Last day in Seoul

We got up "early" to move from our awesome apartment, at Samgakji, to this funky hotel in Itaewon. We both agreed that this hotel was very cool but Itaewon was our least favourite part of Seoul that we experienced. Jake did get his awesome board from there though.

The hotel lobby had swings to wait on instead of chairs!

This was the inside of our room. The huge red lips on the wall of the all white room really set the mood...

Trying Korean McDonald's. Jake really wanted to get McDonald's delivered but feared not knowing enough Korean to have it all work out.

This was interesting. Would you sip the coffee through the muffin? Would the bottom become coffee flavored then you eat it? Wish we had tried one while we had the chance.

We eventually made our way to Namsan/Seoul tower. You have to take a cable car, or long hike, to the base of the tower, and then pay to go up the rest of the way. We opted out of the full tower experience to just take photos at the base and look off the top of the mountain, which the tower was on.

We walked down the mountain and into Namdaemun market. Saar grabbed a vegetable hoddeok there because they are so freaking gooooooooood.

After a short subway ride, we met up with our new friend Michi at Shincheon station! Michi was the person who showed us how to make makkoli back at the Tea Guesthouse. Shincheon station was decked out with kakao talk related stuff, including a pop-up store. Kakao talk is a text/call/cute app which is VERY popular in Korea. These characters are mascots/emoticons which are within the app.

 

We grabbed a couple of awesome souvenirs from the pop up store! 

Michi took us out for some traditional Korean food that night. Here she is pouring us drinks. YOU ROCK MICHI! WE MISS YOU!

This is how our meal came to the table. You just order the dish you would like and then it cooks on your own personal grill. We let Michi order for us, then 2 minutes later this mini octopus and samgyeopsal dish came out. It was easily the best meal we had in Korea.

Once the meat is cooked. You wrap it in these leaves, then stuff it in your face!

After finishing almost all the food on the grill, they bring out rice and crack an egg over it. You mix it all together then have an awesome rice dish!

After dinner we sought out patbingsu so Jake could cross it off his list of foods to eat in Korea. Patbingsu is a Korean shaved ice dessert with sweet toppings.  We got one with black sesame and another with peanuts. Each came with red bean and condensed milk, which you poor over top. This was so, so, so tasty. Our stomachs were so full from dinner though, that we couldn't finish them off. Thanks for finding this place for us Michi!

Our last night in Seoul was a perfect way to finish the first half of our trip. We were sad to leave, but the next is we are off to Japan!

Cheonggyecheon

Hit up the Cheonggyecheon since Jake had it on his checklist of things to do in Seoul. The Cheonggyecheon is an inner-city stream which was cleaned up back in 2005 to be a nice walking area or tourist area or... somethin'... Either way, it was a great walk!

This was a busker that was playing a Cranberries song which Saar really likes. Perfect!

Under the bridge was an art installation. Having it accompanied by buskers playing a guitar and melodica was a nice touch.

We took a detour off of the river path and ended up finding Saar's favorite curry chain while he was in Japan a couple years ago. The photo doesn't make it look all too appetizing, but it will have you hooked on Curry if you give it a try. I've had more plates than I can recall.

Cheonggyecheon and new hairdoos. YEEHAW

Gettin' our hair did

Short blog post showing what happened when we went back to Juno Hair! Check it!

Here's Saar looking like an old lady

Our awesome master stylist.

Saar's bleach took two coats and over 3 hours. YEESH! Totally worth it though. He took 10 steps outside of Juno hair and someone had asked to take a photo of him just for looking so trendy!

Furniture Museum and Puppies!!!

Learning from our hog dog experience from the day before, Jake ran out to find some bread and jam for breakfast. This may be the closest thing to a familiar breakfast we will have on the whole trip.

Saar grabbed this Korean-exclusive sketchbook the night before, and cracked it open that morning. The artist only sells his work through this one store in Hongdae. Score! Thanks Ruby!

Ruby recommended that we check out this Korean furniture museum. Sadly, they didn't let you take many photos inside, for whatever hoity-toity reason. It was very lovely and calming, as well as educational. We both left with a strong urge to buy wooden furniture.

Five minutes down the road from the museum was a beautiful Buddhist Temple. I was fully decked out with lanterns. We couldn't have picked a better time to visit this country. Flower trees+temples+perfect weather+painting =  pure bliss

We rode the subway back to the Hongdae area for another night of HONGDAE AWESOME!!!! Love that place. We had heard about this dog cafe through other bloggers, and knew it was something we would have to see before leaving the country. You would really have to love dogs to work here. I felt bad for the hard working staff, but they shall suffer for our doggy-cafe pleasure!

!!!!!!!!!!!

After getting our puppy fix, we made our way further into Hongdae for dinner, treats, and adventure!

The artist, who made the sketchbook Saar bought the night before, also seems to run a school in Hongdae. Now this would be amazing to enroll in. They had student work lining the streets and it was all stellar.

the main reason we had gone back to Hongdae on this night, was to find the Fell and Cole ice cream shop. They had very unique and tasty flavors, including cream cheese & lemon zest, red wine & berries, and Vietnamese coffee. Saar said that this was the best ice cream sandwich of his life 

Onward to fun haircuts in the next post!!!