Korea Travelogue: Day 8 - Butterfinger Pancakes, Noryangjin Fisheries Wholesale Market and N Seoul Tower
Day 8 itinerary
OOTD for our 2nd last day in Korea
Butterfinger Pancakes (Brunch)
Myeongdong Shopping
Noryangjin Market (Dinner)
Namsan Tower/N Seoul Tower
I was very excited for Day 8 because we were going to Butterfinger Pancakes! :D :D
Butterfinger Pancakes is located in Gangnam and serves brunch items all day long.
After 7 consecutive days of Korean food, I was beginning to miss all the western food and local food in Singapore so it was refreshing to not have kimchi on the table for a change.
Getting to Butterfinger Pancakes is very easy provided you follow the correct map. I took the map off someone's blog and we got quite confused because the exit numbers had changed but thankfully we managed to navigate there thanks to the map from the subway (Thank you NCC for training me in orienteering!).
Directions
Take the subway to Gangnam Station and exit at Exit 10. Walk straight once you emerge to street level until you reach the corner of the road. You should see a bakery opposite of you. Do not cross here. Turn left instead and walk ahead till you spot a Burger King. Butterfinger Pancakes is right next to it. You'll spot Kona Beans on the opposite side and Jaws Tteokbokki right beside Butterfingers as well.
Address for your reference: 88-9 Cheongdam-dong, Gangnam-gu (강남구 청담동 88-9번지)
Gangnam Station Exit 10
Turn left here!
At one of the subway stations. Juyin died and went to Minho heaven lol
Ta-dah! We've reached :)
Spring & Summer 2013 Menu.
We waited close to 30 minutes for our table because it was a weekend and the place was full when we reached but it was so worth it!
Fluffy pancakes are damn yum please!
Only the 3 hungry pigs ate again lol cos Qiu didn't like such food while Kee wasn't hungry.
Group selca while waiting for our food to arrive
Jeanne's French Toast Special
Oh my the pancakes were so fluffy! I really liked it alot and the mac n cheese in the frittata was very yummy too! Totally satisfied my tummy after wanting to go there for so long. Shall go back again next time! Opens till 3am as well so it's a good late night supper joint as well.
Butterfingers Frittata
Buttermilk Pancake
We went back to Myeongdong afterwards because Qiu was really tired and we were going to meet her friends that night so she wanted to rest.
The 4 of us carried on with more shopping again in Myeongdong (wtf pls again lol) before going back to the guesthouse at around 5 to meet Qiu Lin and her friend whom she met through exchange in Hong Kong.
Lazy Garfield cat mascot in Gangnam
SHINee! :D
I went to BSX and died there (take my credit card la!)
Juyin's husband lol Ok sorry CW!
Next stop was totally unplanned: Noryangjin Fisheries Wholesale Market!
Because Qiu wanted to have her spicy fish soup and Kee wanted to eat the live octopus, Qiu Lin's friend Yong Chan decided to bring us there.
He brought his dongsaeng along too, Hyuk, who is a close friend of his.
So we made friends again HAHAHA! They speak relatively good English so there was no language barrier. Besides, whenever they try to speak Korean I'd eavesdrop and try to decipher what they were saying.
Quite a few funny moments cos of that. Like how Yong Chan asked Hyuk whether he found any of us suitable to date -.-"
Directions
Easy peasy to get here. Just hop onto the subway and get off at Noryangjin Station. Follow the signs and cross the overhead bridge. As you reach the end of the bridge you'll see the entrance of the market. Or just follow the smell O.O
I had never seen so much live seafood in one place (aquariums not counted) and it was really... whoa.
Whatever you want you can find it here seriously.
Crabs, octopus, prawns, sotong, sea urchins, eels, fishes... ok you get my drift.
Reaching the market. THE SMELL WHEN YOU REACH O.O MIND BOGGLING
There was this long stretch of stalls selling the same type of live seafood and they were all fighting over the customers.
We got approached so many times Yong Chan got quite mad because we hadn't decided what to buy yet.
Plus 5 foreign girls, what would we know right? So just trust the Koreans hahaha.
And thankfully Yong Chan's hometown is in Pohang which is famous for their seafood as well so he knew his seafood well and we weren't scared to kena ripped off.
I think I wouldn't dare to come back myself without any locals because all the ahjummas and ahjussis were very scary looking.
You should go try if you have any Korean friends to help you buy the food!
It's quite an experience to be honest lol.
We settled from getting the fish from this uncle's stall.
Our dinner (Sorry fishies T.T)
Cutting the meat up immediately (SO FRESH!)
You can bring your buys to one of the restaurants located along the sides and pay them a small fee to cook it for you.
Whatever you paid to the stall owner is only for the sashimi those kind.
Rice and all the side dishes are all provided by the restaurant owners instead.
We paid about 60,000 KRW in total for 4 large fishes.
Additional 8,000 KRW (I think) for the live octopus 산낙지.
Here's the 산낙지!
So scary the octopuses were still alive and wriggling and doused with just sesame seeds and oil.
I didn't dare to eat it but the rest did hahaha. They said it was very yummy.
Don't really like octopus to begin with :X
Our raw fish! VERY YUMMY I TELL YOU!! We had 2 big plates of this for the 7 of us.
What they did to the leftovers of the fish: throw into the soup and make spicy fish soup!
Bubbly goodness hehe.
That dinner was so nice hahah! Although I ate more of the raw fish and not the octopus and the soup.
Qiu finally had her spicy fish soup so she was a happy girl after that!
And what's a meal without alcohol right? We ordered beer to round off all the alcohol to try in Korea HAHA!
Yong Chan and Hyuk are both alcoholics I tell you lol!
But they tried to drink lesser cos we couldn't drink that much.
We meaning Juyin and I again of cos. 酒鬼s LOL!
My fellow 酒鬼
酒鬼 United. That's Hyuk's hand you see there LOL
Gan-pai! Ok I see Lirong had abit too lol
It was dark when we left Noryangjin and we made our way to Namsan Tower or N Seoul Tower.
My usual way of getting to Namsan Tower is by walking up the road from our guesthouse there till we reached the cable car station.
Koreans on the other hand, told us to take the bus hahaha!
So we alighted at Dongguk University Station and boarded Bus 2 that brought us straight to the bottom of Namsan Tower.
Directions
Take the subway to Dongguk University Station and exit via Exit 6. Wait for the bus at the first bus stop you see ahead of you. Board the bus and alight when you see the tower. Or just follow the hordes of Korean couples who alight from the bus as well LOL!
From the bus stop when we alighted
Climbing up the hill towards the tower yay!
It was very crowded because it was a weekend and several couples were there on dates.
We kept telling Yong Chan and Hyuk to not feel so sad because they were stuck with us 5 'old' ladies and not their girlfriends (not that they had one to begin with LOL)
Old because we are all older than them OTL
Usually Koreans like to come to Namsan Tower for dates and of course to pledge their love at the terrace areas with the locks lol.
Juyin brought her lock from Singapore! So well prepared. I go there twice already still cannot be bothered to do so HAHAHAHAHA.
Paid 9,000 KRW each to go up to the tower.
There's also a teddy bear museum (similar to the one in Jeju Island) but we didn't go due to time constraints boo :(
Teddy Bears from Goong!!!!
A Psy Gentleman bear :/
Home :'(
While the rest went to explore, the 3 of us just took pictures LOL! Not my kinda thing to stare out into the open skies leh :x
And that was the end of our last night in Seoul.
Ending it with the really nice night view of Seoul.
We took the bus back down to Myeongdong and parted ways with Hyuk.
Yong Chan walked us back to the guesthouse because he needed to charge his phone as well.
Poor fella not only had to go to Namsan Tower with us, he missed his bus back to Daejeon so he couldn't go for his marathon the next day lol poor thing.
We ended up ordering jajjangmyeon that night again along with tangsuyuk 탕수육 because Juyin and I were hungry (WHAT'S NEW HELLO!) then we treated him food as well hahah!
Chatted till around 1 plus before he left to stay over at a hyung's place in Seoul then we went up to pack our luggages.
탕수육
End of the last night in Seoul :'(
Next entry will be on our last day in Korea before heading back to Singapore.
Stay tuned :D