➹ i left my heart last winter in seoul

I don't know where and how to start writing about the whirlwind of events in my life since the last months of 2013. It's been THOROUGHLY CRAZY to say the least~~~

Today, I just felt like looking back... flipping through the pictures... missing Seoul... the precious winter... and just well, my vacation ㅋㅋㅋ. What I would give to bring myself back to those blissful couple of days...

➹ gifts from seoul ^^

Another good friend came back from her Seoul vacation and brought back some AMAZING goodies for me!!!


The Shinhwa album is my special request ❤ ❤ ❤. The rest just shows you how immensely thoughtful and wonderful my friend is!


I am particularly in love with this divine N Seoul notebook! I am telling you guys, the souvenirs from N Seoul tower are must-haves. I mentioned this in my previous Seoul Souvenir Shopping post. I just can't get enough of how nostalgic and adorable the N Seoul mementos are~



And then I'm adding one more to my Seoul postcard collection. This latest one is from the National Palace Museum of Korea.



Now I'm really missing SEOUL because of all these goodies ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ.

➹ lovely flowers around seoul

It seems to me that Seoulites love their flowers. Major streets in Seoul are often decked with divine flower pots and floral landscapes. Last autumn, we saw these huge flower bowls in front of Seoul Plaza.







These cauliflower-like flowers were really interesting! It was our first time seeing them ^^.

A couple of years back, I also took some pictures of this flower shop in a subway station (forgot which one exactly). They were selling these lovely bouquets for really low prices! If I am reading that correctly, it should be saying "10 roses for 2,000KRW" (roughly $2).







I'm not sure if there are still mini flower baskets being sold in the streets these days. With May being the Family Month in Korea, there is always a reason to get a floral bouquet for a special occasion! We were there during Children's Day in 2009 and these cute flower baskets were just irresistible. I even contemplated buying one for our humble hostel room but there was always so many other things on my shopping list haha.

Ahh, I miss Everland and its spring flowers. I wish I can come back when the English garden is in full bloom …

➹ seoul souvenir shopping

SOUVENIR. I've learned that the meaning and significance of this word evolves with the traveler. For some, it could mean small gifts to give friends and family back home … while for others, this could mean a personal memento to save from an extraordinary experience. The curious thing with Seoul is that the city seems to invent fun new souvenirs with each year. I've been to Seoul more than once, and I managed to find new treasured souvenirs with each vacation!

Friends planning to visit Seoul as first timers would often ask me what and where to buy cheap yet good souvenirs in the city. My default answer has always been Namdaemun.



Right off the subway exit, tourists can find this store chock full of adorable Korean souvenirs of all kinds.






Key chains, magnets, bookmarks, chopsticks, pouches, and whatnots … everything is just too cute and tempting, to be honest. Just walk around the market and you will find all sorts of knick knacks. Food packages like teas, ginseng, and other traditional fare can also be purchased. There are also T-shirts emblazoned with Korean flags, words, and landmarks. Or if that is not your thing, check out some Red Devils merchandise (shirts, jerseys, and even the red horns haha!). And then ofcourse, hallyu merchandise! Non-official calendars, notebooks, socks, posters and what nots are all over the place.

The selection would match a shopping list filled with office peers, friends, and extended family members. So I highly suggest coming here prepared with your budget and shopping list haha! Else, you'll have a tendency of leaving with more than what you intended to buy. My personal favorite thing to buy here are the bear key chains in hanbok (they never get old for me) and the huge fans with really pretty Korean designs. I still use the fan I bought from 2008 (especially during brief power outages) and later on I bought one for my mom and grandmother as well!



Namdaemun is a primary default. The next default souvenir haven would be Insadong. The main street is lined with curious souvenir shops with pretty store front displays. I do think that the options in Insadong are more special than those in Namdaemun though you'll find a lot of similar items as well. I remember buying a shirt with special Hangul printing off one of the stores from there. I've always wanted to get the rubber stamps with my carved Korean name on it so I do need to go back to Insadong next time… And someday I'll buy that pretty music box with my own choice of design and kpop song! This music box store can be found inside Ssamziegiel. I did find this music box sold in that huge bookstore in Time Square but the selections are more overwhelmingly cute in Ssamziegiel.




After Insadong, I'd recommend the Korea Tourism Organization office along Cheonggyecheon (somewhere between Jonggak Tower and Cheonggye Plaza). Sure, this isn't exactly a tourist DESTINATION but there are amazing souvenirs here! Last year, there was an online survey conducted by KTO on the best Korean souvenir items and most of the candidates are available for purchase here. The products are a bit more pricey than Namdaemun or Insadong since they are more exquisite too. How I wanted to get those flash drives with the beautiful Korean enamel designs… And then there were these pretty tea sets which we wanted to get for a dear friend… Sooo irresistible, right?





There are also hallyu souvenirs from the KTO office. You'll find a lot of official goods like photo books, file folders, stuffed toys and what nots from famous dramas and singers. There is also this photo area with lots of hallyu star standees hahaha … HEAVEN haha^^.

But my personal favorite places to shop for hallyu souvenirs would of course be the official stores (SPAO, Everysing, record stores) and the Myeongdong Underground Shopping!



So let's go there … and you'll find some more souvenir shops with pretty much similar goods with what you've seen so far in Namdaemun and Insadong. Except that, the souvenir and merchandise stores are more mainstream than traditional Korean and the hallyu stores in Myeongdong underground are more into kpop (so ADDICTING). You'll find ALL SORTS of kpop goodies here~ from albums to calendars, photo books, stickers, fan lights, banners, towels, posters, shirts, CONCERT MERCHANDISE and T-MONEY CARDS! Needless to say, I can go bankrupt if I linger too long in these shops. You'll also find some random Pororo goods, cute accessories, and clothes which you can (I think) bargain for. This is a smaller scale Dongdaemun … less trendy than Dongdaemun but not as errr mature as Namdaemun.

Now going into mainstream souvenirs, I'd have to mention at least 2 places ~ 1st is the Haechi Shop at Gwanghwamun. They have uber cute Haechi merchandise from magnets, bags, bookmarks, to stuffed dolls. 2nd would be the souvenir stores at N Seoul Tower. Ohhhhhh, cuteness extreme?!?!?!





I don't think words are necessary for that haha… Just don't miss the souvenir stores at N Seoul.

Wow, this post has gotten longer than I originally imagined. And the thing is, there are MORE places for souvenir shopping which I did not mention. So I'll just namedrop those which I've visited so far ~ Hongdae! Gyeongbukgung Palace! Artbox! Bookstores (Bandi & Luni's, Kyobo, etc)! And Incheon International Airport (oh yeah, LOTS of goodies here)!

I hope to find more remarkable souvenir shops in the future and I plan to come back to all those I mentioned above for another round of treasure hunting haha! Seoul is just an incredible shopper's haven ^^.

➹ teddy bear overload at n seoul tower

It was 2009 when I visited the Teddy Bear Museum at Namsan. That was our first day of vacation in Seoul and my first time at N Seoul Tower so I wanted to experience everything the place has to offer. I didn't want to pass up the chance to explore the museum especially since there were 2 huge teddy bears displayed just on the entrance to the tower itself!



I didn't know it then but we apparently visited when the museum was just a few months old. The Korea Tourism site reports that the museum was opened last 2008 and is the 3rd of its kind in Korea following those in Jeju and Paju Heyri. Ticket for the museum only is at KRW8,000 for adults. But we bought the ticket package worth KRW14,000 which includes the Teddy Bear Museum and the N Seoul Tower Observatory.

We went up the Observatory first since it was almost sundown after we bought our tickets. We wanted to see the view before it gets dark and then wait a while to also check out how the scene is with all the lights nicely lit. We probably went down to the Teddy Bear museum at around 7PM-8PM? Plenty of time to immerse ourselves in Teddy Bear heaven before it closes at 10PM.

I didn't research about the place so I didn't know what to expect at the museum. Hence, I was pleasantly surprised to see the historic theme of the exhibit with all the teddy bears decked in Korean traditional hanbok! The thing is, we actually did the self-guided palace tour in Changdeokgung earlier that day so seeing the overwhelmingly cute teddy bears in their palace setting was just too crazy cute and nostalgic.



There was only a small group of female highschool students with us at the museum at that time. We lost them at some point ~ didn't know if they got ahead of us or if we left them behind. So we were able to take as much pictures as we want and ogle as much as we can at the cute bears! The displays were complete with motion sensors so that music will start playing and some bears will start moving when we approach an exhibit. This was perfect since we almost had the museum to ourselves so it really felt like the displays were being set into gear for us!

If you watch saeguk drama's, you can certainly appreciate some of the scenes depicted by the teddy bear exhibits ^^! Each section tells of Seoul's history from the Joseon Dynasty. Everything was extravagantly laid out and each teddy bear had a role and a scene all on his own. Even the miniscule details on the exhibits were really crafted well. We couldn't decide if we should be taking pictures of the entire exhibit or focus on specific bears!






We spent a long time at the at the first Gallery not knowing what's in store for us on the next one. I think we even deliberated if we still wanted to check it out (probably got a bit too overwhelmed by tons of bears!) or go grab dinner haha. Good thing we did head on over to Gallery 2 (which had a separate entrance I believe).

I was ecstatic seeing what was on Gallery 2! It was like the teddy bears got hold of our Seoul itinerary and decided to give us a preview of our vacation on our first nightㅋㅋㅋ. It was literally a teddy bear version of a Seoul vacation guidebook: Everland, Myeongdong, Dongdaemun, Insadong, Cheonggyecheon, Hongdae, and even the Blue House had their spots in the museum. Famous shows like Nanta and B-boy and even a scene during a world cup match were all depicted perfectly! How fun would it be if the displays were also laid out as a scaled down map so we can pretend to visit the places or maybe re-enact a previous trip? Haha, just a thought.










At the end of Gallery 2, there were more bears but they were not necessarily Seoul-related anymore. It was an interesting sight to see the evolution of this cuddly toy but I admit that the grandeur of the previous exhibits made this set seem too simple. There was also this multimedia section where you stand at a spot on a bluescreen and gets to be in a CGI scene with bears. Soo cute.

When we got to the souvenir shop, we almost couldn't stand to see another bear anymore ㅋㅋㅋ! I guess we reached our teddy bear limit for that day.

We had tons of fun at that museum and we were so psyched to execute the rest of our Seoul itinerary. It was definitely worth the ticket. If I ever get to Jeju or Paju, I would love to check out their versions of the Teddy Bear museum too.