My Travel Blog

There are a lot of shopping spots in Korea, but I don’t think we had time for all. If I’m going to Korea again, I would hope to cover as much as possible since there are lots of nice clothes and body shop supplies which are hard to be missed. I will list down a few shopping spots that if you are going to Korea, don’t miss all of them. But if your schedule is tight, you can shortlist a few just like I did.

• Myeong-dong: Ladies, you are looking for clothes, shoes and accessories, don’t miss this place. It’s truly a shopping haven to shopaholic like me, and if you come here at night, the streets will be nicer. You can also bargain for a cheaper price at some stores, but not all. There are a few shopping centers around here as well, such as KOZNEY, Shinsegae, and Lotte Department Store besides the famous Namdaemun Market.

• Namdaemun Market: We missed this famous market that sells clothes, sunglasses, daily stuffs, food and shoes. It’s a pity that I didn’t manage to shop here, but hopefully, I will return to Korea again and check out all those nice stuffs as recommended by my tour guide.
• Dongdaemun Market: Another shopping haven in Korea! There are lots of nice clothes and shoes here, and I bought lots of them. LOL! I got a pair of nice boots here too, but I haven’t worn them until today! Nonetheless, if you want to know about fashion in Korea, this is a place where you can get almost everything. Of course, bargain for a better price! One of the store actually offered me fake LV bags, but I didn’t get any. You can find fake stuffs like that too.
• Insa-dong: I missed this too. If you are looking for stuffs that can represent Korea’s culture, you should not miss this place. So, blame it on my tight agenda!
• Itaewon: I like this street a lot since I bought some stuffs here as well. There are lots of clothes available here, but I got a few pairs of socks which were really cute. Besides that, it’s my first time having a pork hamburger from McDonald’s. We can’t find pork hamburger at McD here!
• Apgujeong: You can forget about finding cheap stuffs here, so I didn’t go there. I aim was to get more stuffs from Korea on limited budget. LOL!

In short, Korea is nice for shopping, but the language barrier is too much to bear. Luckily I had a handsome translator aka photographer following us around. He’s great, and he helped us a lot in getting those price cut down. But still, try not to compare the price of the things you can get over here, ok?

The main reason why I like Lotte World is because I used to watch the Korean series named Stairway to Heaven. The show was filmed at Lotte World and I think most of fans remember how pretty the Merry-Go-Round is in the series.

We were too rushing and I had forgotten to snap a photo of that Merry-Go-Round! Yikes!!! But I managed to snap a nice photo of the castle with lots of beautiful lightings on it. If you have been here, you would know how pretty this place is at night and none of the lighting stores can be prettier than Lotte World.

Hubby, me and our niece

We didn’t manage to visit every corner of the amusement park, but I like the Gyro Drop in Magic Island. It’s a 70m high ride which drops in a twisting free-fall at a speed of 100km/h. It’s quite scaring but I like it.

Waiting to go up!

Too bad we didn’t have more time for Lotte World, if not I would try out all those adventurous rides.

Don’t tell me you have no idea what Winter Sonata is. You are clearly not from Asia if you haven’t heard of this popular Korean series, Winter Sonata. The idea of visiting Korea came across my mind since I was a big fan of Korean series a few years ago, and one of my all time favorite drama is Winter Sonata. That’s the reason why I wanted to see Nanyi Island in my own eyes.

But when I was there, it was not showing, but the trees were nice and it’s a nice place for photo shot. Hubby and I were so silly, we even took some photos by imitating those poses we saw in posters. Of course, I won’t show the world how laughable those photos are, and I will only show a group photo of our tour members:

The Group Photo

There were some ostriches running freely on the island. I dared not take any photos with them as they didn’t look friendly to me. But they managed to capture lots of attention from the kids though. Most of the tourists were there just to check out the scenes where Winter Sonata was taken, so it’s kind of crowded on the day I went. But if you walked further back to the end, the scenery is much better and it was very relaxing. You can forget about those March Madness tickets because I would prefer to have spend a nice afternoon here then watching a live match!

But if I go to Nanyi again, I hope that it’s showing. It will be much nicer if it snows.

I didn’t go to JiZhou Island when I was visiting Korea. It was not in the agenda and even if we could have added it in, we wouldn’t want to spend another day changing flights as the guys wanted to spend more time skiing. So if I ever visit Korea again, I want to visit JiZhou Island. The scenery is breathtaking and it will be a nice place for photo shot. I better make sure that I get myself a good camera first before I visit the island.

But I wonder which season should I visit the island? I saw the photos of my friend who went in spring and they are lovely. The flowers are so nice! But some friends of mine where during autumn and their photos look like these…

No matter what, I think I need to bring some Jane Iredale makeup so that I will look nice in the photos. It’s such a nice island for photo shot!

If you are going to Korea with your kids, this is one of the theme parks that you shouldn’t miss out. It’s just like Disney, but it has its own characters and lots of interesting games at the theme park. You will have to allocate more than one day here if you intended to experience all it has to offer. We were only there for about 3 hours, so we didn’t have a chance to check out every corner of the theme park.

But there is one thing that you shouldn’t miss. It’s the Wild Safari that you can see how tigers and lions live if harmony. We saw 2 ligers, cubs to the lion father and the tiger mother which are the famous attraction in Korea as well. I didn’t snap the photos of them, and how I am really regret about it! But once hubby has lots of $$$ in his checking account, I will bring my kids there again.

BTW, they are going to have a Christmas festival soon, so don’t miss it as well.

If you are going to Korea, you shouldn’t miss the casinos, especially Paradise Walker-Hill Casino in Gwangjang-dong, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul. This casino and Sheraton Grande Walker Hill Hotel and Towers are famous because there was a Korean drama being shot here and most of the Asian tourists who visit Korea are familiar with the series. I watched a few episodes of that show too, so I was very excited to see the casino in real. Too bad I didn’t gamble as I am lousy at those games. I was there busy shopping at the duty free stores and I didn’t even snap any photos!

A lousy player like me can only try my luck at online casino. At least I won’t be embarrassed if I lose the money as no one can see my in real. Besides, the online casino is almost the same as the physical ones, so why must we only gamble at casino? You can do this at home if you want to. Just take a look at those casino sites that you can get from Pro360.

But it’s really a waste that I didn’t snap any photos. I was too busy shopping!

Korea is a nice place for shopping. I love those stuffs that I bought from my trip to Korea, but what I love the most is the ginseng mask which has whitening and moisturizing effect. It’s a sleep on mask, so it’s very convenient to be used. Just put it on and you can go to sleep. The next morning, you will see how radiant your face is!

I finished that bottle of mask shortly after I started using it since I use it frequently. I can’t seem to find it anywhere here, but some product review site. I am not sure if they are selling it though as I cant’ read Korean. But most importantly, I hope that all these sites have shopping cart software. It will be easier for me if it’s the shopping cart software from Ashop Commerce and hopefully it’s in English!

So, if you go to Korea, don’t forget to get the mask. Get a bottle for me too!

I didn’t expect to go to Korea that year as what I had in mind was Europe or New Zealand for my honeymoon. But we didn’t plan for it and it was a last minute decision that we booked the tickets to Korea and off we went.

Again, I don’t have the soft copies of the photos taken at the trip! I was trying to use the camera to snap at the photos under the quoizel lighting last night and the effect was bad. LOL! I’m too lazy to use the scanner. Gee…such a lazy pig.

But let me organize the photos and how to post about it later. It’s been quite some time since my trip to Korea and I can’t remember much about the names of the attractions. But one thing for sure, I remember Seoul World Cup Stadium since everyone in Korea was very excited about the match. It’s really a pride of their nation.