Korea trip diaries: day 5

Myeongdong & Jogyesa

 

I didn't have anything planned for wednesday so I decided to go to Myeongdong. I have mentioned Myeongdong in my previous posts but I haven't told anything specific about it.

So Myeongdong is a big shopping area that mainly tourists use. It can get a bit pricey in there compared to other areas and same shop brands but at least you can find all from one place. There are two so called main streets and then lots of little streets parting from them.
Main station to arrive Myeongdong is line 4 (light blue line) exit 6. You will arrive straight to the main street. Other way is to take line 2 (green line) and get off at euljiro-1-ga, exit 6 and walk towards lotte mall and lotte young plaza. You will arrive to the other main street.

When I arrived Myeongdong, even though it was something like 9am almost all shops were closed! I was so surprised because I'm used that in korea you can get pretty much whatever you want 24/7. Most shops had signs "open at 10.30". So in the meantime I just walked through the streets. When shops opened I first headed to lotte mall because on basement floor they have food court and I needed to buy osulloc tea and one ginseng product. Just a note that if you're a tea lover, osulloc tea is heaven for you :D even though I don't enjoy tea normally, I love osulloc's tea products! They can be a bit pricey but they are very good quality. They have their own shops at least in myeongdong and insadong where they also have a cafe you can order their various teas and taste them :)

So after purchasing what I needed I started just walking through myeongdong main street and just browsing in different shops.

 Left one is from big street right next to lotte mall. Right photo is from myeongdong's main street where there is lots of cute cosmetic shops that place products outside to advertise. Korea has low rates in stealing so shops can leave products outside just like that.

 In right photo, I found it funny when I spotted finnish design! Muurla collaborated with one of the most popular brands in korea called Line (which is originally a chatting app for phones)

Local H&M store, small take from their window

In this shopping round, I ended up buying Moomin mascara (yes, moomin xD It was cute) and Line notebook for myself. Then I left to my hostel to drop off stuff I bought and decided to visit Gwanghwamun and Jogyesa temple.

I have talked about Gwanghwamun before but you can access there from various stations. I like to use line 5 Gwanghwamun station, exit 8.

When I arrived I first went to the square and took couple of necessary tourist photos xD Then I headed to Kyobo book store and just browsed in there. I was getting very tired and decided to leave. I was in subway station when I first saw bandi&luni (book store) and I was like well why not. I walked in there a little and then saw a small cd shop that was having a sale. I didn't find anything that interested me but then I spotted Descendants of the sun OST and I had to get it. DotS was a very popular drama still airing when I was in Korea and it's OST was mostly sold out everywhere. But I finally got it so I was happy~ And sales persons were very nice so I recommend going to bandi&luni. You can find it in Jonggak subway station.

When I left the bookshop, I noticed signs to Jogyesa and I was like oh well, let's check that out finally. I was soooo tired but because it was close I decided to visit it and didn't regret a bit! I have only passed it by previously but never actually went inside Jogyesa. It's very beautiful temple right in center of Seoul. It's placing literally between gwanghwamun square and insadong.

After Jogyesa I went to my hostel but I was starting to get reeeally hungry. Anniina didn't have any plans for evening so I asked her to go out to eat with me. We went to eat samgyeopsal which is one of my favorite korean foods! It was so yummy~ If you're ever in korea, you have to try it! Only thing is that you can't eat it alone, you have to have at least one more person with you. Because all samgyeopsal restaurant portions are at least for two persons. Price was about 12000won per person so about 9€.

After eating ourselves pretty full, we decided to just walk in hyehwa's streets. But after awhile we went to eat dessert to paris baguette cafe xD But OMG every dessert in korean cafes look so good I can't even :D I wish in finland they would make an effort more in cafes for cakes to look like that. And what's more, the dessert we got cost only about 3€!

After eating our desserts we visited grocery store and then said goodbyes. I went to sleep pretty soon after. I had tiring but wonderful day~

That's all for this post (or this would be extra long if I would write about day 6 :P ). I will post soon again. Promise~