Day 39: Namsan Walks & Dongdaemun

A couple nights ago I had mentioned that I was thinking of getting a winter coat and Kate had suggested checking out Dongdaemun market. She also found out that I hadn't tried tteokbokki yet so she offered to take me to a yummy place in Dongdaemun. We set off around 11 am and walked for an hour and a half along a really beautiful path that wraps around the side of Namsan mountain.

It was super interesting to walk with her because she knew all sorts of cool information about Korea and it's history. She explained a lot about the different universities here and who funded each one of them. I also learned that pine trees and turtles are symbols of longevity in Korea. It was such a fun walk and a really nice change from my usual wandering alone.

We made it down the mountain and into Dongdaemun. Our first stop was a famous bakery called Tous les Jours where I bought way too much bread.

Then we went to a huge mall in Dongdaemun. It was 14 stories high with all sorts of different stores on each floor. We went down to the basement first to look at famous baked goods places and she showed me a well-known bingsu restaurant. Then we went up to the 9th floor (I think it was the 9th) which is the food floor. It smelled amazing and there were so many restaurants that looked really good. The one we came for was a tteokbokki restaurant that's buffet style. When we sat at the table there was a pot in the middle where we could cook the tteokbokki as well as a pitcher of broth and a big bowl for putting our ingredients in.

We got up and chose a bunch of different things. There were all sorts of different shaped rice cakes (including flowers and hearts) as well as toppings like eggs, cabbage, mushrooms, and blood sausage. We filled the bowl and then Kate mixed together a bunch of different sauces.

I was really thankful that Kate was there because I had no idea how to cook the food! There seemed to be a system for when to put certain ingredients in and when to adjust the temperature so I just sat back and watched. It was so delicious! Everything about it was so yummy and I would love to go back. It was very filling though so I wasn't able to eat much.

Kate had to leave after we ate so I continued to walk around the mall in search of a winter coat. I found a huge sale area that had a ton of nice looking coats. The style here seems to be these puffy long coats that everyone looks really good in. Unfortunately, every single one I tried on just made me look like a huge marshmallow. I tried on tons of different coats but I eventually just gave up and went outside to eat some of the bread I had purchased earlier.

I was going to bus home after but decided to look around for a little longer. I found a clothing market area in the basement of a building that was full of small stalls with everything ranging from coats, to pyjamas, to shoes. I tried to find a winter coat again but the ones I liked had sleeves that were too short... the struggle is real. I did find a booth with cool shirts though so I bought a hoodie and a long sleeve shirt with fun graphics on them. After looking around for a little longer I bussed back to the place I was staying.

Rather than a key to get in, they use a finger print scanner. For some reason my thumb really seems to hate anything finger print related. It never works on my phone and it takes me so many tries to open the door here. I was trying to see the sunset at Maebongsan Park so I was rushing to open the door and for the life of me it wouldn't work. I tried 20 times (literally 20 times, it kept locking me out every 10 attempts) before I finally gave up and just brought my shopping bag with me to the mountain. I trekked back up to the pavilion I found last week and sat down to read for a bit. I was there for an hour or so before I started to get hungry.

One of my favourite views

The pavilion

I walked back to the place I am staying at and this time I was able to open the door on my third try! I dropped off my stuff and walked back to Itaewon street to try and find a place to eat. I ended up choosing a Korean restaurant where I could have bibimbap. When I have ordered it in the past everything has come out cooked except for the egg. This time the beef was raw. I wasn't really sure what to do so I just tried to move it all to the bottom of the hot pot so it would cook a little. I ate everything else and by the time I was almost done the meat had fortunately cooked enough. I'll have to be more careful when ordering it in the future!

I began my walk back to the apartment and passed a big crowd of people on the way. I tried to Google what event was happening but couldn't find anything so I asked a group of girls standing outside the venue. The place is called Blue Square and it is a theatre as well as a two store library with cafes. I was able to use my limited Korean to find out that Infinite's Woohyun had performed a concert there tonight and the people outside were fans waiting for him to leave. Infinite was the first k-pop group I was every exposed to so it made me feel a little nostalgic.

Hope everyone is doing well,

Emily

(November 3, 2018)

Distance walked: 14.4 km