Korea Trip Day 10-14: Back to Seoul!

This is the final post on my trip to Korea! Took me more than 5months to blog about my entire trip-.-

Day 10: Cat Cafe and Lotte Mart

We arrived in Seoul in the afternoon and the first thing I wanted to do was to visit another CAT CAFE! It's on my itinerary to visit at least 3 cat cafes in Korea. We headed to Godabang Cat Cafe, which was walking distance from our accomodation. The price was quite standard, probably around 8000won-10,000won per entry and it comes with a free drink as well!

We followed the instructions from this blog:

'Hongik University, exit 9. Turn left as soon as you exit, and turn right at the first intersection. You will likely see a Garfield mascot. The “Godabang Cat Cafe” will be on your right hand side, and you’ll have to take the stairs up to the third floor'.

This sphinx cat was an active little kitty. The rest of the cats were all nonchalantly chilling by themselves, and he was the only one running around. Halfway through our visit, the staff tried to take him away for some time-out session, and he came running towards me for protection! I have to admit sphinx cats aren't my fav, but that moment was just...to cute...

Now, this is the best part about the cafe. They have feeding time for the cats where they allow customers to feed the cats as well. I'm not too sure how frequent is their feeding time, but I'm thinking probably once every 1-2hours?

Most of the cats are adults, so they're way past the 'playful' stage where they will run after their toys, and the only way to attract their attention is FOOD.

I think I had over 5 cats lick food off my hands that day. I went for round 2 since R passed up his chance lol. All of us had to sanitise our hands before feeding the cats!

We left the cafe after about 1-2hours and went for dinner. Afterwhich, we did quite a bit of damage at Lotte Mart! We ended up with a big cart full of food, and had a hard time carrying everything back. But it was worth it.

Day 11: EVERLAND

We decided for go for Everland instead of Lotte World, as I heard that Everland is more kid-friendly/dreamy in comparison to Lotte World which has more rides catered for adults. I'm not one to go on exciting rides, so a kid-friendly theme park with setting that looks like it came straight out of a fairytale is more to my preference.

Unlike Lotte World, Everland is located outside the city, so there's a lot more travelling involved. We took the train all the way to Gangnam station, and then took bus 5002 to a transit stop, and a shuttle bus brought us up to Everland. 

This is really more of a sight-seeing trip for me, since I'm not big on rides.

Love this place! Couldn't help but to think of elves, little fairies and talking animals living together in harmony.

There was also a tulips festival in Everland and we were surrounded by bright flowers in full bloom.

Of course, I fell into the tourist trap of getting a headgear that I will never ever wear outside of Everland.

The safari world ride is a must-see attraction. You will be be able to see lions, tigers, bears, and other wild life creatures in close proximity! The queue was terribly long, I think it took us about 45min-1hr before we board the mini bus that took us around the safari.

I like the idea that all the humans are inside the bus, while the animals just roam freely in the safari. Granted, they are not actually 'free', but it's so much better than being trapped in a cage or a small enclosed area.

I bought a huge back of candy to snack on while R took the rides all by himself. I'm a real coward when it comes to things like roller coasters and horror films, so there's no way to get me up on the rides. Poor guy..well, at least he enjoyed the T-express, said it was one of the most thrilling rides!

We took the cable car back to the entrance, as we were all the way at the other end of the park when it was time to leave.

And that's all for Everland! I thought I took a lot more pictures though...but there was one point where I bought a candy floss and couldn't take any pictures as my hands were all sticky.

Day 12: Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival

This is one of the highlights of our Korea trip. A freaking huge Cherry Blossom Festival. Before this trip, I've never seen a cherry blossom in real life, and every time single time I saw them in Korea, I still got extremely excited. 

Check our this website for more info on how to travel from Seoul to Jinhae, or you can just go to Seoul Station, let the person at the information counter know that you want to visit the festival, and they will sort it out for you.

There was only 1 train to Jinhae and 1 train back to Seoul, and the morning train was set to go at around 530am. The journey there took about 3-4 hours, so we actually only had 6-7hours in Jinahe, before we need to catch our train back to Seoul at around 5pm.

Even before we got down the train, we could already see rows and rows of fluffy cherry blossoms lined neatly along the railroad.

Was it worth the long journey? You tell me. This was taken by my trusty Panasoic LX7.

The cherry blossoms were so fluffy and light, but the light pink colour of the flowers was quite difficult to capture on camera. 

This is not a stock photo. Once again, taken by Panasonic LX7.

Unbelievable. 

I still can't believe I actually saw all of these in real life.

Hahaha, cute kids alert!!!

I didn't do justice to the amazing scenery we saw.

There were vendors selling street food as well, slightly overpriced though.

We had lunch at one of the small little korean restaurant, and the ahjuma said I look beautiful>< HAHAHAAAA.

Then we took a bus and headed over to another section of the festival, near the railroads. The festival covered the entire town, and I don't think it's possible to cover everything in a single day.

Overexposed cherry blossoms again. hai.

We wanted to visit another section, but there was not enough time, so we just went into one of their cafes, chilled for awhile and headed back to Seoul!

Day 13: Seoul Tower!

As we had a rather busy day at Jinhae, we decided to sleep in the next day. I think it was already close to noon when we woke up!

Seoul Tower wasn't really on my itinerary, because R had been there before and he said there wasn't much to see. But being the cliche tourist I am, we decided to head over nonetheless.

We didn't go all the way up to the top of the tower, but i really wanted to visit the Love Locks...very touristy, I know...but I really wanted to do it after watching You Who Came From The Stars.

It was freaking cold up there by the way, and the wind was quite strong as well. We stayed for a good 15min I think, choosing the location for our locks and taking some photos.

We wandered around for awhile after visiting Seoul Tower, and for dinner, we went to this chicken galbi restaurant near our accommodation. 

For supper, we had our favourite hot dark chocolate from Cocobruni. Seriously, try this out if you're ever in the Hongdae area.

Day 14: Ginseng Chicken Soup, Cat Cafe & Back to SG!

On our last day, we skipped breakfast and headed to Gyeongbokgung station in search of the famous Ginseng Chicken Soup. Apparently Korea's late president used to frequent the restaurant as well. You can follow the directions here.

We arrived at around 11+, slightly earlier than lunch time to avoid the lunch crowd. The portion seemed to be pretty big, and we weren't that hungry, so we ordered just one set to try.

The set came with a cup of really strong/concentrated Ginseng wine too.

The chicken was stuffed with rice, dates, herbs and other ingredients.

Yes, including a ginseng as well.

Given the hype around it, we were a little underwhelmed as we felt that the soup wasn't flavourful enough, and it didn't deliver the kind of kick that I thought it would. 

This was the queue when we finished our meal. Luckily we went earlier.

Stopped by an odeng store on the way. That was my last odeng before leaving Korea.

We had to go back to our apartment to vacate our stuff in the afternoon so that the owner could pack and get the apartment ready for the next tenants. Then we went back to cocobruni for our last cup of hot chocolate.

Our final destination was yet another cat cafe... I'm a crazy cat lady. We went back to Cat Living Cafe again because we really like the environment there.

It proved to be a great choice as we had the entire cafe to ourselves!!! The cafe was totally empty for the first like 45min.

My leather jacket was instrumental in attracting the cats' attention.

This fluffed kitty slept on my lap for half an hour, refusing to budge. 

MUNCHKIN!!!
One day, I'm gonna get a scottish fold munchkin.

So peaceful.

That concludes my Korea trip *throws confetti*!! YAY

If you're a first time visitor, I think a 10 day trip to Seoul and Jeju would be more than enough. In my opinion, Busan is a wonderful city to live in, but for sightseeing and shopping, Seoul and Jeju has a lot more to offer! Will definitely go back to Korea for the cheap cosmetics/skincare and drool-worthy makeup, and my skin felt so much better in Korea's less humid climate.