Day 7: Seoul busy

Woke up early and yet yearning to go back to sleep on the super comfortable bed in Lotte Hotel. However, today is going to be a busy day as there were so many things to do. First stop is definitely breakfast (we need fuel for the long day ahead). We had breakfast on a boat. As we were early, the breakfast was not fully prepared yet and we had to wait in the freezing weather. The breakfast was okay, the only thing unique about it was that it was on a boat. After breakfast, our next stop is the Presedential House. Due to security reason, we could only 'visit' the place from a distance. One weird thing was that most of the tourist seemed to be more interested in the souvenir shop than the Presedential House.

A 'visit' to the Presedent's guest

After 'visiting', we went to the official Ginseng place to buy our Korean Ginseng. However, no photography is allowed, that's sad. Korean Ginseng is supposedly the best ginseng around and thus the pricing is perhaps more expensive. However, I was interested in getting Ginseng for my family and eventually bought it. Aaron and I bought the powder form instead of other types because it is more practical. But the price is simply too shocking and mastercard is the preferred way to pay for the ginseng. In the end, had to borrow eugene's card to pay. But, I am a happy customer or so I think. After the ginseng shop, we went to the amethyst shop to look for, what else... amethyst. After spending so much at the ginseng place, many people were cutting down on their spendings. Thus, it was a really quick visit to the shop before we left for lunch.

As promised, we had ginseng chicken for lunch. It's my first time having it and I would say that the serving is gigantic but it is not as exciting as I thought it would be. On the other hand, it tasted rather blend even after pouring in the ginseng wine.

Ginseng Chicken

Not sure why, but the rest of the tourist seemed to eat super fast. Thus, I gave up finishing my ginseng chicken (it contain half a chicken).

After lunch, we were off for kimchi making and hanbok wearing. It was a really fun photo-taking session.

Kimchi making 101

Kimchi making was easy (since everything was prepared for us). We just had to mix all the ingredients together and viola it was done. So easy, and no fuss. Just don't call me to eat the kimchi I made. Following that, the hanbok session was funny as we looked at one another in the traditional costume. No way do we looked like those in Korean drama (we looked too americanised).

Before long (not that long), it was time for our Nanta show, a super nice show to catch, involving cutleries and food. They even helped two people celebrated their birthday on stage. It was simply amazing and I didn't realised how fast the time passed while watching the show. Super exciting.

Wonderful Nanta

As mentioned, today was a super busy day, travelling here and there. After the show, we arrived at Dongdaemun for shopping. The place is huge, with many shopping malls and we were only given two hours to shop for out stuffs. It was like many Takashimaya clustered together. Initially excited about the prospect of shopping for gifts, we were saddened after scouting the place. No doubt that the place is overwhelming and the designs are nice, the prices of the goods are not that cheap. In the end, we didn't shop much since we might as well get the stuff from Singapore instead.

Cool

For dinner, we had bibimbap with steamboat. It was quite similar to claypot rice, but much healthier. After trying so many different Korean meals, this was perhaps average, maybe because it was not a real bibimbap. To me, a real bibimbap involve freshly cracked egg and not omelette. Maybe I was expecting too much.

Bibimbap

After dinner, it was back to the hotel, can't wait to rest my feet (an unlikely thought). That night, we didn't want to travel too far because we were quite tired and it was quite late in the night and we haven't explore Lotte mart yet. Thus, we went to Lotte mart. There were so many things to shop in the mart. Bought many tidbits and stuffs and the stuffs there were relatively cheap too, which came as a surprise. Had so much fun shopping in the mart(an irony). After shopping and boxing up our stuffs (so cool), we went to Krispy Kreme for donuts. Initially we wanted to go to Dunkin Donuts but couldn't find it and had to settle for Krispy Kreme and I had to say it was a wise move. The donuts of Krispy Kreme were simply wonderful. Each donut super soft and great and in my opinion, better then Dunkin Donut. We even had a free donut samply before puchasing our choice (that is what I call good service). Aaron was quite sad and jealous that he didn't joined us for Krispy Kreme. Too bad...

The best

After the donut supper, we slept real early as we gonna wake up early the next day.

And thus Day 7 concluded. Only left one last day in Korea...