Anyeong Noona

From the window of Namsan Seoul Tower Observatory 

You can use the binocular which direction has been set to popular landmark in Seoul for free.

A lot of cute souvenirs can be found at the souvenir store located in the middle of the observatory. 

The Koreans are really into writing messages everywhere, really. There is a section inside the observatory set up as a writing block where visitors can purchase a wooden block and write about their feeling and experience here. Some visitors are being creative by writing directly on the empty space without purchasing the block. LOL.

Nice view of Myeongdong from the top. What should Noona have for dinner? Which store she hasn't visited yet? Hahaha Myeongdong is really all about food and shop. 

But since Noona and her friend have taken a lot of efforts to climb up here, let's enjoy a cafe moment at Namsan Observatory cafe. Yum! 

At the price of KRW 8,500 (return), Namsan Cable Car runs from the base of Namsan Mountain up to Namsan Seoul Tower.

We still had time before we needed to board the next cable car, so we bought something to quench our thirst. 

Up, up and above. Oh right, if you don't want to walk to the Namsan Cable Car Station (like what we did because we got lost), you can take the Namsan Oreumi (i.e. Namsan outdoor elevator), the inclined outdoor elevator. It only takes about two minutes from the entrance of Namsan 3rd tunnel (near Myeongdong Cathedral) to the parking lot of Namsan Cable Car station. 

After you have alighted at the station near to Namsan Seoul Tower, you still need to walk a bit to reach the tower. Along the way, you will see Namsan Bongsudae Beacon Tower site. 

You will be able to see the re-enactment of how the beacon light was used during the Joseon Dynasty daily from 11.30 AM to 12.30 PM (except on Mondays). 

We know we were pretty much near to Namsan Seoul Tower when we passed by this pagoda, which was used as one of the mission venue for Running Man in its earlier episode. 

The creator of Sulbing majored in food during her study in Japan. She came back to Korea and opened Sulbing with an aim to make Korean dessert more high end without losing the love of the people, of course. And voila, here come the famous dish sold at Sulbing, the Injeolmi Sulbing. It is basically the famous shaved-ice Korean dessert which is served in a big bowl. 

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There are so many flavors to choose for the Injeolmi Sulbing, Noona is having a hard time choosing. She and her friend finally picked the "Premium Mango Coco Snowflakes Sherbet" topping. It is described as "coconut milk and cheese cake served atop apple mango". The end product really looks so beautiful...and big. 

Sharing is caring, people! I don't think you can finish this by yourself. Hahaha. 

Bonjuk has a pretty cozy setting and it is perfectly fine to eat here by yourself (do note that some restaurants in Korea does not allow single diner). Bonjuk opens for everyday except for every second and fourth Sundays of each month. They categorise the porridge menu by type i.e. premium juk, seafood juk, special nutritious juk, juk for hangover (wow!), and traditional juk. 

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My menu that morning is the oyster and mushroom juk. The portion is big but they don't allow sharing so I suppose this will last you until late afternoon (if you can finish, that is). 

How come Korean manage to maintain perfect figure if their meal portion is always big? 

Noona bought her tickets online but as you can see, she watched this show back in 2012. Turns out Jump is now shown at another theater located near Seodaemun Station. You can check out the direction to the theater here.

Jump is comedy performance involving a mix of martial arts (including Korea's traditional military martial arts of taekwondo and taekkyeon) and high-flying acrobatic stunts. You don't have to worry about not being able to understand Korean because the show is totally non-verbal performance and yet, you will not get lost. Noona supposes that's why it has been named Korea's most representative non-verbal performance. 

The show involved a story about a family in which every member has the martial art skill. As there are so many performers involved for Jump, the theater will show a picture of the casts who will play the role for that particular timing. 

If you really take into a liking to the cast, you can buy the poster and ask them to sign on the poster. You can see that all of them have nice muscles. Ahem. 

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Once we had enough fun, we were now ready to have dinner. We went back to Myeong-dong area which is near our hotel and stumbled into a restaurant which sells Andong Jjimdak, one of the famous local delicacies in Korea. Without further ado, we found ourselves inside the restaurant. XD

Andong Jjimdak is basically a steamed chicken dish marinated in ganjang (Korean soy sauce). It is actually very spicy and hence, that's probably the reason why the Koreans are eating it with rice (even though it already has vermicelli in it). 

One thing to take note when ordering Andong Jjimdak in Korea is its portion. This is basically a standard portion of Andong Jjimdak served in every restaurant in South Korea. We personally feel that this portion is enough to feed 3-4 persons. Noona immediately feel hot (and fat) after consuming this spicy Andong Jjimdak. If you really like spicy food, you should never give this dish a miss. 

The good thing about shopping in Myeong-dong is, when hunger strikes, you can just pop by to the nearest restaurant from where you are standing. It happened that we saw Two Two Chicken near us so our feet immediately lead us that way. Noona was too hungry to snap a picture of how Two Two Chicken look like, but thanks goodness there is Google Image. LOL.

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Two Two Chicken sells Korean fried chicken set meal. Noona calls it a set meal because each dish comprises of two servings and one serving has six pieces of chicken. We ordered half original + half sweet and sour so in total there are 12 pieces of chicken. Yum! 

This is the sweet and sour chicken. What Noona loves the most about Korean fried chicken is the sauce. The sweet and sour sauce taste so nice and we finished this plate in a jiffy. 

On the other hand, the original fried chicken tastes so so at best in Noona's book. Well, they are crunchy but taste wise, they taste kinda bland. 

Thankfully, the chicken is not as huge as we imagine so we didn't end up like balloon after we were done with our meal. But then, we realised that the night was still young so we continued our journey to walk around Myeong-dong area at night. We visited the Myeong-dong Cathedral, which is located near to the street elevator leading to the cable car station to Namsan. 

The cathedral looks pretty at night. ^^ 

How to go to Two Two Chicken:

1. Take subway to Myeong-dong Station

2. Exit via exit no. 3 of Myeong-dong Station

3. Follow the map direction to the red star where Two Two Chicken is located

The restaurant offers BBQ menu in a set and ala-carte dishes. Since there were only two of us, we decided to go with the ala-carte pork meats. The waiter prepares the grill and serves us a lot of side dishes. The side dishes alone have made us so happy. As you can see, there are a lot of them. Really a lot. 

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We ordered two type of pork meats. The long one which comes with a layer of fat is really a must-order-food in Korea. It is called Samgyeopsal. Well, it is literally a thick, fatty slice of pork belly meat. The meat is usually not marinated or seasoned. It's just grilled that way on the grill. You can eat the samgyeopsal by dipping it in sesame seed oil mixed with salt and pepper. 

You do not really have to do a lot of cooking when you are visiting a Korean BBQ restaurant. The waiter and waitress are very initiative in assisting the diners to cook their meats. I love this kind of culture as I am a lazy chef. My pure bliss comes from eating, not cooking.

Oh right, before Noona completely transported into another world filled with yummy grilled pork and forgot about the real world, Noona would like to let you see into her bowl of rice. There are big stones in her rice, like literally big stones. The rice is apparently cooked together with bamboo charcoal. The charcoal absorbs chlorine, bad odor and toxic substances from water. By cooking the rice together with the charcoal, the look and quality of the rice improves. The rice does feel more delicious compared to the normal white rice.