Shopping.Museum.Shoppping

On Saturday, 토요일밤에! Geraldine and Shuyi went to Myeongdong for some retail therapy. They needed some exercise for all the late night suppers they have been having, which are so uncommon here in Korea.

They visited many, many shops not because they liked all of them, but because it was raining on and off and they darted from shop to shop to escape the rain!

And Geraldine spotted Hyunjoong in the crowd! ^^

For dinner, the rain forced them to quickly choose a place to settle down. They are happy with their choice amidst the situation though. You'd see why...

They had lots of fun cooking and eating it. It wasn't even very expensive. The side dishes and plain water are free flow. It cost 5000won each. In Singapore, it'd probably have been around SGD12++? Geraldine's guess.

On Sunday, they joined the rest of the Singaporeans who arrived the night before and 2 kind archi seniors brought all of them around. Seonho-oppa and Jina-oenni. 감사합니다! Seonho-oppa wanted to bring all of them to Changdeokgung Palace but it was too sunny so he brought everyone to The National Folk Museum of Korea. Aren't they such culture vultures?

Korean vases from different periods..

Traditional Korean kitchen..

Traditional Korean room..

Traditional Korean bed.. Looks cooling..

(One of the many) Traditional Korean dance..

Traditional Korean fabric weaving..

Traditional Korean basket weaving..

Traditional Korean straw mat weaving..

Tradtional Korean paper.. Hanji (한지).. Geraldine can't wait to go to Jeonju's Paper Museum..

Korean rice cake moulds.. which reminds Geraldine of mooncake moulds...

Traditional Korean Costume.. Hanboks (한복)!

Traditional Korean Sauce Pots.. Onggi..

Traditional Korean Masks.. (The two girls attempting the dance HAHA)

Traditional Korean Acupuncture..

Girl emo-ing..

Being such cultured people, the group went to Insadong (인사동) after that. Insadong is Seoul's Art District, something that Singapore's Waterloo Street tries to be.

Street performance in Insadong..

A walnut snack sold on the street that was delicious..

On route to Dongdaemun (동대문), the group saw something quite bizarre on the streets. Someone was selling little puppies for 90,000won (~SGD100).

Dongdaemun is one of the major shopping districts in Seoul. No tourist would not have heard about it. Although there are so so so many shops in Shoppers' Heaven Dongdaemun, Geraldine still prefers Myeongdong because people don't try to cheat her as much in Dongdaemun. Dongdaemun is probably Bugis Street in Singapore times 20 times?

At first afraid of being victims in a tourist spot, the group managed to find a nice little Korean BBQ restaurant and had dinner there. They had one of Geraldine's favourite Korean food, samgyeopsal (삼겹살), along with some beer (맥주) and soju (소주).

Remember Geraldine was talking about T-money (EZ-link) as handphone accessories? Her Singaporean friends bought them!