TacoCat’s Travels #258 (Seoul): Feeling Festive in Lotte before Flying Off 🎄

a month ago · 11 min read · Seoul

Hey Hive!

If you missed the last few posts, I've been sharing about our first trip to Seoul back in Nov 2022! We were waiting post-covid for everyone to go on their holidays before taking a big one and we finally decided to go on our honeymoon! It's also our first time experiencing Fall so we were double excited!

Last week, we continued our final day in Seoul exploring a historical park called Tapgol Park which was significant for South Korea's independence during the Japanese colonial period.

We went for a deliciously affordable burger lunch before exploring a more modern area - Riot Games' LoL Park!

Riot Games is a big gaming company that has been around for a while with games being played by millions of people across the world, including professional esports athletes. Even though there's only 1 riot game played between the two of us, we had to check it out.

It was cool seeing all the different merchandise they had (mainly for League of Legends) since we rarely see gaming merchandise irl.

Speaking of gaming, on the way back to our station, we saw this billboard in the underground. I think this is a fan-ordered board for a guy who goes by Keria, who's a South Korean professional League of Legends player for a team called T1.

There are a lot of Koreans in the esports scene so I guess it's not surprising, but usually the billboards we see are advertisements for companies not personal notices like these so it was interesting to see.

Anyway, we're about to conclude our day and this trip so let's go!

16 Nov 2022. Wednesday.

We went back out onto the main street and enjoyed a nice leisurely stroll while the sun was setting in the horizon.

There was still an area we had yet to explore right near our place in Myeongdong so we headed there.

This street is known as Myungdong, a vibrant shopping haven that buzzes with energy! This bustling district blends international fashion powerhouses with luxurious department stores and charming local cosmetics shops. Casual eateries offer Korean dumplings and ginseng chicken soup, while street vendors sell Japanese and Thai snacks.

We stopped by a food cart for a snack of another hotteok (or Korean sweet pancakes filled with brown sugar syrup). The thing about this snack is it's not hard to find wherever they have street food carts but everyone makes it slightly different so the texture differs from stall to stall. But overall, it's still deliciously sweet and warm.

We had to use the restroom so we figured we'd go to the nearby mall to relieve ourselves and also check out the shops there. Most of the shops were luxury brands which didn't interest us but the bathroom was actually very well designed and looked like a makeup room you'd see backstage at a burlesque show, at least in the ladies room.

We took a walk around the mall for a bit since we were there but there wasn't much to see. By the time we left the sun had set and the lights had all come on, including the many Christmas lights on this building!

It was truly a pretty sight to behold! It was as if this building belonged in one of those Hallmark Christmas movies I remember from the 90s.

There were also little set pieces on display in the windows of various places decked out in Christmas decorations.

I'm not sure what the purpose of these were for but I guess it's just to fill the space with something more festive and not just mannequins modeling fashion products. It looks nice though and adds on to the festive atmosphere.

The model sets were actually pretty big too, I guess because it fills the space and is probably also easier on the artist than working with small intricate pieces. Here's me for scale.

There were plenty of Christmas lights around this building called Lotte Plaza, and I wanted to get a picture of Sean but his jacket kind of blended into the background.

Here's a slightly better shot with a lot more lights.

As with most big malls at Christmas time, they had a huge tree all decorated with plenty of lights at the entrance, and it was really pretty!

There was also a small park nearby with plenty of lights in the bushes and trees as well.

It was a really nice illuminated area and we saw lots of other people (mainly couples) taking photos here.

We've read about the winter illuminations especially in Japan but unfortunately have not had the chance to actually experience it just yet. Places like these are the closest we've ever come to illuminations. It's still really lovely though.

Soon enough it was getting to dinner time! Our flight the next day was pretty early in the morning so we couldn't stay out too late today.

We didn't really know where to go or what to eat for our last meal here so for convenience sake, we went for the mall's food court to see what they had.

There was still quite a crowd here at dinner time and this area seems packed with office workers so we figured it must be pretty decent.

We found this meat bowl shop that had different kinds of gyudon. It felt weird to have Japanese food on our last day here but I guess it's a Korean take on Japanese food.

They had many types of meat like beef, unagi, abalone and salmon, and even some ramen. We're not big seafood fans and the beef looked really good so we went for that.

All the stalls here were pretty open concept so you could see them preparing the dishes right in front of you, just like this chef with a huge fireball!

I decided to try their donichi steak-don which looked like a lot of meat on the menu, but I was still really surprised by just how big the meat pile was on this bowl! It was also topped with an egg yolk, 3 roasted garlic cloves, some ginger and wasabi.

It looked and smelled really good, and the meat was really nice and tender and had lots of flavour. Although it was a little pricey I'd say it was well worth it.

Sean got the regular gyudon beef rice bowl which also had a ton of beef on top of the rice but the way his beef was cooked was different. His was thinly sliced beef simmered with tender onions and savory-sweet sauce which is the classic Japanese beef bowl but was still really yummy regardless.

The donichi steak-don was really impressive though and although it's a bit more expensive (I think this was 33,000 KRW), the portion size was decently large and there was a lot of meat so we got to share in the different kinds of beef.

We've never heard or seen this shop before but I guess it's apparently pretty famous. This must be their pop-up store in this mall. It did taste a lot better than I expected from a mall food court so it made sense.

I was very full after that hearty, meaty meal but Sean wanted to get a drink so we headed to a boba/bubble tea shop that he wanted to try.

It's called Addictea and apparently it's a famous Chinese bubble tea chain that has since opened stores in Korea and even Australia! I'm not super crazy about bubble tea but I did appreciate it and I really liked the designs of the store.

They also had a very interesting logo with the legendary character Sun WuKong, or Monkey King holding the boba cup which was cool.

But that's it for our final day in Seoul! The last day was literally just us at the airport so we'll go through it quickly before I conclude this series.

17 Nov 2022. Thursday.

The next morning we checked out bright and early since our flight was before noon and we had to reach the airport at about 7am.

Thankfully we managed to get a car pretty easily and the ride to the airport was smooth sailing and we arrived with plenty of time to spare.

The whole time we were in Korea we couldn't manage to get the T-money card (which is the card they use for public transport like trains) that we wanted. Initially when we first arrived we saw this machine with the special LINE Friends design but it wasn't working at the time so we left thinking we could probably find a similar machine at other station but alas, there was none.

I think the reason is because they were moving away from these transport cards to using epayment options through smart devices like your phone or watch so it was being phased out. It didn't really make sense for tourists though since you need a Korean phone number to use those, so I guess that's why these machines only remain at the airport.

This was the design of the card we wanted! And there were so many machines there sitting with shelves of them but unfortunately the machine was still spoiled and couldn't be used so we couldn't get it..

We were pretty hungry after checking in so we went in search of some food for breakfast. It was still pretty early though and there weren't many places open but we found a food court.

Most of the shops were closed but there was one shop open and plenty of seating anyway so we decided to try something here.

We ended up getting a bowl of udon and a side of fried chicken to share since I wasn't too hungry and didn't want a heavy meal so early in the morning.

It was pretty yummy and I remember we had some leftover strawberries to eat so we ended up being quite full.

We took some time to walk around the airport before heading to our gate. The sun had risen by then and there was quite a crowd while we were on our way to the gate which was right down this place called Airstar Avenue.

It was quite a walk so we made sure to get there ahead of time in case.

It was a nice open area though and although there were people around we had more than enough space.

There was even some Peanuts collab with Baskin Robbins we came across!

Soon enough they were calling for everyone to board so it was time to queue up.

And eventually we said goodbye to Seoul as we boarded our plane on the way home.

For our inflight meal we had roast chicken and mashed potatoes, which was pretty decent.

They gave us this melon flavoured ice bar for dessert, Korean branded of course.

And after a smooth flight of about 6 hours, we made it back to Singapore!

By the time we arrived it was late in the afternoon but the weekend was coming so we had time to relax and recover. This was our haul of snacks from the trip!

But I think that's going to be it for this Seoul series! It was really fun experiencing a new country together for the first time, and on our honeymoon no less! We enjoyed lots of delicious food, new experiences and new sights and had a ton of fun! It was a really productive trip too since we managed to see all the major sights in Seoul.

Both of us agreed that Korea was definitely going to be in rotation of our must-visit places though, so maybe we'll be seeing more of Korea and less of Japan? Perhaps.

Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed this series! Tune in next time for yet more travels with us!