Adventures — Finding Bouken

Our intinerary for today is pretty short:

Street Toast
Han River
Jjimjilbang (bathhouse / sauna)

The weather app indicates it will be sunny and clear in the low 80s. In short, it will be another toasty day. Speaking of toast...

STREET TOAST

Today's breakfast was brought to you by Isaac Toast, with special thanks to Mama Bee for taking us out. They sell sandwiches called Street Toast, mostly because it's toast sold on the street. Street Toast isn't your typical butter and toast combo, but an actual toasted breakfast sandwich.

Usagi ordered the potato special and Hamu ordered the ham and cheese. The sandwiches had a sweet taste to them. Bee wasn't sure what it was, but said it's how street toast is normally made. We also got to try what our friends called milk coffee, made by Soul Milk. It wasn't as strong as Hamu liked her coffee, but it was very delicious. If all iced coffee tasted like that, she would be drinking it everyday. A visit to the convenience store might be in order...

HAN RIVER

The cab we took dropped us off at a parking lot, then we made our way to a bike rental place. There are clear bike paths and a lot of rest areas in case you feel too tired walking or pedaling.

We decided on renting a tandem bike for us - yay bucket list - and so did Bee and Buns. Usagi and Bee didn't feel like putting in much effort so Hamu and Buns ended up on the driver's seat. We hereby dub Usagi and Bee as "Team Butt Capes" (see image). Hamu and Buns are now officially part of "Team Pedals."

We rode our bikes along the river until we hit the graffiti tunnel. The tunnel allows people to draw graffiti during set hours, and only on the walls. Bee said the walls don't get cleared out on purpose. Often they get replaced when someone else decides to draw over them.

We made a few more stops for photos on our way back to return the bikes. We then found a nice shady spot down near the river where we ordered chicken for delivery. Yup, they deliver to you at the park. Technically the motorcycles can't go into the area we were at, but since the call came from a foreign number, the delivery man had no choice!

For this order we got green onion chicken and snow cheese chicken. The green onion chicken came with shredded green onions cut lengthwise and an oriental sauce that tasted awfully like wasabi. The snow cheese chicken was covered in powdered cheese and reminded us of the popcorn seasoning you can purchase at the movies, but creamier and less salty. Both tasted very good, but as expected it was too much even for four hungry people

JJIMJILBANG

After catching up with all the exercise we missed in the last couple of days (-ahahaha...ha...), we went to a Jjimilbang. A Jjimjilbang is basically a traditional Korean sauna / bathhouse. The one we went to had a lot of amenities, if you wanted to pay extra. Entry for each person was about 9,000 won (about 9 USD). Bee said it's not uncommon for people to stay a night or two for one entry payment. Since they stay open for 24 hours, people can technically stay for up to 72 hours before they get kicked out.

Instead of paper cups they have paper packets you use for water!

The dressing rooms are separated, but the amenities are mostly co-ed. For the one we visited, there is a special sleeping area for women only and an ultra hot sauna also for women only. Bee explained that the hottest room is usually used by old women who take their shirts off because of the heat, therefore no man eyes allowed!

Rooms varied in both temperatures and themes. The mildest room, the mud room, was 30°C (86°F) and had mud walls. The room we used, and also next on the scale, was 36°C (96.8°F) and had stone walls. The rooms eventually go up to over 80°C (176°F).

In the cold room, the temperature drops to -5°C (23°F). There is a nice cool waiting room inbetween, which Usagi thought was the best and refused to leave.

We hit another cafe shortly after (they're everywhere!) and then back to the Bee House to prepare for our DMZ trip for tomorrow. Stay toasty, folks!

Today's itinerary brings us to...

Surrounding area of the Bee House
Cafés
Samsung Electronic Flagship Store
Gyeongbokgung Palace
Myeong-dong
Korean BBQ

MORNING ADVENTURES

We headed out to a 24-hour breakfast place close to the Bee House. We talked last year about how cheap food was when we traveled to Japan, but this breakfast blew all of that out of the water. For roughly 12 USD, we had food for four.

There was quite a bit of time to kill before Samsung d'light opened, so we stopped by a cafe and had bingsu (shaved ice / milk with various toppings). Usagi ordered iced yuzu lemon tea and Buns got iced chocolate. The iced chocolate is literally hot cocoa served with ice. This one tastes a bit like Milo.

SAMSUNG D'LIGHT

This is one of Samsung's flagship stores that also happens to be in one of their corporate buildings. Besides being able to purchase the latest Samsung products, much like Apple's retail stores, they also devote two floors to multiple interactive demos. All the activities you do are meant to showcase the capabilities of their devices and technology. Their displays also include products targeting businesses, schools, and even one for home automation. Usagi agrees with Hamu that their use of design and marketing was well executed.

After exploring the Samsung store, we took the train to Gyeongbokgung Palace.

GYEONGBOKGUNG PALACE

Bee promised a castle, so she brought us to the royal palace. It was a vast compound littered with people in traditional wear (Bee explained that's how people get in for free). Did I mention they had photographers following them around? Turns out it's common practice to hire a photographer to capture candids, sometimes posed, photos during a date.

In some ways the palace compound was a maze. Many of the buildings looked similar and there were little to no descriptions near or next to them (there were maps scattered about that had some information). We mostly had to work backwards on figuring out which building was for which part of the family.

Even with the annoying lack of descriptions near the rooms or buildings (Bee wasn't on the up and up with Korean history so she couldn't give us more info), it was nice to see and check out the rooms and architecture.

After we finished exploring, we headed to Myeong-dong by cab. Did I mention cabs here are ridiculously cheap?!

MYEONG-DONG (SHOPPING DISTRICT)

Myeong-dong is a big shopping district in Seoul. We don't know if it was more fun shopping because we were with Bee (YES!) or that shopping here is just more fun in general.

Like other stores, Artbox has its own characters and monetize on that!

There were a wide variety of stores, from designer brands, to stalls that sold knockoffs. Many were cosmetic stores. A popular one called innisfree had, according to Bee, probably 12 stores in the district! It makes you wonder if sales cannibalization affects their bottom line. They likely have multiple storefronts to make sure people don't miss them.

Usagi: "Sometimes their products had different packaging. Some products I purchased at one innisfree had English descriptions, but not on the same products in another of their locations."

Stores have a funny way of luring people in from the street. They attract you with promises of free stuff, snail face mask in one case, to go into their store. They usually have one or two people standing outside waving packets out at people. Once they reel you in, you will be hounded by their salespeople to buy something. If you buy enough, you may end up walking away with freebies! Sometimes they're actually very good. Usagi scored a full sample set of a popular skincare line that she'd been eyeing for months, and Bee was loaded up with samples of a well-known SK-II competitor.

We orginally ventured to Myeong-dong to take a look at the street food. Bee thought they would be out by 1-2pm, but they didn't arrive until around 4pm. We were hungry so we decided to have a late lunch at Red Hong in the M Plaza.

We added egg, ramen noodles and glass noodles

Red Hong is your typical Tteok-bokki [stir-fried rice cakes, though more soupy than fried] restaurant. We usually get the spicy red sauce, but opted to try the black bean because it's likely to be the least spicy. It turned out to be really good!

After lunch we separated into pairs: Usagi went shopping for cosmetics with Bee, while Hamu hung out at a cafe with Buns. We met up again an hour later with the ladies hauling bags and bags of goodies. We checked out some of the food stalls, but we were still too full from lunch to eat more. :c

KOREAN BBQ

We took a cab back home, skipping rush hour on the trains, and rested for a few hours - you would too if you walked that much - before heading out to dinner at 9pm. The place Bee picked for us was only 2 blocks away from her house. It was on a street where all the restaurants primarily served meat. The street looked livelier than it did earlier in the morning, almost like you're in a completely different place.

The restaurant we went to is famous for what they called their pork belly: pork belly hit by a knife. It was a good meal and the first time Hamu had cooked Kimchi. Turns out Galbi short ribs aren't really a thing in the Korean BBQ homeland. We discussed how the dish is actually made during Korean thanksgiving, and the Galbi we knew is actually called LA Galbi, likely created by Korean immigrants who were living in LA and couldn't access the cuts of meat they were used to.

To close the night, we picked up a cake from Billy Angel to eat back at the Bee House, and passed out with full tummies.

Picnics and Bike rides