[Korea] Day 1: Arriving in Seoul, Trick Art Hongdae, Jeju

I was hoping to publish this quite a while back, but life happens and only finally got around to doing it now. ^^ I took so many photos that it really took me a long long time for me to select photos (read: editing) that would best reflect my journey.

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I have sincerely not travelled via plane for a long time and so I made the 'mistake' of not pre-booking our seat 48-hours prior. Thus although we checked in 3 hours earlier at the kiosk we ended up with this. O_O|||

At the very least we weren't seated near the toilet. We slept or at least tried to sleep as we had a long day ahead after arriving in the morning. After arriving at Incheon, our first priority was to find a place to store our luggage.

There were lockers at subways but we weren't sure if it would fit our luggage so we opt for the storage facilities available at Gimpo Airport. However just for the record, we've seen the lockers and its definitely large enough and if I'm not mistaken much cheaper too.

We visited the Trick Art Museum in Hongdae (Hongik St.) because Hongdae is 30 mins from Gimpo and also because it opens early ^^ Yay~ We actually walked pass the building 3 times looking for it. O__O

This photo was actually taken when we exited and is probably the proper entrance compared  to the entrance we took earlier that looked like someone's back stairway. T^T

Luckily I remembered to print discount coupons. XD With the coupons, our entry costs us 12000won which includes entry to the adjourning Ice Museum. A pretty good deal right?

What are YOU looking at>?

We spent a surprisingly long time at this location. I didn't expect it to be so enjoyable. Some of the pose looks and feels awkward but turns out quite nicely on photos. There were even floor markers at each exhibit to help us get the best angle.

At one point, there was a group of loud, obnoxious and rude tourist barging their way through. I won't say where they're from but thank god they quickly went their way. I believe Hongdae's Trick Art is smaller than Jeju's but its just as enjoyable all the same.

Ice Museum = Walk-in Freezer

Our next location was the The Ice Museum. I especially liked the house made entirely from ice...even the toilets!! However the best is still the ice slide. It looked steep but it wasn't really that scary. At one point I couldn't feel my nose so we decided to leave.

While exiting we realised that there was an 18+ only Love Museum upstairs. This place didn't even came up when I was doing my research. My guess was it would be a really amusing place but we didn't have time as we're running late.

The most chewy noodles~

We ordered a bowl of Spicy Ice Noodles to share for lunch and was bewildered when we were given a large pair of kitchen scissors. Then we knew why. The noodles was chewy....to the point that even using teeth to chew through was exhausting.

After lunch we hurried back to Gimpo to catch our flight to Jeju. We flew with EastarJet as their webpage is the easiest to navigate and if you booked early enough, there are special rates although you'll have to register as a member first.


As soon as we arrived, we opt to take the taxi as we didn't want to get lost....again However the funny thing is we still got lost anyway. We were searching for a 'supermarket' as our landmark when we realised that it must be that convenience store. On hindsight the location was rather obvious - we just needed to walk a little ahead and look up. =.=|||

Greenday Guesthouse

We choose Greenday Backpacker Hostel because it was recommended by my uncle. The price is really reasonable -  20,000won per person/night inclusive of breakfast. So with the two of us we could practically get a private room for the price of a dorm!!

Pretty cosy right?

We've really had enough of getting lost for the first day so we decided just get dinner and get some rest. Eating is really challenging. Unlike Seoul with their english menu, everything is in hangul!!

We would look at the price before entering a restaurant because we were afraid of accidentally ordering something too expensive.

We choose a small cosy restaurant and ordered seafood stew, kimbab and tteokboki. We felt slightly bad as we realised the some shops at Jeju closes early - the owner must have been waiting for us to leave...

The restaurant menu which we couldn't read. >.<

We wandered around after dinner but it was just too cold. We stopped by G25  for some snacks and decided to rest as we had lots of exploring to to tomorrow.

Pre-Trip | Day 1| Day 2| Day 3| Day 4| Day 5| Day 6| Day 7| Day 8| Day 9| Day 10|