Seoul 7 - Gangnam Style

I love Psy's Gangnam Style, and of course the hit song has made the posh area of Seoul, Gangnam, quite famous. As avid fans of the song/ dance and His Majesty Psy, we HAD to go to Gangnam and check out what all the hype is about. Some others from our hostel joined us. 

The area itself kind of reminded me of downtown Manhattan. The streets and sidewalks were wide and lined with tall buildings. We stopped in at a Krispy Kreme for fall-themed doughnuts and then headed to the 9th (?) exit of Gangnam Station where they have a stage set up dedicated to Gangnam Style. We sung and danced the song like stupid foreigners and then dragged this Korean man up on stage with us. He even looked a bit like Psy :0

I'm seriously missing Seoul so much. It was a great vacation and it was all made possible thanks to the coolest hostel ever. We stayed at Ed House in Hongdae and met amazing people. On our last night we celebrated Rachel's 22nd birthday and everyone came together to party, eat cake, and then later go out for karaoke. Missing everyone!

Seoul 6 - Hanbok

Instead of going to visit yet another temple, Reesha and I opted to go to the Bukchon Hanok village, a replica of an old traditional Korean village. I had been to the village before on a previous trip to Seoul, so I knew it'd be a prime (and cheap) place to try on Hanbok (Korean traditional dress) and take pictures. 

We were SO out of place in the hanbok, but whatever, so worth it: 

Reesha wore the queen's outfit

The village is set up for tourists, and to teach about Korean culture, so there was a lot going on outside including these guys making mats from straw, a taekwondo performance, and calligraphy practice. In general a really nice and peaceful place. Wish we had longer there but we arrived pretty late in the day and decided to head out early.

Seoul 5 - Sightseeing

One of the days we took a trip to visit Ehwa Women's University, since we heard a lot about the shopping around the area and how beautiful the campus is. It was so nice! I've never seen a campus like it. The main building is set into a hill with the middle hollowed out. You can walk up through the center of the hill and on either side there are giant buildings that are underground. On top of the buildings, which is technically the hillside, are gardens that you can walk through. 

View of the campus from ground level - The main building is cut straight into the hillside. 

We also went to the Museum of Korean War, which displays artifacts from all the wars throughout Korean history. It was an interesting place, and mainly I was excited to learn more about THE Korean War, but unfortunately I wasn't able to explore the museum as much as I wanted to. One reason is that the museum is MASSIVE, but also we got stopped by this guy in the military who was working with a special art display containing pieces designed by soldiers currently in the army. The guy we chatted with had a sculpture on display, which he showed us. We then took a picture with him (which will apparently be in the newspaper !?) and he showed us around the displays on the basement level. He spoke decent English, but it took some time to make our way around the displays and when we finally got through the ancient Korean warfare section, we were feeling pretty exhausted. We rushed the rest of the museum, but I'll totally check it out again next time I'm in Seoul.

There were also some interesting outdoor displays of old Korean military equipment and amazing statues. We didn't get to see much of those either, and I really want to.

Seoul 4 - FOOD

Seoul has some of the best food of all the places I've been. Not only because it's delicious, but because it is omnipresent and inexpensive. I gorged on so much street food including hotak (fried dough filled with melted sugar and nuts), custard egg tarts, baked sweet potatoes, spicy rice cakes, and potato swirls on sticks. OMG. 

We also went out to eat quite a lot and since Seoul is so international we were able to try a variety of food options that aren't really available on Jeju Island. 

Not to mention -- KOREAN BBQ. I ate more Korean BBQ in that one week than I ever have in my life. Thankfully it's pretty much my favorite thing ever so I didn't get sick of it. On our last full day in Seoul we went out to lunch at an all you can eat Korean BBQ place and just got impregnated with massive tons of grilled meat and octopus. We stayed there for a good hour and a half just gorging ourselves until we felt like we'd explode with food. 

Seoul 3 - Trick Eye Museum

Right in Hongdae (the university district), where we were staying, they have a place called "The Trick Eye Museum." It's good for bigger groups of people but it's not really a place where you can go alone because the whole point of it is to take funny pictures with your friends. It's full of all these paintings that are set up to look 3D so that you can interact with them. 

First, though, we were shuttled into a freezing cold room with ice displays. They had an igloo and dolls frozen in ice (???) and an ice house with an ice toilet and ice bed. They also had an ice slide we could use. The funny thing was that before we went in we were handed blankets to wrap around ourselves. It looked super stupid but it was necessary after a few minutes in the sub-zero room. Kinda cool though !

The rest of our time there we spent wandering through the trick eye museum displays. Some of them were based of of famous works of art and others were just silly. Honestly it was so much fun. I definitely recommend going even though the price is a tad bit steep (15,000 won). It's especially fun if you go with people that have a good sense of humor.

Seoul 2 - Drinks

On one of our nights in Seoul we went out to Itaewon, aka foreigner town. It was really cute. They had different flags strung up crossing over the streets and there were a lot more people from different countries walking around. We went out for Mediterranean food and then hit up a bar with REAL BEER. Like nothing I've ever experienced in Korea. I was able to have real pumpkin beer from the tap, but unfortunately I couldn't even really enjoy it because I was sick and so congested :( Whatever, my body has been imbued with pumpkin beer goodness *__*

We also went to Insadong, the arts district, and wandered around. There were a lot of foreigners and street stalls in the area, along with cute shops selling tradition and non-traditional goods. My favorite part was the giant Psy they had outside of a cosmetics shop. Loooove him !

On our third night in Seoul we went to this interesting bar called "Apple Tree." It was in the basement of this building and had some cool mood lighting. You walk in and there's a big, fake tree in the middle of the room, strung up with wooden apples. We had the option of sitting at tables in the middle of the room, but instead opted to sit along the walls in this curtained off space with cushions and a low table. We sat on the floor with pillows and candles and sipped on appletinis.

Seoul 1 - Cultural

While in Seoul we had some cultural experiences. We walked around a neighborhood full of houses with traditional Korean architecture. We also went to a palace and for a walk down the Cheonggyecheon River.