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Thursday, April 30, 2009

Day 14: Seoul (Dongdaemun)

Dongdaemun Gate





Dongdaemun Shopping Complex
Specialized in textile, linen, bedsheets, laces, ribbons and homewares. I browsed for awhile and left.


Dongdaemun Shopping Complex


Laces


More laces


Textile


Bedsheets and towels


Various size of plates

Cheonggyecheon stream
The stream is nearly 6 km long, flows from west to the east of downtown Seoul.








Clear water

Shinpyunghwa Market
Mainly scarves, socks, and accessories.


Scarves

Cerestar
This department store was lousy, can be skipped.


Cerestar



Migliore
One of the best in Dongdaemun. The place was very very crowded and you have to browse it systematically to be able to see all. I spent my whole afternoon here.


Total of 8 shopping floors, with average of 100 kiosks on each floor.


Accessories occupies two levels, men's clothing occupies another two levels, and the rest for women's clothings.


Children hanbok


Hanbok tailor? It looks like a traditional wedding shop.

Took a break for lunch.


Street vendor


That's my lunch, shop until broke liao hehehe...

Doota Tower
This mall is quite new, more spacious and organized than Migliore. Some of the merchandise are pretty much the same as Migliore but with a higher price tag. Anyway, it's still worth to look at their Young Designer floor, the clothings are definitely nicer and more unique.

I also saw many tour buses dropped their tourists here. I think the tour guide didn't want them to stay very long, because if he dropped them at Migliore, they would go crazy and won't return to the meeting place on time. :P


Doota Tower


"Princess" shop


Everything was so pretty.


Whenever I saw this kind of shop, I would stay very long and scrutinize everything. :D

Going back for dinner with him, this time we had KFC. Their KFC were damn good too and not oily. Chili sauce wasn't required at all. Why everything was so good in Korea, I'm not biased, really. :)

Followed up by chou cream puff at Dunkin Donuts, I wanted to let him try.


KRW 600 (SGD 0.70) each


He liked it so much that he didn't want to share with me. :(


Cakes at Dunkin Donuts


Desserts and cupcakes

I think the Korean Dunkin Donuts have a lot more varieties than the one I know in Indonesia. Besides the cakes, donuts and puffs, they also have sandwiches and offer many varieties of drinks.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Day 13: Seoul (Ewha Women University)

Ewha Women University
Nice campus!







Finished off the small shops and continued to explore the stalls at Yes apM. This building was still quite new and empty, but it had Mango and Zara outlets.





I had my lunch at Dunkin Donuts. I wasn't into donuts but when I tried theirs, I was hooked to Dunkin. The donut wasn't as sweet as what I had in Singapore, but it was the chou cream puff that scored. I tried Indonesian Dunkin Donuts years ago, it was really lousy and Hong Kong Krispy Kreme wasn't this good either.

No wonder they are popular here, I saw more Dunkin Donuts than other fast food like KFC or Burger King.


It had become my favourite. :)


Cheese cake, chou cream puff, strawberry donut

I went back early to buy some fruits at the wet market nearby our apartment. Fruits were pretty cheap here, 5 big Fuji apple only cost KRW 3,000 (SGD 3.60).


Wet market at Nakwon Arcade



What else could I say? Korean food is always good. :D


Side dishes


Doenjang jjigae (soybean paste soup)


Yukgaejang (spicy beef stew)

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Day 12: Seoul (Gasan Digital Complex, Ewha Women University)

Today I continued where I left yesterday, completed W-Mall but didn't buy any more stuff from here.

Fashion Island
It rocks!! Bought a few tops for myself and also a jacket for him. This jacket is the best thing that I ever buy in life hahaha... It was a damn functional one, dark grey in colour, came in two-piece which could be worn in three ways (inner only, outer only, or both). It also came with a hood and had a lot of pockets and secret compartments inside. When I asked the sales girl about the price, I got a shock and had to ask her a few times to make sure that I heard it correctly. The price was so unbelievable that I think it was as good as free! After that, it never left my hands until I paid because I knew there's another shopper eyeing it and that was the last piece.


Fashion Island

I was too engrossed in shopping that I only had this for lunch. :P




My lunch at KRW 500 (SGD 0.60) :P

Then, I took the subway to Ewha Women University to continue where I left off last week.


View from the subway journey

Ewha Women University
I found nicer shops as I got nearer to the university as compared to those that I went last week. The clothes were more unique and very Korean. Korean clothes are either very feminine, cute or glamorous.



The small shops were so many that I would need to come back again tomorrow for the third time.



Burger King
After almost two weeks of Korean food, we went to Burger King for dinner. :) I tried out their bulgogi burger, it was pretty good. Wanted to take pictures but hubby said all burgers look the same. :P

After dinner, we bought a slice of cuttlefish from the roadside. Yummy...


That's our cuttlefish, it was only KRW 1,000 (SGD 1.20)

I asked him to try the jacket when we were back in the apartment. He was quite happy that it fitted quite nicely. What made him happier was he got it without making effort to browse through all the shops. Yeah, you are right!

Monday, April 27, 2009

Day 11: Seoul (Gasan Digital Complex)

Time to continue shopping! From this day onwards, I would be going out by myself because my shopping partner had returned to Singapore.

Gasan Digital Complex
The name sounded like a place for electronic products, but it was completely misleading. This area had 5 fashion malls and had the most concentration of outlets in Seoul.

What is so good about the shopping here is the availability of changing room. The price range isn't as low as in the small shops, but at least I could try the clothes on. And besides, the brands are more established ones, so quality wise it's better. And as a tourist, I could claim for tax refunds too.

Mario Outlets
They have three buildings just next to each other.


Mario I


Mario II


Mario III


Some of the brands

I would forget about eating when I was excited, this lunch was at 3pm.


Tonkatsu at Mario food court

Didn't have much luck at Mario, only bought a t-shirt for hubby. After I finished them all, I found out there was another mall nearby.


W-Mall

Personally I think W-Mall is much nicer than Mario, I bought a couple of tops for myself in less than two hours and also claimed for the tax refund. It was already quite late when I started to browse here, so I would be coming back again tomorrow.

Went back home just in time for dinner. We went to that restaurant where we we had pork ssambob last week, but this time we ordered the beef ssambob.

Between the two, I still prefer the pork.


The poster in front of the restaurant


Bulgogi ssambap

The side dishes were pretty much the same, but this time they had ikan bilis.




Spicy soy bean paste soup (doenjang jjigae)


Fresh leaves to wrap the beef