Hongdae: Days 1 - 5

Hongdae Hostel: Prugio Apartment

I stayed at a hostel (Prugio apartment) for 10 days since my arrival - from 13th till 24th. It was very cheap since I was sharing a room with 4 other friends, meaning all 5 beds in the room were used. For 10 days it cost me 237,500won (approx. £137), so that's £13.70 a night! A few pounds cheaper than sharing an ibis budget hotel room in England.
Plus the hostel is in a very good area. There are all kinds of stores around it: Lotteria, coffee shops, bubble tea store, rice burger store, Subway, convenience stores like 7-eleven and CU/CU Later/CVS/whateverit'scalled, Korean restaurants, Japanese, Frisbee (Korean resller chain of Apple) JUNO Hair, and etc. The more market-y area is very close too, definitely within walking distance. It's basically on the little streets on the side of the main road. The clubbing road is within walking distance also. However, keep in mind that these areas are the busiest with rocky uneven roads and various cars and motorbikes trying to go past you.

Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the hostel but the images of the sharing space (living room and kitchen) is very true to the pictures that are provided on the website! I absolutely adore the furry rugs all over the sharing space floor! So soft and comfortably warm! As for the bedrooms, they can appear smaller than the pictures provided. For our 5-bed room, there wasn't that much walking space so sometimes we had to walk on each other's beds in order to get to the other end of the room. The pictures didn't show that there are about 4 wardrobes directly opposite the ends of the beds, but they are there! There isn't quite enough room to fit more than 3 large luaggage cases in the bedroom, meaning you have to leave it out in the living room.
As for the other 2 bedrooms in the hostel, I have no idea how much room there is since I haven't taken a look. However, one of the bedrooms (the one on the far right hand  corner behind the sofa) has an ensuite bathroom. Unluckily we didn't manage to get that room, so we had to share one bathroom opposite our bedroom with 4 other French girls who lived in the 4-bed room. 9 girls + 1 bathroom = disaster. We literally had to strategically claim the bathroom ASAP morning and night.
Overall I loved the hostel, minus the bathroom sharing business and the landlord who was a tad...weird. He freely entered and exited the hostel whenever he wanted. Once he came in at 3am to restock supplies, and 9am to clean... Not exactly comfortable when the hostel is rooming 10 females in total with no males.

Moving away from the hostel talk, there is so much that I could say about my 10 days in the Hongdae area (plus others like Myeongdong) but I can't remember it all. So I'm going to have to put down everything in bullet points with everything and anything that I could remember.
Only writing first 5 days into this one post because I realised that the content was too long!
Shall split this topic into 2 separate posts for easier reading.

Day 1: EXO Hauling

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  EXO pop-up store

  Lotteria: first meal. Ordered a box of chicken to share with my 2 other friends. The corn salad that came with it was pretty good. Weird how the spoons were made out of film coated cardboard. Disappointed that they didn't give us mayo to dip the chicken in, but the honey mustard is a good enough substitute!
  
• T-money card: travelling around Seoul. Had a friend help us buy our temporary transport cards. We were heading to Myeongdong to do a bit of EXO merchandise shopping, as well as to pick up some Kpop T-money cards from the underground shopping area at Euljiro 1-ga (priced at 10,000 - 12,000won each).
  
• EXO Pop-up store (Lotte Young Plaza, Myeongdong): where wallets come to die. Went kind of crazy here and bought 2x framed Chen poster card things (22,000won each), along with a set of EXO-M photocards (24,000won). Was so tempted to buy a Chen wall scroll but that stuff is 64,000won (?) and I'd rather use that money on food (besides, I don't even know how I'm going to hang it up in my accommodation room without breaking rules by hammering a pin to a wall)
  



Everysing store



• Everysing store (located above SPAO in Myeongdong). Was very tempted in getting another one of those large framed photo cards of Chen but held back because spending £11+ on a piece of card with a printed on picture and signature started to sound ridiculous. Here I realised it would have been better to just buy the photocards separately as opposed to in a pack. At least you could hand select the photos and get all OT12 rather than just 2x of 6 members. Came out of the store empty handed. My wallet thanked me.
  
• Jaws Food: first dinner. So on our way back to the hostel our friends introduced us to this chain store that sold street food like odeng, twigeum and tteokbokki. Prices were pretty cheap, don't need more than 5,000won per person to be honest. One tray of the take away goods was enough to fill me up. I shared a tray of the tofu set and another tray of mixed twigeum set with Louise. I'm a big fan of the twigeum japchae rolls and tofu pouches that held japchae in them!

Day 2: Sinsadong (EXO Hauling Part 2) & Namsan Tower

BWCW Collab Store snaps!

• BWCW collab store: this one deadly place in Sinsadong. Headed out in the afternoon because we all woke up late and arrived there sweating because Korea was experiencing an intense heatwave period, plus there was a lot of fan girls swarming there already. Went down to the "Library" first where you can buy a majority of the cheap shirts, as well as items from the pop up store. Then went up to the main building where you can buy pricier collab items (shirts start from 79,000won and up approx.) as well as order food named after each member. Came out with just a black BWCW snapback priced at 59,000won (around £30) - my wallet did not appreciate this purchase.
  
• Saboten: dinner with Louise's brother at this nice Japanese restaurant. Got myself the Cool Soba set (Seoul style) for 15,000won. Loved the cheese and ham tempura and pork cutlet!
  
• Namsan Tower. I really wanted to avoid walking up the hills that were associated with Namsan Tower, but they were unavoidable. We had to walk up a huge one from Myeongdong just to get to the cable cars. Tickets for cable car were priced at 8,000won, they also had couple deals. Once we were off the fairly cramped cable car we still had to walk up a hill in the form of deadly stairs. In the end we didn't go up the tower, we just loitered around the base of it, taking in the pretty night view. Shopped in their souvenir store and bought ourselves some specially made ice cream - pricey but worth it ;)
  I've also noticed that people have begun to use cheap phone cases instead of locks to write their messages on haha! This was definitely a couples hot spot. I would say a bit more than 50% of the people there were couples going on a late night date.

Day 3: Edae & Drinks

Edae snaps!

• Ewha Womans University: incredibly spacious and green university.
  
• Edae shopping area: the perfect place to shop for pretty and cute things! This place is incredibly deadly for the wallet too.
  Edae is surrounded with stores selling various things specifically aimed at women such as shoes, clothes, and hair accessories. The branded/chain stores were definitely more women orientated, plus this one store that I went into sold cheap couple-wear!
  One should not miss out on the market-type stores either! You can find all sorts of cheap and decent stuff here. However, after browsing for a bit in a couple of stores I've notcied that the more bigger stores seemed to all sell similar mass produced items, whereas the tinier stores sold more frillier and unique things - tad pricier but worth it, probably handmade.
  
• Hotel street: interesting. We decided to walk all the way back to Hongdae from Edae and ended up passing this one long street that was filled with mainly hotels. And this is where I found one particularly interesting Love Hotel.
  
• Sharetea: bubble tea store near the hostel. This place claimed that the (cream) cheese and rock salt bubble tea was a best seller. Was very tempted to try, but the yakult bubble tea menu appeared more appealing. Ended up getting a grapefruit yakult bubble tea. I will try the cheese and rock salt bubble tea one day...
  
• Pasta Buono: dinner in Hongdae. Ordered myself a creamy seafood pasta that tasted absolutely delish! I believe each main dish costs around 10,000won here. Drinks were self-service and free! :D
  

• 

  Bonmal in Hongdae

  Bonmal: late night drinks. Wandered around the tiny streets of Hongdae for a bit and found ourselves at this really cute, tiny and cosy drinks place. Ordered myself a Cassis Milk for 8,000won, it was lovely ♥
  
• Ho Bar: MORE DRINKS. This place really gave me an unforgettable experience. Thought it would be similar to an English pub: a place where you can sit down, chat, and have some drinks, but no. You can sit down here if you want to, you can try to chat, and you can definitely get drinks here, it's highly recommended.
  Ho Bar is a place which resembles a club, but only that the dance floor is tiny and there are more chairs, tables and boothes for people to sit and drink. There is loud music blasting out of the speakers, the staff members stand on the sides with large glowing light stick batons dancing every now and then, you see Koreans doing some mad dance moves right next to the air con, and most unforgettably you can basically watch men pee in the bathroom. I shit you not, there is NO DOOR to the toilets, both men and women. Just flimsy short fabric curtains dangling off the top of the doorway. You have one of the men's urinals in plain sight, so without even meaning to you may end up catching a glimpse of a man doing his business. Luckily for women they have stalls to go into with doors on them.

Day 4: Japanese Curry & Lotte World!

Abiko Curry in Hongdae

• Abiko Curry: brunch. This place looked very Japanese-y and the food was very decently priced. There were Gundam and DBZ figurines put on shelves as decoration, a fake (?) cherry blossom tree near the doorway, and an open kitchen.
  The staff was very cute haha. When we were ready to order, one of the male staff members hid behind the cherry blossom tree shyly and pushed this other female worker towards us to make her take our orders. This is because out of the 5 of us, 2 of us were Caucasian, meaning the staff had to speak English, so they were very reluctant in interacting with us. Bless ♥
  I ordered the chicken katsu curry set which came with miso soup and a canned drink. All for 10,000won! Loved how the curry had strips of chicken in it, tasted very nice :)
  
• Lotte World: Korean Disneyland basically. Very cute place targeted at children and couples. Only had time to go on bumper cars, Sinbad boat ride, and the pirate ship. The lines for the rollercoasters lasted for almost 2 hours, so I reluctantly gave those a miss :C Maybe it would have been better to go on a weekday that wasn't Friday and before school children were out of class. But at those times the ticket prices are at its highest. After 4pm tickets are 34,000won (which includes access to rides), and they go even cheaper after 7pm.
  Bumper cars was alright. Didn't really like how it was like a track though. There was an island in the middle of the driving space meaning we had to drive around in circles. It made it a lot harder to drive and caused a lot of car jamming.
  I found the Sinbad boat ride hilarious. When you line up they have TV screens showing a low budget, poorly shot and acted play of the 'Sinbad' story (I don't know how the story goes but my God it was terrible. Tad bit worse than those children's shows). So the ride is a water ride, in which the boat takes you along a course that unravels the story of Sinbad with the use of terribly tacky props. There are 2 dips in total, but none of them are than bad. After 2 dips there came a point where the boat started going up this big ramp, which normally signifies an upcoming huge dip, but no. THERE WAS NO 3RD DIP. What a terribly hilarious and anti-climatic ride.
  The pirate ship was my favourite. Although the queue looked long it when through very quickly purely because the boat was huge so it held a lot of people. I would say the ride lasted for a good minute. They made us chant and clap something when the ride began.
  
• Coffine Gurunaru: HONEY BREAD! I've actually been to a Coffine Gurunaru already on the first day at Myeongdong to grab a blueberry smoothie (which was divine), so this time I went to one in Hongdae for some late night honey bread! It was 11.45pm when I was devouring this deliciously sugary beast!

Day 5: Ups & Downs

Food porn.

• Pizza Hut: CREAM CHEESE CRUST. So once again we had brunch, but this time in Pizza Hut which was basically a few minutes walk away from our hostel. Ordered ourselves a family sized "Crown crust" pizza, in which the crust is shaped into tiny little pockets to fill a thin layer of sweet potato puree in as well as a dollop of cream cheese. Bizarre combo I know, but I actually loved it! The cream cheese tasted lovely. But maybe because I'm generally not too picky about food and I love eating cheese. I would say Pizza Hut in Korea is perhaps slightly cheaper than England.
  
• Hello Kitty Cafe: most disappointing experience so far in Korea surprisingly. The decor is cute and all, everyone should definitely go there just for the experience of being surrounded by Hello Kitty themed stuff, but the food is just...no. I ordered a vanilla fruit waffle for 4,000won (around £2), which is cheaper than England's store sold waffles but man that waffle was bad. It didn't even taste like vanilla or even remotely sweet. It was more savoury than anything. The fruit was warm and definitely came out of a fruit cocktail tin. Only the vanilla ice cream on top tasted normal and really saved the terribly dish. 2 of my friends shared this Hello Kitty shaped mousse cheesecake priced at 10,000won. It actually tasted kind of sickly and not really cheesecake-y at all. More like a thick layer of mousse shaped into Hello Kitty's face covering a small piece of sponge cake inside. Truly disappointing.
  Though I did try my friend's green tea latte which was alright, another friend who bought an actual chocolate cheesecake slice that wasn't covered in mousse said it tasted decent too. So my advice to everyone would be to avoid the waffle and Hello Kitty mousse cheesecake. Go for the drinks.

• Patbingsoo: my first bingsoo in Korea! So before this we had Jaws Food again. About an hour later one of my friends headed out with one of the other hostel people (the one living in the ensuite room) to get more street food. Feeling too lazy and tired of the humid weather to venture out, I asked them to get patbingsoo for me. They ended up bringing back a huge tub of mango patbingsoo! Surprisingly I managed to finish it all in one sitting despite my doubts in being able to stomach it all in the beginning.