Hey Hive!
If you missed the last few posts, I've been sharing about our first trip to Seoul back in Nov 2022! We were waiting post-covid for everyone to go on their holidays before taking a big one and we finally decided to go on our honeymoon! It's also our first time experiencing Fall so we were double excited!
Last week, we started a relaxing day at Bukchon Hanok Village; home to hundreds of traditional Korean houses! The first time we came here it was raining really heavily so we decided to revisit it when the weather is better and enjoyed a nice stroll in this peaceful neighbourhood.
They had some very interesting architecture and it was cool to see how much personality each house had. It was as if each house was a little palace of its own.
We also got to enjoy a nice view and saw a lot of cute doggos on our walk through the village.
We ended by buying some snacks from Lotte Mart at Seoul Station and headed back to our hotel to drop them off. Now let's continue!
15 Nov 2022. Tuesday.
We didn't really have a plan of where we were going to go next but we just wanted to relax today since we spent the whole day yesterday walking around in Everland.
I told Seany to sit on the bench so we could grab a picture with the nice fall foliage but the bench was dirty so he did a squat instead. 😅
Now that it was evening time, the red leaves all had a nice warm glow to them from the slowly setting sun.
This office building had a huge LOVE sign at the entrance so we had to take a picture with it!
We've seen a bunch of these in different countries that we've visited and we try to make it a point to take pictures with it whenever we can. I really like the colours on this one too.
The district we were staying in, Myeongdong, is pretty much right in the middle of Seoul and they also have big malls here so we decided to check them out.
We did briefly look around here on our first day but we were pretty sleep-deprived then so might not have really seen much.
The mall also had our favourite katsu restaurant, Abiko Curry which we earlier in our trip at another branch. Sean loved it so much we had to have it again!
We were a tad too early for dinner though since it was only 16:25 but we waited 5 more minutes and they opened for us.
It was nice to have the whole restaurant to ourselves since it was still really early for dinner. I think we might've skipped lunch that day.
They had seats in the front and the back, with the kitchen dividing the halves. It was an interesting layout but I can see the place getting quite cramped when it's packed.
Here's the menu which features various types of curry like vegetable, pork and chicken alongside rice, udon or pasta with different types of toppings.
Last time we had this we tried one of the Abiko Sets which had both curry rice and curry noodles. But I think we prefer rice with the curry so we decided to go for the other Abiko Sets which includes Vegetable Pork Curry Rice, Mushroom Beef Hashed Rice, Fried Chicken, Cheese Pork Cutlet and a drink.
This was the Vegetable Pork Curry and there were 4 pieces of fried chicken karaage on the side with some kimchi and soup.
This was the Mushroom Beef Hashed Rice with the Cheesy Pork Cutlet, kimchi and soup on the side.
Everything looked and smelled so good we were excited to dig in! Since we tried the curry before, the sides were the real difference between the two sets. I was really excited about the cheesy pork cutlet since it looked so good!
There was quite a generous amount of cheese too, and this way it was like eating cheese curry which is delicious - the perfect pairing!
Just look at that cheese pull!
After a very satisfying meal, we walked around the mall to digest our food and check out the wares here.
We also went to see the Kakao Friends store here which is huge and had some exclusive holiday merchandise!
Sean has since developed a liking for one of the characters called Choonsik who was a stray cat that got adopted by the main character Ryan.
I think she might be newest character to join Kakao Friends because there was so much Choonsik merchandise like this giant head plush!
I really liked these special landmark figures.
By the time we left the mall it was dark out and there were lots of nice Christmas lights up around the building! It looked really pretty now that everything was lit up.
It was clear that we were the only tourists around since the streets were just packed with working people going off towards the train station to go home.
It felt like Christmas had come early seeing all these lovely lights around.
We went off towards the night market to see what snacks we had yet to try.
We were still pretty full from dinner though so I didn't have much intention to buy.
But I just couldn't pass up getting another croffle since it was so good last time!
Last time we tried a maple one and it was so good, so this time we decided to try a Cinnamon Sugar Croffle and it was awesome!
We had arranged a little special something at our hotel at night so we didn't walk around too long and decided to head back after our snack.
When we got back, we changed out of our winter wear and headed to the secret floor of the hotel which had the gym and sauna.
The surprise we arranged was a private hot spring! The hotel has a sauna and onsen area that I think would be open to all guests normally but was closed at the time due to covid preventative measures. However, we saw an ad in the elevator that you could book it privately so we decided to go for it!
They even had a bottle of champagne and a cheese plate for us all ready which we were not expecting at all! I'm not sure if they knew we were on our honeymoon but it was perfect!
There was a sauna that we could use and right next to it was an outdoor bath!
There were even some nice decorations next to the bath which had pink water in it too!
The other side of the bath had a beautiful wall of fake roses, and there was a little window that you could see out of from the sauna too.
From the bath you could even see a nice view of N Seoul Tower which we visited a few days ago in our trip too!
We changed and showered before getting into the bath to enjoy the warm water. The air was pretty cold out especially with nothing on so the warm water was so relaxing and soothed our aching muscles.
We were debating whether to open the champagne since neither of us drink but since it was our honeymoon and we were here, we decided why not!
We were trying to figure out how best to take a picture with the decorations and the glasses but couldn't find the right angle for it.
The flower wall was really lovely though.
I'm not sure if the champagne is good but it tasted meh to me. We think they probably wouldn't give guests expensive champagne since it was complementary.
We spent quite a bit of time in relaxing in the bath, taking pictures, enjoying the view and also used the sauna for a bit.
We did have a time limit since the place would close so unfortunately we couldn't stay there very long, but we did enjoy it for a good hour or two. After we were done with the bath we took a shower and dried our hair. They also had really nice amenities available for use.
It was the perfect end to a very relaxing day, and we're so grateful we got to have this special experience that really made our trip feel like a honeymoon! Huge thanks to the staff at ibis styles hotel for arranging this for us!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #253 (Seoul): Seeking Serenity in Bukchon Hanok Village 🏯
