Hanging out in Hongdae

Nov 23, 2015

Day 2

Hongdae easily became one of my favorite spots in Seoul. It's a nice place to walk around and shop and eat. There were a lot of cute restos and cafes I wanted to visit, and shops that sell cute clothes and shoes and accessories and makeup! Lots and lots of makeup. Like..you wouldn't believe how many makeup brands and cosmetic products they have. But hey, that's Korea for you. Some people come to Korea specifically for these products.

Anyway, before entering the Trick Eye Museum, we wandered around and saw some interesting graffiti.

We grabbed a late lunch/early dinner at Noona Holdak. We ordered chicken and spicy squid heads and paired it with soda. The food was soooooo good we can't help but order beer as well. And then I understood the chicken and beer combination that the Koreans love so much. I loved it, too!

It was getting late, but this place was just starting to get busy. We saw a couple of street performers in almost every corner and people were really watching/listening to them. It made me want to sit down on the curb and just watch and listen and enjoy and just chill, basically. It's the kind of place I'd love to go to after a long day at work and just relax. That was the kind of vibe I got when I was there and if that's your thing, I'm sure you'd love it too.

We walked around some more. We saw what we think was some sort of a red light district. Sort of because when you think of a red light district, you imagine the streets to be bustling with life and party and what-nots with a lot of people trying to get you to enter their establishments. It wasn't like that at all, but we still got a feeling it was a red light disctrict. Maybe we were wrong, or maybe not, but that's what we thought it was, is what I'm saying. Anyway, there were also a couple of alleys with lots of small restaurants that were literally packed with customers who all seemed to be having the time of their lives. These restos seemed..alive. With life. If you know what I mean. Anyway, it just looked so lively and fun from someone (me) in the midst of the busy alley trying to get past the throng of people standing/lining outside these restaurants. Now if you try and read that all again, it seems like the red light district I was talking about, but it wasn't. This I'm sure of. Hahaha!

There were also a couple of hip looking bars where 'cool kids' hang out - a place my 10-years-younger-self would've loved to go to. But, yeah. I'm not my younger self so it just looked interesting and that's all it was as far as I'm concerned. Haha! But yeah, Hongdae is the cool go-to party place aside from Itaewon. I thought it'd be nice to pop in to one of the clubs and just have a drink or two so I can basically have an idea on the party scene in Seoul. I would've loved to, but I wasn't particularly in the mood to party that night. Hehe.

So we went for an ice cream instead. Lol. We saw people queuing in front of a store. It was a long line so I got curious and checked what the fuss was all about. It turned out to be an ice cream store - Tiramisu Ice Cream. That sounds really delicious, don't you think? Now, you gotta understand that this was around 7 or 7:30pm and the temperature started to drop and I was getting a bit cold (seriously, my choice of clothing wasn't anywhere near appropriate for the temperature). But ice cream and cold weather sounded like a great idea so we fell in line. The ice cream was good! Especially the lower half part where they put something special. It's like milk or cream or something..I forgot what it was, but it was really yummy! I started to feel colder in every lick, but man, it was worth it.

We tried looking for the Hello Kitty Cafe, but we didn't find it. Either that, or we didn't really tried hard enough. We were getting tired and I read that the cafe was transferred somewhere else, but I'm not sure, so we let it go for the time being. After buying 'some' stuff from Artbox, we called it a night and went back to Chungmuro for a much needed rest. I really loved it here and I would love to go back and just hang out. Wait, let me rephrase that. I will definitely go back here and hang out.