop Cafe which was toilet themed.

After my crappy coffee, I went to this (popular with the locals) dumpling house in the same complex. I think it was called Bukchon Son Mandu and it is down the alley right next to the Ssamziegil building, and they had the most amazing combination plate of their different steamed and fried dumplings as well as meatballs. A great cheap eat!

The next day was a trip to Namdaemun Market for a Japchae Hotteok:

Then it was a train ride to Gwangjang Market for a serving of Bindaetteok

I also went to another cafe called Blind Alley which had Raccoon’s!!

Seoul was such a weird place and I liked it. Next stop was Jeju Island. This place is a very popular tourist destination for the South Korean’s and I found it quite expensive because of this. They are famous for their Gamgyul, which is a type of Orange which is sweet like an over-ripe Mandarin and you could purchase the juice of these Oranges in cute little drink bottles which look like their Dol Hareubang statues –

The main reason for picking Jeju Island was for Love Land – an interactive sex park full of crazy sculptures. I’ve chosen the tamest ones below:

The best things I ate in Jeju were the Kimchi dumplings and BBQ Beef Rib dumplings as well as Kimbap – which is the Korean version of sushi rolls.

Gangneung will always be one of my most favourite places in South Korea, this is mainly because I stayed in *the best* guesthouses I’ve ever stayed in, thanks to the owner, Hoon. Gangneung Station Guesthouse was a short stroll to most places, especially the market where I was taken out for a walk around the city, then lunch and THEN dinner. Triple whammy! I ate a delicious pork cutlet lunch at the market place and then for dinner I finally got to have the Korean BBQ I’ve always wanted.

I caught the bus to a Korean teahouse and went for a massive walk around the lake. In that humidity I was absolutely cooking, but about halfway around the lake was a lotus garden and it smelt glorious and was totally worth it in the end, even though I felt like I was going to pass out from heat-exhaustion.

I had all of these plans for Andong, like visit the folk village and walk up the river, but I felt lazy and it was so hot, so I didn’t. I did, however, eat a speciality meal at the Andong Gu Market called Jjimdak. Most of the little dingy-looking restaurants serve this dish, so you basically had your pick and you sat on the floor next to a tiny table that had all the things you needed to eat this meal – scissors, chopsticks and pickles. It was a whole chicken with glass noodles, potato, carrots, cabbage and chilli in a delicious sweet soy sauce.

In Geongyu, my partner and I totally splurged and stayed in a fancy hotel. I think I had the best showers of my life here. They had all these crazy toiletries and even some face-masks that were kept in the fridge – they were so refreshing. During my stay in South Korea, the heat and humidity really did a number on my hair and it started falling out, in proper clumps. This was extremely upsetting for me. I guess a girls hair is quite “important” to her, i’m not sure if that’s the correct word to use, but I feel like it is part of my identity as I’ve always had quite long hair. Once I calmed down I Googled and used Pinterest to try and find a way of stopping my hair falling out. The best and cheapest thing I could find was a Green Tea wash, so I went straight to the supermarket and Daiso to green tea, a shower cap and a plastic tupperware container with a lid.

What I had to do was let the green tea bags seep in boiling water overnight in my tupperware container, the next day I had to wet my hair and drench it with the green tea water, wrap it up in the shower cap and let it sit for 15-30 minutes. Once finished, I jumped in the shower and thickly covered my hair in as much conditioner as humanly possible, kept that in for 5 minutes while massaging it and then rinsed everything out. I did this for about a week and a half. I think it helped – even if it didn’t my hair felt really good.

 

 

Busan was definitely my most favourite place in South Korea. I tend to feel most at ease when I’m by the seaside and Busan was the best mixture of city and sea.

I went to this mental cat cafe that absolutely stunk of cat wee. There were about 25 cats there, so it was totally worth it.

 

 

 

The last few days in Seoul was spent eating more pork cutlets and visiting my favourite place – Cheonggyecheon, which is a man made river that runs through the city.

I was honestly a little exhausted of South Korea after the 5 weeks that I was there, but boy oh boy was it delicious!

If I don’t see you, good afternoon, good evening and good night,

– Miss Adventure