Day 7 in South Korea - Seoul Folk Flea Market, Gangnam, and Namdaemun Market

Today I felt much better. I woke up at 10.30am. It's been a wonderful rest for me. I took the last bottle of the pills with warm water and cooked porridge for breakfast. At 12pm we left the hostel. I wanted to see Seoul traditional market. My hubby checked the tourism booklet that he collected yesterday when he browsed the road alone. It was in Chinese. So we followed the direction, took subway to Sinseoldong station.

Seoul Folk Flea Market @Sinseoldong, Seoul

We followed other people as we had no clue on where to go. It was a bit weird as most people were elderly. No young people at all. Then we found out that the place that we walked to was the Seoul Folk Flea Market, a place where second hand stuffs were sold. Also there was a place where horse racing bets were sold. No wonder lah no young people there. The Chinese translation was a bit misleading kekeke... But not bad la.  We were able to see many different things sold over there. There were many different kind of stuffs sold. Too bad we couldn't speak or understand their language, otherwise we might buy one or two things from there ^^

These past few days we always browsed mostly at the North part of Han river. Therefore, before going back Singapore,  I would love to see the South part. We decided to go to Gangnam. Gangnam literally means "South part of the Han river". It is a district where it's known for heavily concentrated wealth and high standard of living. The housing price in that area was 3.5 times more than the average price in nationwide. Many good schools were there too. If you know the song 'Oppa Gangnam style', then this area's name might ring a bell. 

Gangnam, Seoul

When we took the subway there, we saw the Han river which divided the area. And the place that we went was shopping area. They also had underground shopping center apart from the one on the ground.

Lunch at Gangnam area

We had lunch there - Korean dumpling noodle,  various steamed dumpling,  and Kimpap (rice, beef, tuna, cheese, carrot, cucumber, kimchi, rolled with seaweed). It didn't look much but very filling. Oh, inside the restaurant, in their table, they would have a drawer where you could pull it out and take the spoon and chopsticks (see photo above). It's saving place and looked neat.

Namdaemun Market in Seoul

After shopping for a while we continued our walk to Namdaemun Market. This place was a touristic area. It consisted of markets selling many different things. I preferred to shop in this kind of place (open air market), rather than those shops located inside the buildings.

Namdaemun wet market

It was divided into many different area,  such as: noodles alley, tourist souvenir shopping alley, ladies clothing alley, beddings alley, wet market, etc. There were so many stalls selling food, socks, winter accessories like hat, shawl, warmer, winter clothing, souvenir, etc. I bought some souvenirs, socks and few other things from here.  Nice place ;)

Snacks and food stalls everywhere in Namdaemun Market

Too bad my stomach was still upset. There were so many snacks sold down there. We bought pork buns from one of the shops there called 'Kamegol'. The buns were steamy hot. Many people were queuing as it was suitable to eat the hot bun in such a cold weather (today was around -4 to -6 degree Celsius). We also bought 5 pcs. I only ate few bites as my stomach couldn't take it much. We brought the balance back to hostel. My hubby ate it for supper and the balance for tomorrow's breakfast (we can reheat it using the microwave). He also tried sausage wrapped with fish cake and was deep fried. Actually the food here was mostly not good for health. Oily, spicy, salty,  sour, etc. That's why it's said that Korea had the highest rate of stomach cancer in the world. Eating it once in a while Ok lah, but not everyday. I still prefer Indonesian food in term of taste ^^

Break time @Paris Baguette

Oh... it was tiring after walking for so long. Before going back to hostel, we stopped by at Paris Baguette to have a coffee and hot chocolate plus pastry while enjoying the view downstairs from our windows.

I just realized my both legs pained when going up the staircase. There were more staircase than elevator inside the subway station. We had to walk some distance too when we had to transfer the subway to another line. In case you were curious how their subway lines looked like, I attached the photo below for your imagination ^^

Seoul Railway System (Source : Google.com)

Hehehe... How do you feel? Singapore so far had only 5 lines. Seoul had much more than that! Now I understand why my colleague all said it was tiring to travel in Seoul and how strong Korean people when it came to walk.

OK la,  let me write until here. It's our last night in Korea. I've finished with my packing and it's time to sleep now. Hope you enjoyed reading it and one day if you have a chance to visit Korea, you would at least have an idea how the country looked like or what place to visit,  and so on. Annyeong.... (which means good bye!)