South Korea: Seoul itinerary part 2
This post is part 2 of my travel recap to South Korea.
I traveled to South Korea with my fiancรฉ for 2 weeks in October of this year, visiting Seoul, Jeju Island and Busan. It was my first time visiting South Korea even though I am an avid K-pop and K-drama fan and I had an awesome trip ๐!
Here was our itinerary and a recap of everything we did and everything we ate for our last few days in Seoul. All prices are converted 1000:1 KRW to CAD and rounded to the nearest dollar for simplicity.
South Korea trip 2023 recap
Seoul – part 1 | Seoul – part 2 | Jeju Island | Busan | Paradise City
Day 4: Lotte World + Gangnam
After being hungover all day and having a weird pizza dinner the day before ๐ต, I finally woke up the next day feeling functioning again.
This means another jam-packed day! Scheduled in our itinerary for Day 4 is Lotte World and the surrounding Lotte tower/mall area, and Gangnam, a district known for luxury fashion and expensive shopping and restaurants.
Morning at Lotte World
Lotte World Adventure is a whole-ass indoor and outdoor amusement park in the Sincheon-dong area of Seoul. The indoor area is called Adventure and the outdoor area is called Magic Island. Tickets cost around $30 CAD for adults and you can purchase online, as well as “fast pass” tickets (which I highly recommend you buy if you are able to do so).
I must start by saying we only had 4-5 days in Seoul and all of those days actually fall on Chuseok, which is like Korean Thanksgiving and the longest break Koreans get throughout the year. This means sadly that Lotte World (and everywhere we went in general the last few days) was packed ๐. Like I am talking sardines in a tin can packed.
We arrived at the subway station for Lotte World at 9am. Lotte World doesn’t open until 10:30 am. When we arrived, there was already a huge line for what I thought was the entrance to the park, but instead it was for a uniform store.
It is common for young couples to wear school uniforms to Lotte World. Even though it was Chuseok break, I saw many students wearing their actual school uniforms. The ones you can rent from are much cuter, obviously. A uniform set costs around $25 and you can wear it for the whole day.
I really wanted to rent uniforms and wear in Lotte World so we did line up and was told to come back in 1 hour to rent the uniforms ๐.
By now, there was already a huge line to enter the park. I think our biggest mistake was lining up for the school uniform store instead of lining up for the park entrance (but I wanted to wear uniforms
๐ข). Ultimately, I had to give up on the uniform thing because once we were in line for the entrance, there was no way in hell I was going to exit my spot in the line to go try on uniforms in the store.
Once inside, there was already a huge lineup to take the escalator ๐๐. The escalator takes you outside to the Magic Island part of the park, where there are more “thrilling” rides. I would say indoor is more shows and for younger children.
People are literally running outside to the bridge and so are we because we don’t know what is going on ๐. Prior to coming to Lotte World, I saw a lot of recommendations for the Atlantis ride, so we aimed to line up for that ride first. We found it and joined the line.
And then we waited for 3 hours in this line.
๐๐๐๐๐
Like literally kill me. I don’t know what is worth a 3 hour line for but it definitely wasn’t this Atlantis ride, although it was super fun once we finally got on it. I can’t believe we stood there in the sun for 3 hours like it literally sucked ass.
During our 3 hours, we chatted, bought some food and ate it in line, and I told off some tweeny boys who were trying to cut in line (I yelled at them in English ๐คฌ). But after the ride, we were hungry and tired and tried to find a place for lunch.
Lucky us, it was so hard to find a place to sit down and eat because it was so fucking crowded. We tried to line up for the folk museum thinking who would want to go to the folk museum (but there’s a restaurant at the end), but even that was a long line.
Eventually, we finally escaped from Lotte World hell and actually left the park completely. Apparently for foreigners, we are allowed to re-enter with our pass, but if we had a different or domestic pass, once we exit we would not be allowed back in.
Lunch at Xin Liu inside Lotte Department Store
We wandered around and ended up in a mall or department store nearby with fancy stores. We finally found a restaurant floor at the top of the tower and chose to eat at a pricey Korean-Chinese restaurant called Xin Liu.
Here we ate some spicy jjamppong (spicy seafood noodle), jajangmyeon (black bean sauce noodles), and the tangsuyuk (like a sweet & sour pork).
Loewe’s rating: โญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธ
Recommended: Read my full review of Xin Liu, a Korean-Chinese restaurant inside Lotte Department Store.
Lotteworld Aquarium
By now you may realize that Lotte is not just the amusement park, but a whole complex of recreational activities (the department store, the park, this aquarium). I don’t remember which ticket entrance to the aquarium came with (either Lotte World or Sky Tower), but we had included/free admission to the aquarium so we decided to check it out because we didn’t want to go back to Lotte World ๐.
Lotte Aquarium tickets would usually cost around $35 for adults and $29 for seniors or children.
Inside was pretty cool and actually really big the deeper you walk through their guided exhibits. My favourite was probably the beluga whale tank – he/she was so friendly ๐ฅฐ! The beluga whale would swim really close to the tank and smile and the children would go nuts.
Starfield Coex Mall
After the aquarium, we decided to walk around Gangnam area since it is very close and paid a visit to the very touristy Starfield Coex Mall. They are famous for their library that sits in the middle of the mall and is not very quiet at all ๐ .
I basically came here to take some photos by this famous escalator and we had a bit of a break with some drinks from a 711.
Anipop 7/24 hours board game & manga cafe
So we still don’t want to return to Lotte World and we are actually exhausted. While we were resting at the Starfield Library, we found a nearby manga and board game cafe called Anipop so we decided to rest there for a bit.
There aren’t alot of board game or manga cafes in Vancouver, but essentially how it works is that when you go in, you change into slippers and pay for x amount of time (it is pretty cheap). Once you are inside, you can use their facilities and wow did Anipop have a lot of facilities!
They have a snack area where you can buy food like instant ramen, sandwiches, chips, drinks, etc. Food would be additional cost on top of your entrance fee.
They also have this spacious lounge area where there are tables and chairs for you to play board games, or different types of recliner seats and beds where you can read and relax.
Other facilities they have include foot baths (you can pay for towels and bath salts), massage chairs (additional $), sleeping pods, a full on shower room, arcade games, photo booths, smoking room, and a store that sells anime goods.
We chilled here for 1-2 hours and I actually fell asleep in one of the beds – that is how exhausted I was ๐. We did pay some additional $ for the massage chair and the foot baths, and Kelvin had a full on shower because he doesn’t like feeling sweaty throughout the day (Korea was still quite hot for us even though it was October). He was also able to buy some One Piece merchandise at the store so he was very pleased.
We left Anipop feeling well-rested and much better than when we first arrived.
Back to Lotte hell
After resting at Anipop, we made the brave decision to venture back into Lotte hell since now it is night time and we were hoping a lot of people have left (like children).
The vibe at Lotte World was quite different at night because the castle was all lit up with a Dark Moon theme, which I believe is a Korean webtoon about vampires ๐. The nice part is that the weather is cooler and we think it did get less crowded but there were also more adults/couples now.
We waited in line for 1 more ride – it looked like the hellavator from PNE but much higher and faster. Wait time for that ride took about 1 hour.
After that ride, we finally left Lotte World and vowed to never return during Chuseok.
Seoul Sky at Lotte Sky Tower
We take a speedy elevator up Lotte Sky Tower to look at the night lights. Our friend was really hyping up some kind of show but I think we came too late and missed the last showing.
It is mostly similar to a lot of other observation towers and decks you will see in different cities. I did enjoy the night view and the breeze (it can get windy up there!). We even saw Lotte hell from up here and we cringed.
Korean BBQ at Hwa Ban
After a very tiring day and lots of walking, we treated ourselves to some Korean BBQ at a meat restaurant called Hwa Ban. They specialize in pork meats and offer hanwoo beef at a pretty reasonable price.
This was my first time trying hanwoo beef and it was so delicious! Definitely up there as a contender to wagyu. Also, the service was amazing at this place.
Loewe’s rating: โญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธ
Recommended: Read my full review of Hwa Ban, a Korean BBQ restaurant in Songpa-gu.
Day 5: Gwangjang Market + Dongdaemun + Myeongdong
It’s our last full day in Seoul! The main things on our list left were to check out 3 areas: Gwangjang, Dongdaemun and Myeongdong.
Luckily, the 3 of them are relatively close to each other and make sense to fit them all in one day.
JFeel Skin Clinic
We started off our morning by visiting a dermatologist/skin clinic. Korea has a lot of skin clinics that are foreigner friendly and you don’t need to wait 6 months for a referral from your non-existent family doctor ๐.
I did some research and found JFeel Clinic via Reddit as an option that is close to our hotel in Hongdae (like an 8 minute walk from Nine Brick Boutique Hotel). I actually booked my and Kelvin’s session with JFeel via Whatsapp so it was relatively easy to book once you find that Whatsapp number (their website is all in Korean).
The clinic felt very clean and modern and they had a translator there for foreigners. The only thing I was kind of disappointed about was that they didn’t analyze our skin via a machine for the consultation. Instead, they sat us down with the translator and asked us what we wanted to fix with our skin. I wanted them to tell me what I needed to fix ๐ .
After our consultation, we both decided on two treatments. I would get a laser Pica toning to even skin tone and a back peel to get rid of some acne scarring on my back. Kelvin would get micro-needling on his face and lower chin. The cost for both of our treatments were around $320-350 for a total of around $700-800 CAD for 4 treatments and 2 people. Guys – this is an amazing price ๐คฏ! In Vancouver, 1 micro-needling session alone will already cost you $350.
Kelvin and I were mostly separated during our treatments, but we spend around 2 hours at JFeel Clinic. I found my laser facial actually hurt a tiny bit so I was surprised. My back also felt pretty tender/raw from the peel and over the course of 1 week, I shed a lot of skin from my back and I noticed it did help greatly with my bacne scars.
Kelvin’s micro-needling was also an improvement, although for any micro-needling, you really need around 3 sessions to see a big difference.
We were mostly happy with the prices and that leaving the clinic, our faces weren’t too red or blotchy to go out.
Lunch at Gwangjang Market
We visited the popular Gwangjang Market for lunch! It was busy but lines moved fast and you can grab stuff to go. Service was kind of meh though as the ladies that work at the stands don’t even want you to sit down unless you are going to order a bunch of stuff.
Of course we had to try the famous knife-cut noodles featured on Netflix as well as other goodies like raw beef, mung bean pancakes and more.
Loewe’s rating: โญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธ
Recommended: Read my full review of everything we ate at Gwangjang Market.
Shopping in Dongdaemun
Dongdaemun is known to be a fashion hub so I wanted to check out the area and do some shopping. There are many shopping malls here but I also didn’t really enjoy shopping in this area that much because it is very much haggle-based. When you walk into a store or a stall, often times there are no prices labelled so you have to talk to a sales person and who knows where they pull the prices out from ๐ฌ. It reminded me of some shopping malls in China. The sales people can be quite pushy. Although I will say the prices are relatively cheap for clothing.
We walked by a nice little river (looks like a Kdrama scene!) and also found the Dongdaemun Design Plaza, which looks like a giant metal bean. It was pretty cool inside as there are many free art exhibits and the architecture is just cool.
Street food + shopping in Myeongdong
As it started to get dark, we arrived at Myeongdong and man was it busy.
We had considered staying in Myeongdong instead of Hongdae because it is a very central area, but the crowd lowkey turned us off. There were a lot of shops where you can buy makeup, clothing, accessories, etc. and a lot of food stands to choose from.
We tried an okonomiyaki-thing, some tteokboki (my Korean friends said it is expensive for the small portion… but I guess it’s just Myeongdong prices), and a hotteok (sweet pancake).
I recommend you to actually not shop at Myeongdong if there are other locations near you. For example, the Olive Young location (Olive Young sells skincare and makeup) was so crowded people were literally fighting me for a stick of sunscreen ๐ต and there was really low supply in popular items.
Dinner: Marinated raw crab at Odarijip
There is a popular soy-marinated raw crab restaurant in Myeongdong where even celebrities eat at. It is called Odarijip and there was no line when we arrived at a little past 7pm on a weekday night!
We ordered 3 large crabs and it comes with mixed rice, side dishes, soup and steamed egg for around $120! It was so delicious and full of umami – a must try!
Loewe’s rating: โญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธโญ๏ธ
Recommended: Read my full review of Odarijip, a seafood restaurant specializing in soy sauce marinated raw crab in Myeongdong.
Nanta: Cooking musical
Nanta is a musical show about cooking/chefs. Apparently it is foreigner friendly so you don’t really need to understand Korean to get the show. Tickets cost around $44-66 per adult depending on your seat choice.
Our friend watched this years ago and really enjoyed it so he encouraged us to watch it. The show had some cool drumming and musical aspects, as well as acrobatics and lots of chopping (and ingredients flying around).
I found it to be a little silly and maybe more geared towards family/children in terms of the storyline/funny aspects. They do get the audience to participate throughout the show.
I think the $50 price tag is a little steep but at least I got to sit and rest because I was tired from walking around all day ๐.
Photo booths
One cool business model in Korea are all the photobooth businesses. They are managed by no one so there are no workers there. You just go in with your friends, choose your free props, and pay money to use the photo booth machines inside.
I doubt a business like that would fly in Vancouver. I bet people would steal the free headbands and maybe have sex in the store when no one is watching.
There are a lot of different themed ones like elevator angle or cutesy or colour themes. We just went into a random one and took some and it was a quick fun activity that creates a souvenir.
Jonggak Avenue of Youth
Kelvin really enjoys arcades so we wanted to end our night playing some games at an arcade. Our Korean friends took us to Jonggak Avenue of Youth, where there are a lot of arcades and late night eats open. It looked like a mini Japan/Chinatown with all the colourful signs!
We played games and when we were leaving, I spotted some red tents! Red tents are a sign of pocha, which is a vendor in a street that serves Korean comfort food or market food. I see these tents all the time in Korean dramas where the main characters will get drunk here after work and drinks with their best friend who is secretly in love with them but then her rich CEO comes to pick her up ๐.
We order some rice wine makgeolli for like $6 (so cheap), instand noodles, chicken skewers and an udon soup. Everything was really tasty and the prices for the dishes were mostly around $15.
Final thoughts
My last 2 days in Seoul were just as busy as the first few!
Day 4 was the most exhausting because of the whole Lotte World hell. I really tried to avoid going on a Chuseok day but there was no choice since all the days we were in Seoul were Chuseok holidays. It really just wasn’t fun with all that waiting and the crowds ๐.
Again, shoutout to Anipop for saving the day ๐.
We completed a lot of touristy things such as the aquarium, sky tower, Gwangjang Market, Nanta show, etc. At this point, I was also doing a lot of shopping and filling up my half empty suitcase. Makeup and skincare are must-buys if you are shopping in Korean – things are really good quality and a great price. And I find that because I am also Asian, the styles and colours suit me a bit more. Although not for makeup bases like concealers or foundation – they use really pale colours.
I was very glad we were able to squeeze in a skin clinic visit also because it is such a good deal to get treatments done in Korea (and they do it so well!). I was a little disappointed I didn’t get a chance to do a hair treatment though.
Food-wise, I think these 2 days gave me the best food I’ve had in Seoul! The hanwoo beef and the raw marinated crab were both 5 stars for me ๐!
I was really pleased with my 5 days in Seoul and was also very thankful to our friends Bae and Yoon for showing us around almost every day. It is not easy to guide people and find the right spots, even if you are Korean or speak Korean. Also, I wanted to cross off so many touristy things on my list which is pretty cringey if you are Korean like why would you want to dress up in a hanbok and walk around the palace with me ๐.
Stay tuned for my next recap as we travel to Jeju Island!
Sincerely, Loewe
South Korea trip 2023 recap
Seoul – part 1 | Seoul – part 2 | Jeju Island | Busan | Paradise City
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