6 Days 5 Nights in Seoul: Day 5

3-Nov

Unknown Korean language only BBQ in Yangjae

Exploring Yangjae

Toto’s Nostalgia Museum

Exploring Isadong

More Korean BBQ in Jonggak (I can't stop having BBQ)

We planned to spend this day at Everland, but learning that it will take 2 hours to get there and after the previous few days of nonstop walking, we decided to drop the plan.  Cho found some pictures of Alice in Wonderland Park online and she wanted to give it a visit.  What interested her the most is that the park has been abandoned and she thought it would be cool to trespass into an abandoned park.  So, instead of going to Everland, we headed out in search of Wonderland.

We followed the white bunny in a suit that was running in a hurry....just kidding :D. We took the train for about 50 minutes to get to the Yangjae Citizen's Forest station, got out at exit 3 to find something to eat.  The area is obviously not a tourist place because there's no English, Chinese or Japanese.  I see a lot of the 3 mentioned languages when I was in Hongdae and Myeongdong.  We were really hungry as we skipped breakfast.  We wandered around and found everything closed even when it was already past noon.  We found this BBQ restaurant at a small street that's underground.  Got in and the staffs were really friendly to guide us to a table.  Actually, the restaurant was pretty empty, we could have sat down anywhere we wanted.

We asked for a menu using body language as they can't speak English at all, hoping they would give us one with pictures, they pointed to the wall instead.  That's their menu.  We looked at it and thought, "Shit! How are we going to order?"  Both the staffs and us were using body language to try to translate the menu but of course unsuccessful.  Then one of the staff went into the kitchen and dragged out a middle age woman.  The woman saved the day!  Turns out she speaks some Mandarin.  She translated the entire menu for us.  We decided to have BBQ as it seems the simplest and tastiest from what she explained.

As mentioned before, we find that pork tastes better than beef in Korea.  So, we order pork belly~

Lots of side dishes to go with the meat again.  The staffs were super friendly here.  They taught us how to cook and prepare the filling for the meat wrap.  I love to wrap my meat with lettuce and kimchi.  It makes the meat so much tastier and less greasy feeling.

Juicy evilness here.

After eating all the meat, the staff took our pan and made kimchi fried rice with it.  Super delicious!  All this just costs 10,000 won per person.  We totally can't get something like this with such quality in food and service in Hong Kong.

After our brunch, we went down the subway and got out at exit 5 in search of the Alice in Wonderland Park.  The walk along the way was very relaxing and breathtaking. 

We found this little map online to show us where the park is.  The park is suppose to be located where the green arrow is.  We were searching all over the place and found NOTHING that resembled anything from the story of Alice in Wonderland.  We asked around with our broken body language to see if anyone knew about the place, and of course no one knew.  Cho then read carefully online about the park again.  Turns out, the Alice in Wonderland Park was DEMOLISHED IN 2012!!!  We travelled all the way here for NOTHING! Or so we thought.

You see the river next to the green arrow in the above map?  Well, that's a really beautiful place.  My pictures here won't do it justice.  It's like a place that fairies would live in.  Although we were unable to find Alice in Wonderland, we were still glad we came to see this super beautiful river.  It's a nice break from all the busy shopping in Seoul.  If I go to Seoul again,  I think I will come back to this area to explore some more.

It was getting late and we decided to leave and head to Anguk Station exit 6 to visit Toto's Nostalgia Museum and Insadong~

There are lots of shops in Insadong selling Korean souvenir, which I have no interest in.  We then headed straight to Toto's Nostalgia Museum.  It's on the 2nd floor, and the entrance is kind of hidden.  So, you will need to pay attention.  The fee is 2,000 won.  It's just a small place filled with loads of toys.  It's a great place to visit if you love collecting old toys.

We then walk straight to explore the Jonggak area.  There were lots of food stalls along the way.  Cho had been talking about the huge corn dog that she had been eyeing through out our stay in Korea.  It's this huge looking corn dog that's wrapped in French fries.

This thing looks super unhealthy to me.

I was quite disappointed in the whole thing.  Look at the hot dog inside!  It's tiny!  It's all just bread/dough.

Finally after around 30 minutes of walking, stopping and eating, we arrived at Jonggak.  My feet were already killing me again.  I just had to find a place to sit down and eat to rest my feet even when I wasn't hungry.  Lucky for me, Cho is constantly hungry.

We decided to eat at Baekjeong 백정: http://www.baekjeong.co.kr/

 

Again, we are eating pork only!

Yummy!!!

This ends our day if I remembered correctly.  If not, then we would have went shopping in Hongdae~

The unknown Korean BBQ restaurant at point k
Yangjae River at point l
Toto's Toys Museum at point m


I totally can't find where I had my BBQ dinner~  So, it's not on the map.

Chi.