🎡 Is Lotte World worth your time??

Finally taking the time to finish writing my Seoul itinerary. My sister and I spent a week there last December and I wrote about the first half of the trip here.

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🎫 Klook Tour

We joined a tour bright and early in the morning. There are many variations of the tour, but we picked the package with Alpaca World and Nami Island. We boarded the bus near Myeongdong station, which we had already recce the night before (kiasu much), and the whole process was seamless. We knew the scenery in the countryside would be extra pretty in the snow, so we were excited af! If you are joining the tour in winter, remember to layer up as the temperature dropped to -16°C once we reached the countryside.

🦙 Alpaca World

My sis is a huge animal (bird) lover, so when she saw this place was an option, we HAD to come here. When we arrived, the staff ushered us into a huge pen and gave us a handful of alpaca feed each, and we got to watch the alpaca run! The alpacas descended from the slopes above us and ran into the pen AAA it was too cute! Afterwards, we had some time to wander around and explore. My sis specifically wanted to see the parrot enclosure and we ended up spending the most time in there feeding the budgies. You can get a cup of seeds to feed them at the vending machine near the entrance for ₩1000. 10/10 recommend going, especially if you love animals. Just a note that the grounds are incredibly hilly with lots of stairs in certain areas, so the elderly might face difficulties walking around.

🎐 Nami Island

Nami Island was beautiful too, but there wasn't much to do there. We took some pics, hung around the Moomin exhibit and photo booths and tried desperately not to freeze our asses off. It was so cold the huge fountain at the entrance was entirely frozen. Tip - bring shoe spikes because the frozen ground is insanely slippery.

🍕 Myeongdong Pizza

Wanted a change in cuisine so we decided to try out this highly-rated Italian restaurant. We got a margherita pizza and crabmeat risotto to share. Both were decent, nothing to rave or complain about.

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🍛 Ssada Gimbap

Started our day at this hidden budget gem! It was barely 5mins from our hotel, and we ended up visiting it again on the last day because the food was so cheap (compared to the rest of Myeongdong) and yummy. I can't recommend a particular dish as all the options we tried were around the same standard. We loved the fried rice rolls in particular though.

🛍 Seongsu-dong

We headed to the popular and trendy Seongsu neighbourhood where we window-shopped at Million Archive, Point of View, Marhen J and ADER ERROR. We didn't buy anything, but we enjoyed snapping pics of their aesthetic storefronts and interiors.

☕️ ongeundal

Posted about all the cafes we visited in Seoul here!

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🎢 Lotte World

This is the place I looked forward to most during our trip because I'm a sucker for theme parks. I had to convince my sis to go with me since she's terrified of roller coasters, and thus we ended up not going for the really scary ones. It was freezing cold too, so we didn't fancy going on outdoor roller coasters. Our favourite was Space Mountain, which we were hesitant to play initially due to the LONG queue in the freezing cold. Alas, it started snowing during our wait and it was one of the most magical feelings ever. Core memory for sure. I also really liked the food we had there - churros, hotdog buns and BHC chicken with drink combo, though they were pricey as expected.

🛍 LOTTE WORLD MALL

We shopped around the mall for a bit after the theme park and visited shops like ARC·N·BOOK, Flying Tiger Copenhagen, STAND OIL and LOTTE MART World Tower. I finally bought the Stand Oil bag that I've been eyeing for so long. I still wear it today (almost 1 year) and it has minimal wear and tear (slight creases on the base of the handles) so I consider it a worthwhile purchase! We then went slightly crazy at Lotte Mart and bought a whole ton of snacks as souvenirs to bring home.

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🥟 Gwangjang Market

Famous market was bustling and every stall was filled to the brim when we visited. Don't come at me but I didn't even know which was the Netflix-famous stall because of the huge crowds everywhere...We chose a random stall that had seats and ordered a bowl of japchae and dumplings. Easily forgettable but gave us enough fuel to start the day.

🥨 Gwangjang Market Chapssal Kkwabaegi

THE FAMOUS TWIST DONUT!!! Did you really visit Gwangjang Market if you didn't get one? We were quite skeptical about the hype, and even more so when we saw the long queue in the FREEZING COLD, but all our doubts were put to rest. The batter of the donut was so light and enjoyable, that even my sister who isn't a fan of donuts LOVED it. Definitely worth the wait, just buy a few more if you're a fatty like me because (trust me) you can definitely eat more than one.

🛍 Hannam-dong

We headed over to Hannam to browse Squareline as my sister wanted to purchase a bag from them. A really quiet neighbourhood, but pleasant to window-shop and stroll about.

🛍 Myeongdong

We did some last-minute shopping back in Myeongdong. I absolutely had to go for another haul in Olive Young, and we also stopped by some marts for Korean snacks to bring back home.

🍵 METCHA

Posted about all the cafes we visited in Seoul here!

🍚 Myeongdong Tonkatsu

Ended the last day with a simple meal at this eatery. The craving for high-calorie meals is too real when the sub-zero weather is testing your limits every day.

We had such a blast cafe-hopping and shopping in Seoul, and one week was the perfect duration for it. Would definitely return again but not in sub-zero conditions. Definitely way too cold for my liking brrrr...

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