Around COEX

Just outside the hotel, we saw this huge sculpture with name of countries engraved on it

 Inside the Coex Mall, some part of the place is closed for remodelling.

COEX Mall is the largest underground shopping center in Asia. It is located in the basement of the Korea World Trade Center, located in Samseong-dong in the Gangnam-gu area of Seoul

Walking around after dinner

Found near hotel

Mac for supper

Day Two N Seoul Tower

After lunch, we decided to cover N Seoul Tower since we were so close to the cable car. 

Direction to cable car(N Seoul Tower)

Myeongdong Subway Station Line 4 Exit 3
From escalator up, turn left and you should see a tiny park with a 7-11 on the right. It is actually a Y-junction.
Walk up the street on the side of 7-11 and you will see Pacific hotel at the end of the Y. Take the route on your right side and keep walking.
It is an uphill walk, wear a good pair of shoes and enjoy the walk!

You should reach the cable car station in about 10mins.

Cable car fee? We paid for round trip W22500 for 2A & 1C price.

What is nice at the N Seoul Tower? The area where locks are being locked onto the railings. It is the scene from My Love from Star. The observation tower.

The place was quite crowded on Sunday. However, we noticed not many people pay to go up to the observation tower. Most hang around the outdoor and enjoy the breeze, take pictures of the locks.

After going up to the observation tower, it was about 6pm. We decided we were really tired and needed to go back hotel to rest :)

So we had dinner at this cosy Japanese restaurant in Coex. Thumb up for the food!
I simply love the slice beef of Korea. They are so yummy.

Day Two Seoul Myeongdong

Breakfast at grand kitchen, the nice surrounding and lighting made the photo taking of food very pretty. Breakfast is not fantastic, quite normal for 5stars hotel but nothing particularly nice.

As usual, our free & easy style is to sleep in until we are ready to go touring. 
We left hotel almost 11am and the subway is just 2 mins walk away.
 



As we were new to the subway system and we did not do much homework on the places we like to go, we chose a simply direct line to experience it. 
We took subway to Seoul Station to get a feel of the big city.
After yesterday disappointment in the Coex mall, we were amazed with our shopping luck because lotte mart was closed!!!
We walked around the Lotte Outlets.

After that we decided to go myeongdong, which turned out to be a much better choice with more crowd and shops.  There were also a lot of street vendors selling foodstuff and accessories on weekend.



We had lunch around 2+pm at han's deli located along Myeongdong 8-gil (Exit 6 of Myeongdong Station Line turned left, walked about 100metre) It is on the left of the sidewalk 5th level. A lot of youngster frequent this eating place.

What I like about eating in Seoul is that they provide free flow of water. Firstly I do not need to lug bottles of water around for the whole day, it is heavy for sightseeing. Secondly, I do not need to buy sugar-loaded drink that will create havoc on my weight :)

Seoul on SQ

We are off to Seoul for a short-stay travelling on SQ

Departure

On Board

Incheon Airport

Wait for train to arrival hall imigration

Option 1 - Taxi

Option 2 - Coach to town

Very convenient with many lines

Along the way

Day One Seoul

Incheon Airport immigration is very impressive, the clearance is very fast, only took 3-5 mins to clear, there is no queue. Very efficient.

Airport shuttle was also a quick short wait, one hour journey by shuttle from airport to hotel, with some minor jam nearer town on a sat afternoon.
We arrived at the hotel at about 5+pm, as it is summer, the sky will turn dark nearing 8pm. 

Hotel room interior is quite old.
 
Coex shopping is also quite very disappointing, very different from what I read on the internet. There is on-going construction and a limited small shopping area.

At shopping malls like Hyundai dept store, there are seats just outside lifts  for shopping-tired customers to sit and wait. Very considerate service.Thumb up.

After a quick dinner at Coex, we went in search of the G25 convenience shop for t-money. It was quite a small store and I was disappointed that that they didn't carry hello kitty t-money. By the time we got the t-money, the sky had turned dark and we decided to go back for an early night.

Actually subway in Korea is easy to navigate if u know the line number and the exit. Else it takes a long while to figure out anything :)
Talk about it in the next blog!