It can be slightly overwhelming if you don't know what you're looking for. The skincare stores are all lined up neatly next to each other with friendly looking staff calling you towards them, sometimes it gets slightly scary when they grab your hand and kind of manhandle you gently into the store... Lol.
Haha saw this cat mascot hanging around the main square, he/she was promoting a cat cafe but clearly wasn't very enthusiastic about it :P
Our next stop was Namdaemun market! It was a huge indoor and outdoor market which mostly sold clothing and other merchandise for middle-aged to elderly ladies. The things weren't necessarily cheap though! Some were actually pretty expensive, upwards of $80 for blouses and dresses!
There was an underground section with little stalls that sold imported snacks. I found this huge packet of cheetos and my eyes gleamed (though no... I didn't get it, haha)
Randomly placed hawkers selling berries and other fruits at the market! They looked incredibly fresh and succulent but I didn't have time to stop.
The parents bought some Korean traditional snacks and crackers from this adorable granny, she was super friendly and communicated really well with her gestures and smiles despite her limited English language skills and our limited understanding of Korean. I had quite a happy experience shopping at her stall :')
By then it was around 1.30pm and we were almost starving! Walked past a row of small eateries and decided to try one of them out.
We were not disappointed! I ordered a bulgogi beef stew because I was craving for some meat. My family then ordered that huge seafood stew to share, it was immense.
The staff were really friendly and even helped with the cooking! I found that really unique in Korea, multiple times when we had stews and such, the staff would help us to "cook" and make sure that the food was safe to eat! It also helped that they could speak Mandarin so at least we could communicate.
Happy and full :3
After lunch we set off again, this time to Times Square!
There wasn't much to shop or see in my opinion (or perhaps because the things there were above my budget), but the architecture and interior design was beautiful.
We did loads of grocery shopping here but I've no pictorial proof, hahaha.
In the evening my two darlings brought us to have some authentic Korean BBQ near Seoul National University! It was fortunate that we had them with us because there were no English menus or pictures so we had to rely solely on them!
I was so happy :')
My darling unnie cooking and cutting the meat.
They told us that traditionally, only one person does all the cooking and cutting during a Korean BBQ; and it's usually the youngest person at the table. We wanted to help out but they insisted on doing it :')
I'm not a big fan of soju but they introduced this citrus flavoured one to me and I was sold.
It felt so surreal seeing them again in Korea! Seems like just yesterday we were all having dinner together in Sweden :')
I thought I'd be too stuffed for anything else, but by the time we made it "home" (it was a long long long train ride), I was ready for this strawberry puff for dessert :P
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