South Korea Trip: Day 2

A beautiful view I have never seen before greeted me as I drew back the curtain. Yes, the city of Seoul was covered by snow! I felt so excited as it was my first time waking up in winter season. The scenery on winter is not as colorful as other seasons, but seeing snow everywhere gave me that romantic feeling hehe.

Winter wonderland <3

Eunjae eonni had been waiting for us as we finished our breakfast. The first destination of that day was Lotte World. Lotte World comprises of indoor and outdoor theme parks. We did not try many rides since the queue for each ride was just crazy, and our time was limited. Some rides I tried were World Monorail and something like Desperados in Singapore, unfortunately there was no English interpretation for this ride. Then we visited Korean Folk Museum inside the indoor park. It is a good place to learn about the history of Korea in an interactive way.

Korean traditional food hunting in the olden days

Random photo of my bottled water haha

Several drink vending machines are available around the museum. Since it is Lotte World, of course the drinks sold are all Lotte products :P

We then went out to the outdoor theme park - battling with the freezing cold weather again! There are less rides in the outdoor park than in the indoor one. The famous Gyro Drop ride was even closed due to the weather. So we just went around and took some photos with the beautiful scenery background.

Bought a pack of assorted gummy candies from Weeny Beeny

We also tried their corn on the cob. The corn was not sweet, but it came piping hot. Perfect to eat on this cold weather.

Our next destination was Lotte World Star Avenue. Yay, been waiting for this! This place is a Hallyu heaven, I was glad they included it in the tour itinerary. Star Avenue had 2 sections: one requires entrance fee and the other one is free of charge. The admission-free section has some displays of K-pop idols' possessions: their outfits, albums, handprints, and signatures. The idols you will find here are Lotte ambassadors only (that's why I could not find B.A.P, BTS, Infinite etc. haha) - if they stop the contract will Lotte, their display will be taken out. They used to have Big Bang and JYJ displays though.

2PM's handprints

Super Junior's handprints. Hmm, they should have included Zhoumi's and Henry's as well!

Inside the paid section, there are some fun interactive things to do. I tried a quiz similar to 'how well do you know your idol?'. If you succeed to achieve a certain score, you will get Lotte shopping voucher. I failed because most questions I got were about K-pop idols' birth dates and facts about K-drama actors and actresses whom I did not know much about.

We can send a supportive message to our favorite idols too! My schoolmates who are ELF (Super Junior fans) requested for their names to be written, hoping that SuJu oppas would notice them. Not sure if they actually show our messages to the idol or not haha.

But hey, not long after the letter was sent, I received this! I got more doubtful if SuJu really read our letter haha. Showed this to my ELF friends and they were so happy just as if they got a real text from SuJu lol.

Matched my Leo horoscope with Donghae's Libra. Donghae is my bias in SuJu <3

Eh, I thought Big Bang and JYJ had ceased their contracts already?

Those headless mannequins are quite creepy though...

I was here :D

Next, we stopped by A Plus Cosmetic Duty Free Shop for some Korean cosmetic shopping. A Plus (A+) = MBLAQ's fandom? Haha. Hmm, the place was rather empty, not many tourists were spotted. But their products were quite extensive! The staffs were friendly, they spoke fluent English and they let us taking cosmetic sample as much as we like while they explained to us the benefit of each product we tried. Glad that we were going on a private tour so we could put our shopping bags in the car without having to carry them everywhere!

Our dinner was served in a restaurant in Mapo district. The restaurant provides Korean BBQ but this time round we had duck meat. The grilled duck was perfection, it got that 'oomph' factor! This restaurant has gained a lot Indonesian visitors, I saw many positive reviews from them (written in Bahasa) on a comment board hung on a corner of the wall. I don't know the name of this restaurant, and I cannot find it online either.

Banchan spread

Fatty, but love it!

Before going back to hotel, we walked along the stretch of Myeongdong. This street is a cosmetic shop paradise! You can find all Korean cosmetic brands in one place: The Face Shop, Nature Republic, Etude House, Tony Moly, Skin Food, Holika Holika, and Missha (eh did I miss any?). One thing I appreciate the most about the cosmetic shops here is that they always give you free sample as a bonus for every purchase (unlike Indonesia or Singapore shops that never give any free sample). They gave me not one, but two, three samples of different products, and most of the free samples were body cream.

Spotted KBS TV doing broadcasting. No idea what they were filming though, coz I saw no idol there haha.

On my way back to the carpark, I encountered my first snowfall, here in the city of romance, Seoul! *lovestruck* The first drop of the snow fell gently on my eyelashes. That moment was unforgettable, it was sooo romantic. Saw a lot of Korean couples wearing same outfits holding hands, the guy hugged the girl tightly so that she would feel warmer. Aww, me jelly! Suddenly I felt like being in a K-drama scene lol. So, this romantic story wrapped up my second day in Korea. Gotta recharge myself for tomorrow. Annyeong!