Today is the last observed day of Chuseok. We got up and had some of the tarts today, realizing that they were both actually quiches. David had the cinnamon apple and Caitlyn had the citrus. David felt his was “meh” and Caitlyn thought hers was fine.
Our first stop today is the Gwangjang market, a traditional market known for its delicious street food. We took the bus out there as it was a little far away, and we walked through the tight pathways around stalls seeing what looked good.
We wanted a coffee so David found a nice coffee stall in the corner and bought 2 condensed milk iced coffees.
Caitlyn had scoped out a nice popular stall for dumplings, but they only had 6 or 8 seats, so she had to stand there until someone finally finished and quickly grab their seat. David came back with the coffees just in time and we managed to snag a seat.
We were just going to get dumplings, but they required one dish per person so we got the dumplings and a pulled noodle soup, as these combined were the cheapest options and we had almost no cash left. Thankfully this costed the exact amount of cash we had on hand. The dumplings were delicious, and the pulled noodle soup was pretty good but didn’t hold up to the pulled noodle soup we had in Jeju.
We finished and continued walking, this time towards the Dongdaemun Market. Along the way, we happened to find a sign for dog soup, which we found very interesting. We did not end up having any dog meat in Korea, though we did talk about the concept.
We finally get to the market and find that almost everything was closed down. We never mind getting more steps in, so this was no big deal. Next up was the Ihwa Mural Village, an area famous for being in a beautiful hillside and having dozens of beautiful murals painted on many walls and buildings.
There were a TON of stairs, and sadly we found the murals to be underwhelming and not worth the hype.
One of the highlights we had was seeing what we thought was a hummingbird (turns out no hummingbirds in SK, it was a hummingbird hawk-moth) feeding out of flowers. Caitlyn noticed a giant praying mantis and we watched as it tried to catch and eat the “hummingbird”. It was really excited to catch it but was far too slow.
Suddenly we felt cold drops hit our head and realized it was about to rain. We pulled out our umbrellas just in time, as the deluge began. We found a small izakaya along the street and hopped inside to escape the rain. Figuring this would be a good place to work on the blog some, we grabbed some sake for a nice change of pace and relaxed under cover. We sat for quite a while, and were even given a free pancake snack.
After quite a while, the rain stopped and we headed out. We continued uphill to the tallest point in the Ihwa Village and were rewarded with amazing views. We walked around and eventually found a cage overlooking the city with a large Goose Island statue put front.
We headed inside and were told that while they had no Goose Island anymore, they did have a few local beers. We were happy with that and grabbed a beer to enjoy with the views. We headed upstairs and sat outside on the patio facing the city and mountains.
We eventually made our way down and wanted to head in the direction of our hotel as we rescheduled with Henry and Emma for 6:00 tonight. We eventually grabbed a Starbucks to share and used the restroom (such a reliable trick). We kept walking and realized how close we were to Changdeokgung Palace.
We entered for free as it was a holiday and walked the grounds some. It was nice and less crowded than the other palace, but we were getting pretty close to having to leave to meet up with our friends.
We got back to the hotel, dropped off some stuff and headed back out to catch a bus to meet up with them in the Hongdae.
Unfortunately, the bus was really tricky to find and eventually when we found the stop, we waited for multiple cycles and figured that the bus may have changed schedules with the holiday. We eventually grabbed a bus and finally made our way to Hongdae.
This was clearly the area for nightlife. On our ride we found a bar called “Bar Da” on google maps and messaged Henry and Emma to meet up there. We get inside and it had way more western bar vibes where drinking without ordering a full meal felt like an option. We get a round of beers and the bartender goes to sit down with a friend and play cards.
We hung out for almost 2 hours chatting about everything under the sun and catching up since our last time together in Kyoto. Eventually, we realize we should probably go grab some food so we found a good looking Korean BBQ place and only had to wait a short period of time before being able to be seated.
We got 4 portions of different meats and checked out the self serve bar. There were loads of nice mushrooms (king, enoki, etc.) and other nice sides like some tasty noodles. We also got 2 of the drink specials – 2 beers and a bottle of soju (the restaurant must have caught wind of the David and Caitlyn special). We cooked the meat ourselves here but the grill was very hot which made it a bit tough to cook. It was very tasty and we finished all the meat as well as a metric ton of mushrooms while enjoying a wonderful night with our friends.
Eventually we realized that with Chuseok, public transportation was VERY limited and we only had 20 minutes to catch the final bus or subway before the lines shut down for the night. Usually we would consider walking but we were over 2 hours away and that didn’t feel very fun. We rode the subway back with Henry and Emma and made our way towards the area of our hotels. We said our goodbyes to Henry and Emma and made our way back to our hotel.
While we have been having the best time along our travels, we have really enjoyed the few moments of being able to develop good relationships with people. It was such a lovely and special experience to be able to spend an evening with friends. Our social lives are very important to us at home, and having the chance to go out and spend a night with friends felt like bringing a little slice of home to South Korea. We will miss our new friends, but we are sure in the future we will meet again. We went back into our hotel and straight up to shower and head to bed so we can be ready for our final day in South Korea!
David’s thoughts of the day: It’s interesting that in America we think about food coming from really high quality ingredients. It isn’t that they don’t use high quality ingredients here, but some of the good meals we’ve had in Asia don’t always use the best of the best. A few times, we have seen the cook go to the freezer and get frozen shrimp or open up a package of pre-made and dried noodles. Sometimes they use very fresh or high quality ingredients, but I’m not sure this is the be-all and end-all.
Caitlyn’s thoughts of the day: We’ve only had frozen food once and it was frozen pork in Jeju for a pork noodle at the market and it wasn’t that good. I don’t know what David is talking about 😂
David’s reply of the day: Okay it isn’t every meal, but on a few of the meals we have had so far that actually cook in front of you, I am usually surprised to see things premade or frozen. For example, some of the seafood in the okonomiyaki we had in Kyoto the first (?) night. Also, I have seen reputable food stalls that we haven’t eaten at but look popular have coolers of some frozen meats or prepackaged vegetables or noodles. Also, no spoilers, but tomorrow you will see that a frozen ingredient is considered perfectly fine for some applications.
Caitlyns reply: in 30 days, and easily 60 meals, that is 2 (3 tomorrow) instances. Hm…. Agree to disagree 😘
Steps walked: 16,529
Miles walked: 7.88
Bluming Travelers 