Saturday, October 6, 2012

Seoul DIY Itinerary - Day 1

Date of Travel: 3-8 Nov 2010

Deoksugung Palace. Tip: If you ever need to buy a winter jacket, choose bright colours!

When AirAsia first launched the Kuala Lumpur to Seoul route on 3 Aug 2010, the all-in-fare was only RM99! Although I had been to South Korea 3 times before, all of them were on a tour and I did not have the freedom to discover the beauty of Seoul on my own. I managed to secure a return fare for RM255/person, what a bargain.

TripAdvisor's no.1 hotel in Seoul at the time, was Doulos Hotel. With a price of 88,000 Won per night (approximately RM250), this was by far the cheapest hotel I could find at the time. So we were all set to go to Seoul, a place I now rate as my Top 3 destinations of the world.


Day 1

We landed in Seoul International Airport at 7:00pm. Getting to the city was easy-peasy with the many bus routes to various parts of town. Doulos Hotel was located at Jongno 3-ga area, which I later found out to be very central to our needs. Hopping on bus 6002, you gotta listen for the voice-over on the bus that will mention Jongno Sam-ga. Follow the directions from their website, and we easily found the hotel.

Doulos Hotel is smack in the middle of Insadong, Myeong-dong and Cheonggyecheon Stream

Everything was good, except for the size of the bed. 140cm only!




After checking in, we headed out for a late dinner. We were attracted by the many roadside stalls near this hotel. Ordering was easy, just smile, point and show 1 or 2 fingers for the number of orders. If you don't take spicy food, please learn up the phrase - "An Mei Wo Yo" which means no spicy.


My first taste of Ddeokbokki. Great!

With our tummies filled, we took a walk to the opposite side of the road. Referring to the map above, it was towards Piccadilly Theatre. This is where we walked right into the red-light district of Seoul! Though there were one or 2 love motels on Doulos side of the road, it was even more apparent on the opposite side!

Many narrow alleys like this in the red-light district

Cards like this are littered on the floor of the alley

What a name!

Other posts in this series:
Seoul DIY Itinerary - Day 2
Seoul DIY Itinerary - Day 3
Seoul DIY Itinerary - Day 4
Seoul DIY Itinerary - Day 5 

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