Korea Travelogue: Day 3 - Ewha Women's University and Hongik University
Day 3 Itinerary
Jeju >>>> Seoul
Travelers Planet Hostel (Accommodation)
Ewha Women's University
Hongik University
Heol~ Can I repeat this again? HEOL! It's already May and... I'm only on Day 3 of my 15 day trip. *pats self on back*
I hope you can sense the sarcasm coming out from me lol. Anyway, yes finally moving away from Jeju island and we headed back to Seoul!
Happily went into a taxi with Wanjun to the airport from the hostel in Jeju. This picture will serve as evidence of how spacious our taxi was compared to the other cab with 3 people and 3 big luggages (I'm sorry friends T.T).
Arrived at Jeju's airport way too early for our 12pm flight because check-out time was 10am and obviously we couldn't go anywhere else. Headed to the airport and couldn't check-in because we were too early - yes, the airlines operate in this manner and only allows passengers to check-in about 90 minutes before the actual flight timing.
So eat we did lol. We went to the nearest Paris Baguette café to buy.... ice cream!
I had the chocolate flavour one - it was awesome! Very creamy and everything was gone in a few bites. Had to eat very slowly because we had too much time to kill D:
You could also choose to have a meal at one of the restaurants available on other levels within the terminal but we were still too full from breakfast.
Posted this on Instagram (@paulalogy) to show what was inside my pouch that I carried throughout the trip in Korea.
The Laneige Water Bank Mist is a lifesaver! :) Andddddddd..... since it was a smaller size (sample size), I got it for $2 per bottle in Singapore at a Laneige fair.
If you want to do some last minute shopping and lug some Jeju oranges/tangerines, you can get them at the airport but at a higher cost than in the city's marketplaces. You can actually check these in and bring them back~
Finally boarded the plane after 45 minutes of plane delay and we were on our way back to Gimpo Airport.
Here's my seating partner for the short flight :D
Landed in Seoul at around 2.30pm and headed straight to the Airport Express trains for the Hongik University stop. I've talked about the Airport Express trains in previous posts so I won't repeat it again :)
Tired faces but still happy to be in Seoul wohoo!
So our choice of accommodation for the first part of the Seoul trip was Travelers Planet Hostel which is located in the Hongdae area. I was 100% sold by the place by looking at its website's pictures despite it being a little more expensive than other guesthouses because of its décor AND it had a room for 5 persons with en-suite toilet and kitchen. We also wanted to try living outside of Myeongdong as per our norm although we did go back to stay there in the later part of the trip.
From the Airport Express part of Hongik University station, we walked towards the green line (Line 2) and exited from Exit 2.
You should see this huge road junction once you emerge from the station. After that, it was just hell to navigate the roads all the way to the guesthouse with so many luggages and dodging people. My advice is if you are travelling as a family or have huge luggages, do arrange for an airport pick-up with the hostel! Saves you all the agony of dragging your suitcases and avoiding passerbys all the way to the hostel. Actually I'm just lazy and it really felt like a super long walk from the train station to the guesthouse with the huge and heavy luggage I was carrying :/
So as mentioned earlier on we booked the sole Apartment for 5 at Travelers Planet Hostel for 7 nights. You can check out their room rates on their website. Everything looked the same as pictured on the website so we were quite happy that we won't kena scammed haha. Oh and TP requires a 30% deposit of the total room fees, they will send you the details to pay via Paypal and you'll have to pay the balance in KRW upon check-in. Let's have a closer look at the room!
Yup, this is how you fit 5 people in one room xD Guess who had to share the double bed >_<
PC provided but we didn't use it at all thanks to our smartphones. It should be fully functional! By the way, the wifi signal in the room is pretty good!
Door operates through the electronic lock. They will give you the door's passcode upon check-in.
After settling in the hostel, we ventured out to Ewha Women's University or Edae for Bonjuk. It's the exact same Bonjuk store I went to in 2013 as mentioned here so again not gonna elaborate further haha. You can trace its location from my older post.
They redesigned their menu's layout but the items are still the same. Pumpkin porridge <3
In between the waiting for the food, SELCAAAAAAAAAAAAA :D
We ordered 4 different types of porridge to share. This outlet is very nice, they do not insist on each patron ordering a set/porridge each but the one in Myeongdong does. We later found out about this rule when we wanted to share again at the Myeongdong outlet.
Pumpkin porridge which was what I wanted to eat. THIS IS DA BOMB! But it gets very jelat after a few mouthfuls so please share it if you are ordering with other friends.
Hot Seafood and Vegetable Porridge. This must be ordered too! Very delicious :D
Vegetable Porridge I THINK #oldage
Abalone Porridge
You are so awesome you deserve another solo shot #pumpkinaddict
Headed out into the cold evening to check out the makeshift stores lined along the main road leading up to the university. We all ended up buying clothes and a bunch of socks lol.
Edae is really a heaven for girls - clearly all the stores know their target market. Every corner is definitely either a store selling clothes, makeup, café/restaurant or accessories/bags. My wallet was not happy at the end of the night lol.
Where I did my first damage and walked out at least $100 poorer D:
Wanjun and Jace stopped for churros while the rest of us decided that supper is meant for skinny people only :/ I kid #noiamnotfat #TAFclubmember
Anyway, after spending about close to 3 hours in Edae, we headed back to Hongdae where the night was just starting to have a late dinner at Yeolbong. If you're a first time reader of my blog, Yeolbong is a restaurant specialising in 찜닭 or Jjimdak and is owned by Se7en. This time round our main objective was to have the cheese version of jjimdak! When I was there in early 2013, they had yet to release this dish. Now after salivating over it for over a year and a half, I finally got to try it!
The restaurant is nearer to the Sang Sang Madang building side of Hongdae. Just look out for this Ho Bar and head to the second floor to get to Yeolbong.
Managed to reach there just in time for their last order at 10pm. The place was not crowded and there were a few patrons still dining at that hour. We ordered a small portion of the jjimdak with cheese topping because Wanjun and Jace were still full from their churros.
This is the standard version of jjimdak which Yeolbong serves. This came because the staff forgot ours was with cheese topping so we had to return this but not before taking pictures lol.
Jjimdak with cheese topping *insert heart eyes* You can customized the level of spiciness for this dish and even though we ordered the mild version, the spiciness still got to me but the dish is as amazing as ever!
The additional KRW3,000 for cheese is so worth it.
This happens on a daily occurrence lol. The cameras always 'eat' first. Check out Jace's death stare HAHAHAHAHA.
Ok so after that meal, we headed back to TP to call it a night because we had an early start the following day to DMZ.
Stay tuned for that post soon!