Annyeong Haseyo 2014 @ Myeongdong 明洞

Let's start the journey in Korea. First and foremost, plenty of gratitude and salute to my dearest cousin/ friend/ travel partner/ photographer Tiffany Sy Soo for the lovely and well-planned Korea trip during 2014 summer holidays. Without her, I would turn crazy with my poor sense of direction and oh my, Korea public transport map! So many lines link here and there... Major language in Korea is Korean, but if you cannot speak any like me, nevermind, quite many of the locals can speak Chinese and few in English.

Again, high appreciation and acknowledgement to Tiffany Sy Soo as the most important source of information and photos, while the elaboration is merely my feeling and opinion. 

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Myeongdong 明洞

Eateries 

Highly highly recommended Sinsun Seolnongtang, my second meal in Korea (first meal was McD in Incheon Airport). First sip on the soup and I was totally in love with it. I am always a soup lover (p/s: non-spicy one) since I was a kid, so this meal left me a great impact especially in the sense of satisfaction. Don't look down on the dumplings, three went down together with the bowl of rice and reached the end of your throat then you realized, burp, you are too full to speak a word. First rainy, cold night with this hot meal in front of you, what more can you ask for? It's comfortable to warm up the whole body here.

We came back for the same restaurant again the very last night before our flight back Malaysia the next day, but was having the meal in a haste to settle some matter on shopping bill. >.<  

Place: Myeongdong Sinsun Seolnongtang 雪浓汤

Food: Beef soup (with rice and kimchi) - 8000 won

Next, another Korea delicacy is samgyetang, we went for Baekje Samgyetang. The staffs there can speak Chinese, so there's no problem in ordering food. The chicken is cooked with glutinous rice stuffed inside the tummy, and the set comes with one small cup of Ginseng wine and a bowl of brown rice. First try on the Ginseng wine, it was too strong in taste, so we poured it into samgyetang. There are two types of chicken, it's either ordinary one or black-boned chicken 乌鸡. Again, soup-lover mode was on.

Place: Baekje Samgyetang 百济参鸡汤  

Food: Black-boned Chicken Ginseng Soup

Place: Baekje Samgyetang 百济参鸡汤

Food: Chicken Ginseng Soup - 14000 won

We always had our lunch late in Korea. The same day when we had samgyetang as lunch, we went for Gogung Jeonju Bibimbap 2-3 hours after the lunch. I doubted whether we were still be able to put more food into our tummy. No worries, we could eat a horse because of plenty of walking. The food in this restaurant maybe a bit costly, but the food really tastes good. Quite embarrassedly speaking, we ate up all the side dishes pretty fast, especially the salad as it tasted great with its feel-like-sesame-mixed-with-others dressing. I think we got a refill, do we? Bibimbap is an art with colourful and nutritious ingredients arranged on top of rice. You will need to put in chilli sauce and have a good mix on all the ingredients with rice before you start eating.  

Place: Gogung 古宫

Food: Side Dishes

Place: Gogung 古宫

Food: Jeonju Bibimbap 全州拌饭 - 11000 won

Sightseeing

Myeongdong, famous for shopping, a heaven for girls where you can have the access to various skincare products/ cosmetics from Etude, Nature Republic, Innisfree, Holika Holika, etc etc all by the same street and you may face confusion which shop to enter first. Summer sale was the best thing because products came at great discount and they gave out many product samples after paying the bill.

p/s: Some shops allow tax refund** when you purchase up to certain amount, purchasing in bundle with your friends should reach up to that limit.

**Tax refund can be performed using refund machine in Incheon Airport, so do keep your receipt because the refund machine takes in receipts and refunds for you. If you have difficulties in using the machine, there are airport staffs by the nearby counter to assist you.    

Place: Myeongdong Street

Attraction: Skincare Products/ Cosmetics Stores, Cute Police Station