Your dog has never looked this good

Hongdae is the fun area around Hongik University filled with cafes, shops and clubs. I spent pretty much all day there but it's definitely a place you can revisit time and time again. Each time I go, I feel like I find more interesting stores and cute dessert cafes to visit. The best time to visit is probably after 12, when the shops start opening. I feel like I'm adjusting my sleep schedule to wake up later and later in Korea, since nothing opens early~


Cute gudetama toy catcher! I saw lots of toy catcher rooms, but I don't think they're as crazy as Taiwan where there's 20 of the machines crammed into one room.




The star of today's blogpost: Cheesy ribs! The restaurant simply said '芝士排骨' and you'll definitely see the huge sign if you walk to the main square in Hongdae. The dish was for a minimum of 2 people and was about 14,000 won each. Don't worry if you don't know how to cook the dish, the kind waitresses will help you.




The cheese melts quickly, which is good if you're hungry. I was waiting so impatiently and snapchatting everything.




This is how the waitress demonstrated it: lift a portion of the ribs with the tongs and dip it into the cheese sauce, then roll it around in the cheese. Lift up the cheesy goodness and cut the string with scissors! It was genuinely so good, the cheese melted in the mouth. Weirdly enough, I'm lactose intolerant but felt fine afterwards. I highly recommend it! The portion size was really generous and if you're up for a challenge, you can even have cheesy rice with it. The two of us couldn't finish it.



A beautifully decorated Korean BBQ restaurant in Hongdae~ The lamps make it look like a perfect date spot.



This candy floss seller had a candy floss dog to match. His candy floss was spun into interesting shapes. I feel like in Korea, no one spins candy floss into a normal shape because it's too basic.



Look at this magnificent white floof! There was a sign saying don't pet him.



Whilst looking for the Hongdae Market, I came to the crushing realisation that it only happened from March-November. In December, the playground square was completely empty. I literally walked around 4 times looking for the square before realising my mistake. All was not lost however! We came across a sign for Sang Sang puppy cafe and we were like yes. This is it. What we came to Korea for.


I saw a store filled with Adventure Time merch while wandering around looking for the puppy cafe and had to go in. I didn't know Koreans were such huge fans?! Jake really looks like a LINE character though, so I kind of understand the obsession.


Also there's a good place to nap and the staff don't care. I saw couples lying around as well. My mum decided to cuddle a giant Jake and drift off~


Gudetama gachapon!! The whole place was a massive gachapon centre and they were pretty serious about it too. There were literally huge buckets available for 500won coins and they had posters up declaring dates of availability for character gachapon. Lots of people were fully going for it and racking up the character goods. I went for a little light-up Gudetama myself >w< It wasn't just 500won though, it was 4 x 500won coins! This stuff is expensive.


Made it to Sang Sang puppy cafe! The map earlier seriously didn't help, but google maps managed to lead us the right way eventually. It was really cheap to enter and the drinks weren't bad either. We changed into slippers and sat in a separate waiting area to have our hot drinks. Really recommend the Citron tea :)



The dogs really love couples. Every couple I saw had a personal puppy! This is genuinely the perfect date spot, only I was here with my mum lol.



My mum appreciating the view. The cute guy had to keep hugging the big poodle because it was borking sadly for attention. We tried to give it all of our attention but nope, he only wanted the cute guy. Every time it barked all the dogs in the cafe would rush to it. Is it the leader??




Big poodle getting spoilt again by the staff. I wish my dog would become a backpack too!



This pupper has better hair than me. Look at those golden locks I'm so jealous?! The one dog who would let me pet her lol. I think for dog cafes, you have to be super patient because the dogs have their own personalities. My mum was literally trying to grab the dogs and they all ran way from her haha.


This girl was so popular with the dogs! They all came to her because she was the prettiest one in the cafe haha <3


The one dog who was literally scared of everyone. I totally understand though- if you're that small, everyone is a giant. She would approach people but if they tried to pet her, she would run away instantly. Be prave smol pupper!


The wall of fame for the dogs! The empty frame belongs to Sang Sang, I wonder why they took it out?! Sang Sang is a big basset hound and I saw him in a sleeping crate in the cafe. He looked old and majestic.



The pretty girl from earlier managed to pet smol pupper! Unfortunately she ran away immediately after this photo.


Everyone having an amazing time. The cafe is so pretty and cute ^^ I'm really envious of Hongik University students. I would literally come here with my reading and pet some pups. I had a really good time at Sang Sang puppy cafe and highly recommend it.



Hello Kitty cafe in the dark. A bunch of girls were also photographing the sign but none of us went in to try delicious Hello Kitty-themed snacks. Maybe one day I'll visit~ Not with my mother though, because she was facepalming the whole time.



I love underground shops. This one sold a lot of traditional cakes which looked amazing. My mum bought some and chatted with the shop owner who was actually from China. She told us that anyone who could speak Mandarin in Korea was most likely Chinese... Not 100% sure that's true, but might be likely. Chinese people are everywhere.



There's a lot of really cheap and cute jewellery in underground stations! I would buy some but I would lose it instantly. An example was my Christmas gift from Gyen- beautiful handmade pearl earrings. I wore it the next day and lost one.

Day 2 was awesome! I love love love Hongdae, it's so lively. Can't wait for Ewha tomorrow~

Myeong dong at night!

Exchange a bit of money at the airport
You'll definitely get higher exchange rates in the airport than in your home country.
I would recommend exchanging enough for the bus journey and food for the day, so about ￦100,000? (about £68), then you can head to the best money exchange place in Seoul later.

Get your SIM card/wifi egg at the airport

Korean SIMs are not that cheap, despite being the country who rolled out 4G connection with huge enthusiasm. A 30 day SIM card from Olleh cost about ￦71,500 and the wifi router rental is ￦5,500 per day. If you're travelling with someone I really recommend the router rental unless you're planning on going separate directions.

I actually had a slip-up with the SIM card because it didn't work on my mum's iphone 4 and by the time we realised, we were already on the airport limousine out of there. So make sure the SIM card works before leaving the airport! We had to go to myeong-dong KT building to ask for a refund, which we'll get at the airport when we fly back and it was just a huge hassle.

Also you probably won't get a better deal with the SIM card from someone who can speak English outside of the airport, so I highly recommend just getting it from the Olleh counter on the first floor.

How to get out of the airport- aka how to get to Yeoksam

Google maps was fairly useless when it came to this and we were too lazy to go to the informations counter, so we walked out of the airport with no plan and only the address of the guesthouse in our warmest winter coats. Seoul in winter is NO JOKE, I thought London was cold but this was hypothermia levels.

I don't think you need to leave from Exit 11, there were a lot of ticket boots with staff along the bus area. Do have your location on hand and ready to show the ticket staff, they'll sort you out with a ticket pretty quickly and tell you which bus stand to go to. The ticket was about ￦15,000 each which is seriously cheap compared to a taxi, which would have set us back about £60+. The bus drivers were also super nice and helped us with our luggage.

Yeoksam was the next to last stop and it took us about an hour to get there. I think it took us longer to figure out how to get out of the airport?! Also Citymapper is the best English travel app for Korea hands-down.

Guest house check-in

Just FYI, the best free wifi spots is probably Free T-Wifi Zone: connect to it then go on your browser to https://tfreewifi.com and login with Facebook. I had to go on the website every time I connected but it was super reliable. I got off the bus and headed to Starbucks with my mum because after the bus journey, I wanted to throw up. It's not that the bus ride was terrible or anything, my body is just weak to motion sickness. Starbucks in Seoul has this delicious special brown rice soup with crackers that is so calming and delicious and I can't stop myself eating it.

ignore my embarrassing snapchat captions

I stole some wifi and figured out how to walk to the guesthouse from Starbucks thanks to Citymapper and it was only about 6 minutes. It was a 6 minutes pushing two huge suitcases uphill though, so it was a good workout. This is probably the reason why everyone in Korea is so fit- everything is either uphill or up 3 flights of stairs.

The guesthouse check-in was pretty basic. I should have taken a photo of my room before we started unpacking everything but it's too late now. I'll add a photo after I move out. **Future Trina please insert photo here** The facilities are clean and less than a minute from the clinic (more on that later) so I was pretty happy. We dropped our stuff off and headed out towards Myeong-Dong.

Myeong-Dong: Skincare and makeup heaven
Winter nights come really quickly in Seoul. By the time we headed out, it was already dark and we were super hungry. From Yeoksam it was about 40+ minutes by subway to Myeong-Dong so by the time we arrived, we were ready to eat a small child. Thanks to the existence of 全州中央會館, we didn't become cannibals. Actually we just stumbled across the restaurant and went in but later we realised that we ate here when I was 16 and it was a famous spot for bibimbap. I feel like this experience set the tone for the rest of our travels.

Of course we devoured the starters first

Samgyetang- This is an entire chicken and yes I ate it all

I also ate all of this. Sometimes I wonder if my mum is happy to have a daughter who eats like 2 sons

Actually this guy was right next to the alley where the restaurant is, so if you can't find it you can look out for him

We didn't go to the best money exchange in Myeong Dong today, but we went to the 2nd floor of some random skincare shop with pretty decent rates. I'll post more about it when we actually go ^^

This squid stall was so popular

Street food in Myeong-Dong is cheap and delicious which is pretty much all I want from my food. My mum was in heaven.


Guys I seriously appreciate the way Koreans feel the need to add cheese to everything. I understand, I love cheese as well in spite of being very lactose-intolerant. Research has shown that cheese is as addictive as hard drugs so I hope my gut can be more understanding of why I can't give it up.

I mean ffs look at this beauty

BEAUTIFUL

For the guys who don't wear makeup and don't want to start a 10-step skincare regimen, I guess you can just eat all of the food while your girlfriend buys 2000 face masks that will expire before she uses them.

Since food was the theme of our first day, we decided to head to Lotte Mart for delicious snacks.

Sneakpeek at the underground mall in Jamsil station- super cute fashion for reasonable prices

Lotte Mart- Jamsil station

It's huge but in a good way

Probably the most ridiculous hypermarket I've been to, including Costco and Walmart. It was actually kind of hard to find from the station, but basically if you see a huge escalator, take it all the way up and Lotte Mart is on your right past the restaurants. Approximately 20,000 people in the supermarket figured out how to get there so I have faith that people can find it in the end.

The first few steps in and it was like I was back in Myeong Dong- so many skincare and makeup stands. There were actually a few makeup brands I didn't see in M-D so it was cool to check it out.

Lotte Mart is probably better than Lotte World- plentiful samples, cheap and delicious snacks and thousands of attractions (all of them are food). I also struck gold:

HONEY BUTTER

HONEY BUTTER

The red sign says that it's a hot buy #1 and DAMN STRAIGHT, anything that's flavoured with honey butter is delicious and needs to get in my belly. I limited myself to 1 pack because I am a honey butter fiend. Thank you Mystic Messenger for introducing me to honey buddha chips.

Are you guys okay?

While I was eating my way through the store, I heard a lot of Singaporean/Malaysian accents which made me feel like I was home again. I turned around and BAM, the trolley is full of food and the kids are carrying more snacks. Like I understand Korean snacks are cheap and delicious but Singapore isn't suffering from a severe snack shortage so is there a need to stock up like we're going to live in a bunker for 10 years?!

I mean look at this:

There are actual packing stations with cardboard boxes and tape so you can box up all your shin cup ramens.

And so many people are using them omg

I'm not judging, I'm just confused. What do people do with so many snacks? Please tell me your secret.

A family who snacks together stays together

6 SINGAPOREAN STUDENTS WHO HAVE ENOUGH SNACKS UNTIL RETIREMENT

Truthfully, I'm just super jealous that I can't bring a box of honey butter chips back to London. Time to move back to Asia~

Day 2 coming soon ^^

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