Lesley Goes to China: My Trip to Land of Kpop (Part 2)

And the Korean adventure continues... The next day, Camille and I headed to Insadong, the shopping district that was located right by our hotel. One of the things I miss most is going to a coffee shop to just chill and read. So this morning, Camille and I took it easy and got into the Word at Starbucks!

We found these two across the street! It was a complete tourist trap, but the guys were so entertaining trying to speak English and Chinese to us (because we told them we live in China), that we couldn't help but buy some traditional Korean candy from them. Its made out of honey and is similar to taffy.

Next, we rode a double decker bus around Seoul, stopping at all of the markets. This is Gwangjang Traditional market. Its mostly for food and snacks.

Look at all of those American treats! You better believe I bought a jar of nutella while I was there!

All of the stalls to eat at.

That would be a huge octopus sitting there!

Ever wonder where old, discontinued makeup goes? Now we know! We noticed it as first because the circle container with cotton on it is the one Camille's grandmother used to wear years ago.

Making kimchi and other fermented vegetables.

Entrance to the Traditional Medicine Market

This market is famous for ginseng and deer antlers!

Roasting the herbs

Dried frog skeletons

Huge Centipedes, dried of course.

Now who's hungry?

Camille and I made sure to try a lot more Korean food that day. This is gimbap. Its the Korean version of sushi, only it has meat in it instead of seafood.

This one is omurice, this one might have been our favorite! Its an egg omelet on top, with rice underneath and then tomato sauce on top! So good!

At Namdaemun Market. This is the old gate to the city.

Next, we headed over to North Tower. You can go to the top of the tower to get a complete view of the city.

Below the tower.

Lock trees.

For all of the couples to put their own lock. There were thousands!

On the way up, we found Teddy Bear Gangnam Style?

Sunset view from the top! From here, you realize just how big Seoul actually is. Its the world's second largest metropolitan area, behind Tokyo.

Korean pose. We've noticed from our kdramas that a common pose for girls in Korea is the double peace sign by your face. Camille does it well!

Night view

The next day, Camille and I decided to hike a trail behind Blue House, the President's house. Online the trail is rated a 2 out of 5 in difficulty. This was a total lie! Camille and I decided to pull a China move, and hike in our normal clothes, and it was a major regret within minutes!

The trail was basically a steep stair case all the way up! We walk a ton here in China and my legs were still sore for days after this!

We made it to the top, looking a little worse for wear!

At the top!

These are my favorite pictures from our trip. This was the "famous" rock at the top that everyone wanted to take pictures by. Camille had no idea what was happening behind her! Priceless and so typical!

There were guards everywhere along the trail, since it was behind the President's house. This is one the guard towers.

Blue House. We basically walked up that mountain behind it. I didn't take this picture, by the way.

That same day, we took a walk along the Cheonggyecheon, a man made rive right down the middle of this bustling city!

It was beautiful and so peaceful.

You could walk across on those rocks and its clean enough that you can sit down and rest your feet in the water!

At the beginning of Cheonggyecheon, Camille trying to throw a coin into the wishing well.

We also went to Hangang Park, located by the Han River, where we took a ferry tour of the city.

Found a giant swing set at the park.

Snack time at the park. These are silk worms. I passed on these, I'm not that adventurous!

We did try dukbokki, a rice cake covered in sweet red sauce. This is so popular and you see it on every street, but I didn't really like it.

Finally, for our last day we headed over to Gangnam District. We absolutely could not go to South Korea and not go to Gangnam! We need pictures of us doing the dance moves from the song, of course! We looked all around until we found a sign that said Gangnam on it and asked someone to take our picture, but they didn't even get the name in the picture! Do we have to do everything ourselves? Come on random strangers, work with us!

Gangnam Style!

Its small, but now you can see the sign!

One reason we wanted to go to Gangnam is because we thought it would be our best chance to see a celebrity, because it is where most of the entertainment companies are located. Sadly, we didn't see a single celebrity the entire time we were there!

JYP Entertainment! They represent some of Korea's most popular groups and some of our favorites, too, like 2 PM, 2 AM, The Wonder Girls and Miss A. We may or may not have sat at the Dunkin Donuts across the street for half an hour waiting to see someone!