Samgyetang

 What's a visit to Korea without eating their famous Samgyetang or Ginseng Chicken Soup? Well... incomplete!

 We were at Ehwa University then when we asked one of the staff of Tony Moly if she knew of a Samgyetang place. She said there's none in the area but mentioned another resto serving chicken dish.

We walked about and saw a Samgyetang place! Sometimes, it doesn't help at all to ask the residents.

 Anyway, I forgot the name. But you'd see a plastic display of their samgyetang in their display cabinet, placed outside the resto.

 We ordered one for each person. That's one whole chicken per person!

Of course I finished mine. Each part of the chicken's body.

I loved this because the broth was creamy and tasty, without the strong ginseng taste. You only taste the ginseng once you eat the rice because the ginseng is inserted inside the chicken's rib cage.

Each spoon of rice was bursting with ginseng flavour. Eat it together with the soup and wow, it all just balances out.

If I'm not mistaken, it's WON10,000 per bowl.  Very much worth it.

Airfryer

Philips Airfryer. The verdict: Worthy Investment

I mean, I don't own one currently, but my former flatmate does. And after having tried the fries and the 'fried' chicken and meatballs, I would say it's the perfect solution for fried-food cravings.

To expound further, Philips airfryer allows you to 'fry' something without using any oil. Instead, it uses air to cook the food (or you can just google for a more accurate description).

The result, crispy yet tender food. Really. I can attest to that.

It retails at SGD300++ (what that ++ stands for, I am not so sure. I haven't been to the the stores lately).

Note: I conducted a survey. Cooked a batch of meatballs using the fryer, and a batch using the conventional frying pan.

2 out of 3 respondents answered correctly. But it wasn't a fast decision . It took a while and some concentration. Not bad right? If the airfried food tasted bad, then it would've been an easy question to answer.

Street Food

 At Myeondong.

 Some bread with japcjae inside. Ugh. Skip this please.

 Tall ice cream. This one I liked. It's not too creamy, so it's not heavy on the stomach.

 Potato tornado. It's not crispy. So-so taste.

 Street food somewhere. We just ate the rice cake with chili sauce. Acquired taste I suppose. Because the rice cake is tasteless. Tasteless and uber chewy. You need to chew and chew and chew some more. And some more.

I don't think I'll ever acquire that taste.

 Meatballs at Dong dae mun. So-so.

Takoyaki balls at Ehwa University. Okay, better than the usual takoyaki balls in Singapore.

Spicy chicken bbq at Ehwa University strip. Yum yum yum.
Warning: when they say it's spicy, they're not joking.

Cider of the Stars

I was told this drink is usually featured in Koreanovelas. I really have no idea. I do watch Korean series, but I've never really noticed what they drink.

Bought this from the Family Mart. It tasted like 7 Up. Not Sprite, but 7 Up.

The Best Dunk Ever

 I super loooooooooove the Dunkin Donuts in Seoul.

 Especially the one with the interconnected balls. The texture was just so adorable. I know adorable isn't really a word to describe food, but I can't think of a more appropriate adjective .

It's slightly firm outside but chewy inside. The dough sort of envelopes the teeth without clinging to it and it doesn't leave an aftertaste.

 Went to the toilet and came back to see these half-bitten munchkins. My share =)

I strongly recommend Dunkin Donuts. For the interconnected balls, we ate the cappucino/coffee-flavoured one and I think chocolate or berry the first time around.  The chocolate (or berry) was the best!!! To be sure, just try all the flavours.

I wanted to buy some to bring home to my parents (as I went to Manila after my Korea trip), but I had no cash when we passed by a Dunkin Donut take-out counter. As in no cash! just some worthless coins. Sad moment of the trip.

A few hours later, I withdrew cash from one of the Citibank atms located outside the subway and I was happy again!

Paris Baguette - Seoul

 I love Paris Baguette!
 Just too bad that we didn't have enough time nor tummy space to eat it again after our first time.

 It's just bread, but somehow the texture is nicer. Softer and fluffier. Plus, the quality is there.

 Ooooooh cute cup!
That's green tea latte. Yum yum yum.

We had this for breakfast before going to Namsangol Hanok Village.

Paris Baguette is everywhere, so it's really quite easy to spot. The only difficult thing is deciding which bread to choose.

Thick Lips

 Spicy chicken dish. See the seeds.

 My portion



The shot that I had to drink because I lost the drinking game.

Basically, the game starts with someone pouring a drink into the glass. Then, a smaller shot glass is placed inside. Each person then takes turn to pour the wine into the smaller shot glass. Whoever causes it to sink must drink the whole thing.

And that 'whoever' was me. Tsk. Me and my unsteady heavy right hand.

Before losing the game, I've already drank beer, soju, makgeolli. 

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Our 3rd stop during the night food tour was this restaurant which just offered 1 dish - chicken with glass noodles. Either non-spicy or spicy.

I thought my Singapore-trained tongue could handle the fire, and so I 'bravely' said I wanted the spicy one. Boy, was I wrong! It was overly spicy. Plus, it inflammed my already swollen lips some more.

As in the red (redness of the lips) went beyond my actual lips and spread to the side. I looked like joker!

Anyway, we were chatting with one of the tourguides and my friend asked him to guess which part of our faces have been touched by the doctor (because the previous topic was about plastic surgery). The tourguide looked at my first friend and said everything looks natural. Looked at my second friend and said her face also looked natural.

Then came my turn. He looked at me intently and asked 'did you have your lips botoxed?'

I said 'no! these are naturally full and the spices caused it to flare' (I couldn't remember what I said, but I'm pretty sure it was in this context).

Firstly, if above lips were indeed botoxed, the doctor who injected it should be beaten to a pulp. It's overly thick and uneven!

Second, these are my real lips. Full on usual days, weird-looking while we were in Korea. The top lip literally doubled in height and width! I thought it was due to dehydration, because I didn't drink much. But, I later on realised it's really windburn.

Oh. At the state my lips were in, it was difficult to smile as well.

Featured in Chosun Newspaper - May 10,2012

Woo-hoo! My friends and I were featured in Chosun llbo (Korea Daily News) on May 10,2012. To view, go to chosun.com and search 'gwangjang market'.  It's the first thing that will pop out - a drawing of some sort of map.

Why? How?  Well, because we joined a night food tour with O'ngo Communications.

Saw some great reviews about it, and so decided to inject it into our itinerary. Saved us time too from thinking of where to eat, well at least for that one night.

Turned out to be one of the best item in our itinerary because it was quite an experience. Even without the press coverage (which only happened in the last 45 minutes of the tour).

Basically we paid WON80,000 for the night food tour (6-10pm). This excluded the beer and wine. To include those drinks, the fee would be WON88,000.  At a glance, the tour price seems pricey, but I have to say it's well worth it.

We went to a barbeque place, chicken dish place, tofu kimchi place and finally the market where we ate savory pancakes. I liked the bbq place, chicken was just okay but quite memorable (reason to be posted on another entry), tofu + kimchi combo quite interesting, pancake dish I really liked!

Loots

 Market-o chocolate. Yum yum. Too bad I wasn't able to buy more, because I didn't notice it in the grocery.

 First pink shirt, WON20,000, second one with the gold collar WON10,000
Etude House facial scrub, moisturise from Tony Moly, Foot Peeling mask from Tony Moly, Black Head cream from Tony Moly, face powder from forgot what brand.

 The free items. Masks and miniature moisturiser bottles.

 Banana milk from Family Mart. Not nice. Too liquid-y.

Shirt with blue piping, light blue stripes. WON5,000, from a store inside the subway, that's why it's so cheap.
Some scarves.
Chili paste, individually packed Spam for emergency meal situation, Sulhwasoo (expensive facial moisturiser)
Some clothes from Ehwa University stretch. Dress and tops from WON10,000 to WON20,000 (I think)

 Grocery day!
And afterwards, late afternoon till almost midnight shopping at Dongdaemun.
Shoes sold on sidewalks - WON10,000 each.
Sheer tops and linen blouse - WON10,000 to WON14,000
Pretty top for mom, WON38,000.

Packets and packets of seaweeds. I love seaweeds!

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Etude house products are soooo much cheaper in Korea than in Singapore. You'd think this is a given, but you'd be surprised that Laneige is expensive in Korea (almost the same price as in Singapore), and Hong Kong sells it cheaper (Bonjour).

Not sure about Tony Moly, because I've never bought anything from Tony Moly Singapore branches, but I bought quite a lot from Tony Moly this time around.  I was told the Floria facial wash is nice.

I like The Face Shop aqua tint BB cream (WON14,000) because it's super light, but it only comes in 1 shade, which is slightly dark for me, but nothing my face powder can't remedy. BB creams are generally in the WON14,000-WON20,000 range. The more expensive ones are those with snail mucus, which is currently the 'in' thing.

Strange, but I never saw a CC cream, and I know I've heard about it.

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Dongdaemun (for clothes and accesories) or Myeongdong (for cosmetics and food) shopping.  You can haggle the prices. Also, it's always cheaper when you pay in cash ('cashi').

Doota Mall (at Dongdaemun) is expensive. It's the first mall you see from one of the exits (forgot which one), so the tendency is for you to go in and immediately buy your stuff there (not unless you have the EQ to mall-hop before purchasing anything).

My friend bought a jacket in Doota Mall for over WON100,000, but at Hello AM Mall (which is just about 2 buildings away) the initial price given by the salesperson was WON79,000, and it was still negotiable because he was trying to call out to us while we walked away.

It's difficult to communicate in Seoul since only a small percentage of the population can speak in English. There's a lot of mainland chinese working there, especially in the cosmetic shops, so if you can speak mandarin, you're safe there.

Otherwise, it's important to know and memorise some important phrases.

Also, when shopping, always ask for 'Tax free', so that they can issue you with a receipt specifically for claiming the tax refund, which you can only do in the airport (so it's advisable to get to the airport a few hours before your flight out).

I think they issue you with the 'tax free' receipt if your purchase exceeds WON30,000 (or was it WON50,000)...

All in all, Seoul is a very nice experience. Expensive though.  Not sure how to explain that, since as you see from my text above, each item is not expensive per se.

Obsessed with Beauty

This is a very difficult topic.
It's not wrong to want improvement.
But if it changes your appearance drastically, are you still you?

I won't even answer my own question.