I just came back from my Seoul trip las week. I plan to share about what I’ve been doing in Seoul. The first chapter will be the itenerary. My itenarary changed a lot. I did plan more exciting itenarary but suddenly we want to visit Arirang broadcasting TV so that the itenerary changed.

Saturday, 22 Oct

Dongdaemun Gate

After checking in, we went straight to find Dongdaemun Gate. We took the subway from the Sinseoldong station to Dongdaemun station. We need to find the Dongdaemun gate cause personally I need to find a cosmetics store nearby. There always one or two person in charge of a subway station, so we asked which exit we need to take in order to get close to the gate. Sadly, they cant speak english. I asked about my destination : which I believe international tourist more familiar with the name Dongdaemun Gate which I cant think there is an official korean name of it. Shit. So that, we asked around in korean (yes I can speak korean, even though it’s my first time visiting Seoul) and they dont even recognize the place. I remembered Namdaemun also has one, so that I explained again in korean to the grandpa police and he recognized the gate. We follow his direction but cant find the gate. We try to enter every exit and finally we found the gate. It was satisfying!

Dongdaemun gate is more familiar as Heunginjimun Gate in Korea so that explains everything. I personally think visiting this place at the day will be better than at night. I cant take any photo of it because there is no enough lighting for taking photos. There a lot of stuffs to see around like cosmetics stores, socks store, bag and accesories stores, and many more. Dongdaemun is also very popular for travellers who want to buy cheap clothes and shoes. There are many shoes and clothing market nearby, for the example : Pyeonghwa Market. We visited the famous coffe shop Paik’s Coffe, which I’m not really sure that is quite famous in Korea lol. I recognized the owner is a famous korean chef. After we visited the coffee shop and try some delicious odeng and hotteok (which are very very cheap), we need to get back to the cosmetics store cause my friend need to buy something. Suddenly, an ahjussi (an old stranger in a suit) came to us and called us multiple times. He want to give us some fruits so I received the fruits. There was kind a misunderstading between us cause he offered us kkam which has multiple meanings. It can be a part of meat but also can be a fruit name so I was confused at that time but cant reject his offer. I didnt recognized that he was drunk at that time. It is kind a difficult to recognize a drunken man/people in Seoul cause most of them are still well behaved. I told my friend about what I’m going through and he said he experienced similar thing where a stranger old men suddenly bought him lots of fruits. For me, dongdaemun area is the most exciting place cause it was our first destination. We stayed at nearby guesthouse around dongdaemun as well.

Dongdaemun Design Plaza

We still have a lot of time. We went to DDP, of course by subway. We saw the famous shopping malls in Korea from afar like Doota etc. We already know that is very pricy so we didnt get in. I saw a lot of couples there. I didnt think that korean is “very open” in a relationship before my trip. In reality, skinship in public is kind a normal thing. Kissing in public is kind a normal there. We met an Indonesian student when we took some photo in front of DDP. He asked us to take a photo of him and we were offered to take a photo also. I dont know but it is kind a new experience for me cause I met many kind people in my trip. Sadly, DDP museum was closed at that time. But there are a lot of cosmetics store such as Tony Moly, Nature Republic, The Face Shop etc inside DDP building. 

Second Chapter will be up in two days! Stay tune!