Today I began my new holiday where I will be travelling to Seoul, Beijing, and Chengdu with Angie. I boarded my flight on Christmas day towards Seoul via Shanghai. When I arrived in Seoul, Angie met me at the airport, and we went outside together to take a taxi to her apartment in Seoul where we will be staying. When we walked outside, I immediately felt the extreme temperature change. It had been over 30 degrees Celsius when I left Melbourne; in Seoul, it was zero degrees. There was even snow outside in certain areas. It is great that I can stay with Angie in her apartment since I feel like a local here.

Visiting Hongdae

After resting a little, Angie and I went out to Hongdae to have a look around at some of the shops and get some dinner. Walking around, I noticed how well everyone in Korea dresses. We started by looking at some of the outlets for the Korean brands since I wanted to buy some warmer clothing. I didn’t find anything that suited my style there, but the options were good. We ate an octopus ball in that centre before walking outside to walk around Hongdae.

Next, we walked to a nearby Innisfree store, which is the Korean skincare brand that I usually like to use. I bought some of their products since it was around 50% cheaper than back home and they had a larger range of products.

After this, we began walking around the outside areas of Hongdae, which was lit up with many lights since it was starting to get dark. We planned to go to a Japanese izakaya restaurant in Hongdae, but since it was popular we had to get a number and wait a while. While waiting we took some photos together in a nearby photobooth.

Izakaya Dinner

Our dinner was quite delicious and filled with many different barbeque meats and a fish cake soup. We also had some highball drinks which I thought were quite nice. After this very filling meal, I was starting to feel very tired so we headed back to Angie’s apartment for the night. On the way back we stopped to buy some Soju, a Korean liquor that costs around $15 per bottle in Australia. At the 7-Eleven in Korea, it costs just $2, and they have many more different flavors.