Day 8: Trip to Osaka

Today we left Seoul and went to Osaka. We took the express train to the airport. The trip went smoothly, so we arrived way before check-in time. We decided to get some donuts at Dunkin Donuts to pass the time.

After finishing our donuts we checked-in our luggage and paid for heavy baggage (yes, we knew one of the suitcases would be too heavy). After passing customs we went to the Charlie Brown Cafe, but they were sold out of all the cute food, so we decided to eat something at KFC.

We flew whit peach air, a daughter company from ANA. The company had chosen purple as their main color, so everything had a light purple color, including the airplane.

At arrival at Kansai International Airport we set out to buy universal tickets. There was a really useful information center, right outside the baggage pick-up. The friendly lady there pointed us to the JR ticket office to buy our tickets. We had to take a free shuttle bus to another building, where we also had to be for the train to Osaka centrum. We had a bit of trouble figuring out the Japanese rail system, but just as in Korea everyone is willing to help you.
We managed to find the hotel without too many difficulties. We just needed to follow a straight road from Nipponbashi station. We were staying in the Yamatoya Honten Ryokan Osaka, in a traditional room. We had to sleep on the floor (we did have our own bathroom), during the evening the hotel staff would get our beds from a closet and make them up for us, and in the morning they put them back in the closet. The hotel has a great location, right in the middle of the shopping area. Dotonbori was literally next door and we could walk to the lolita shops (yay!).

However, except for its great location I would not recommend this hotel. The rooms are tiny and there is a horrible smell in the room. On top of that, because of a small leak in the toilet flush your hands get wet every time you flush the toilet, yuck! Besides, they advertise themselves as being a hotel with Wi-Fi, something we selected our hotels on, but the Wi-Fi hardly works, and if it does it is extremely slow.
To add a bit more positive feelings to this post, we had a great first dinner in Japan. We went to a sushi restaurant, where we ordered sushi and sashimi. We also got to try the famous mackerel sushi. Everything tasted delicious!

All photos can be found at my flickr page

Day 7: Having a hair cut in Seoul

This day started with a breakfast out of the hotel (as usual). My parents ordered a croque-monsieur, while I ordered some kind of bread with a dip. The croque-monsieurs tasted pretty normal, except that they were sweeter than we are used to. They still were really delicious. The bread was also sweet, and the dip turned out to be cheese. It made for an awesome combination, though it was a bit much for breakfast.

Our first stop this day was Gabalnara, which is a wig store that sells natural looking wigs. There is a decently sized off-line shop in Seoul, just one stop from Hongdae. I had read about their natural looking wigs and wanted to try some before buying, because I have had a few bad experiences with wigs before. The shop is quite big, though they do not have a very big selection of wigs available. There were special changing rooms to try on wigs, which were equipped with a lot of mirrors and other tools to try on the wigs. In the back of the shop are VIP rooms, which I guess are for frequent customers to enjoy some private shopping. Apart from wigs they also sell hair accessories, like hair clips and brushes. I picked out a wig I liked from the display and went to try it on. I was handed a hairnet, but I had a bit of trouble putting on the wig on my own, thus the shop clerck helped me with putting it on. I did not really like how it looked on me, so I tried on a different one and I completely fell in love. It is actually quite similar in color to how I had colored my hair a few years back. After buying the wig I asked the man who helped me if the bangs could be cut here, he tried explaining me (in broken English) that they have a different shop for that, Making Hair. He called for me to make an appointment and explained how to get there, it was actually just down the road, in the middle of Hongdae.

The bangs of my wig were cut by a man who was really great at cutting :D. He was actually that awesome that I decided that I wanted to also have my own bangs cut by him. I haven't had my bangs cut for quite a while, because I was really disappointed by the Dutch hairdressers.

As we finally were in Hongdae without being extremely tired and/or hungry we decided to do some shopping. On our way to the first shop we passed a photo boot where they were making photos whit a bottle of alcohol that seems to be really popular in Korea. We decided to also get a photo (and it was free, we are Dutch after all).

Our first stop was actually an ice cream shop, where they sold the most cutest ice creams I've ever seen. We all chose a different design, and they tasted pretty good.

After finishing the ice cream we went accessories shopping, we mostly bought socks. Korea has the most awesome socks in various cute designs.

We wanted to have our last dinner at our usual place, so in the evening we went back to Insa Dong. Before dinner I bought a "poop bread", a candy shaped as a pile of poop. Despite its name it tasted all right, though it was nothing spectacular.

All photos can be found at my flickr page

Day 6: Bus tour

We started this day by going back to Gwangjang market to buy the last accessories for my hanbok outfit (and to buy matching shoes for my new hanbok). It was pretty easy to find everything I needed, I just had a very hard time deciding what to buy.
After going to the the market we had planned to go on a city tour bus, which is a hop on hop off bus. After we had bought tickets we headed to KFC for a late breakfast, I got a Zinger burger that was wrapped in a cute pink package.

The bus tour wasn't that great of a decision. The bus was equipped with an audio tour, but the information offered was so basic we did not continue listening. The tour was really boring, you did not get to so a lot of nice sights and I fell asleep halfway. We had also planned to take the night tour bus, but we decided against it.

During the bus tour we did see 2 interesting sights that we wanted to inspect from up-close. Our first stop was a palace gate, where we had seen guards standing. Upon reaching the gates the changing of the guards started, so we had a great view of the spectacle.

We found out that this palace was included in the palace pack, so we entered Deoksugung palace. Quite honestly if you're not that interested in culture all palaces look the same and you can minimize your palace visits to one.

After a short stroll through the palace grounds we decided to leave and get some donuts at the nearby Dunkin Donuts.

After we had finished our donuts we crossed the road to some stalls and a big podium. It turned out to be some kind of pepper festival, with people carrying around big bags of red peppers.

We headed back to the hotel, where we passed the stalls with food that were always there. This time we decided to try what they had for sale. First up was a hotdog surrounded by dough (corndog?), which could be topped with ketchup and/or mustard. It tasted really awesome, I'm sad I wasn't able to eat more of them.

Next in line was a stall that sold some kind of egg cakes. They were also delicious!

In the evening we went to Daiso, a kind of dollar shop. There was a 5F one near our hotel and as it was raining like crazy we went there before dinner. They have lots of cute stuff, including all kinds of home ware, I know where I'll be getting my room decoration if I'm going to study here.
We ended this day in Insa Dong, having dinner at the same place we had eaten the very first day in Seoul.

All photos can be found at my flickr page

Day 5: Wedding dresses

Today we started out by going to the Samsung D'Light building. We had to change metro at Gangnam station, thus we had to take a photo there ;)

The Samsung building was a bit disappointing, as there weren't that many new items to see. One floor shows existing and soon to be released smartphones, tablets, photo cameras, laptops and televisions.

The next two floors were more like a museum, whit explanations on how things worked and a few things to try yourself, it was pretty boring.

Unless you really don't know what else to do anymore I wouldn't recommend going to the Samsung building. After this we went to an electronic market, but we were finished quite quickly as this wasn't very interesting either. However, on our way to the electronics market we did stop at Baskin Robins, an ice cream shop that I had read a lot about on Internet. They had a lot of different flavors, so we decided to share 5 scoops of different flavors. It turned out that we had misunderstood the cashier and we didn't get 5 scoops, but a whole bucket filled with 5 flavors.

After we had finally finished the huge ice cream we went to the Princess diary cafe. At the station we bought some bright colored sweets, but they didn't taste as good as they looked.

This time the cafe was open and we were allowed to enter. It is a very cute cafe, with little spaces where you can enjoy a drink before or after you have tried on a wedding dress. We chose the lemonade, which was excellent and tasted really fresh. As you can't drink or go to the toilet when you have a wedding dress on I decided to get changed halfway through my lemonade.

They have a huge amount of dresses (also some hanbok) ranging from 10000 to 40000 won.

Of course I chose the biggest and most princess looking dress I could find, thus having to pay 40000 won (the dresses are grouped according to price, so you can easily keep your budget in mind). There was also a hoop skirt available for this dress. Furthermore, they have a wide variety of accessories for you to use like crowns, veils, and fake flower bouquets. I spend about 15-20 minutes making photos and just feeling awesome, though I definitely can imagine you'd spend more time here if you come with a group of friends. The owner made a Polaroid picture, free of charge, which was very sweet. I've put it next to the dozen other photos that are hanging around the cafe. I would recommend going here, it is easy to access and you will have a great time here.

Dinner this evening wasn't a great success, I think we can begin to draw the conclusion that we do not like typical Korean food.

For dessert we bought a weirdly shaped ice cream cone, which was filled whit 2 flavors of ice cream. The ice cream was okay but I threw away most of the cone.

All photos can be found at my flickr page

Day 4: Hanbok photos

We started this day with breakfast at Dunkin Donuts (we were actually on time for breakfast but skipped it because of the queue).  In a lot of restaurants in Korea you get a little device while waiting, it starts vibrating when your order is ready, so you can come to pick it up. The device at Dunkin Donuts even has advertisement being played on a small screen.

After breakfast we went on our way to the Goguan photo studio, where I had an appointment for a photo shoot in hanbok.

At this studio they have a large amount of Hanboks that can be used for taking photos. They have 4 different categories to choose from (normal, dancer, princess or wedding hanbok). I chose the wedding category because I love the big sleeved hanboks and as I already have a hanbok at home it wouldn't feel as special with a normal one. After choosing what kind of hanbok you want to wear (and if applicable what kind of wig) you are escorted to the changing room. You start with choosing which hanbok you want to wear. They have 2 huge walls full of hanbok, but luckily for me they only had 4 wedding hanboks (I'm really bad at making choices). After choosing your hanbok you put on the under hanbok and petticoat. Then they do your makup and hair (you can also choose not to have your makeup and hair done, everything is optional). After this they help you get dressed and put on the finishing touches. I had reserved a course with photo studio photos, so this was the moment a professional photographer took photos of me in their studio.

Afterwards you are allowed to use the sceneries they have available in their building to take your own photos.

I would definitely recommend going here, it might seem a bit expensive (though you can make it as expensive or inexpensive as you like), but it is well worth the price seeing as how much I enjoyed it and how much time I spend here.
We then decided to go to the Gwanghwamun flea market, a small flea market in front of the Gyeongbokgung palace. It is a fun little market, though I would only recommend going here if you really have enough time in Seoul. I unexpectedly bought a hanbok over here, beforehand I had decided I would not buy a hanbok in Korea as I already have a beautiful vintage one at home, but I gave in to my inner shopaholic.

We tried going to the Princess diary cafe, but we were urged back to the exit once we entered. I guess they were closing up, we'll try going again some other day. We decided to end our day (with a not so successful dinner, though dessert was wonderful) in Hongdae.

All photos can be found at my flickr page