Seoul - Day 5: Bread, Sights & Namdaemun

I actually think the subconscious "relief" of knowing it was a PTO day made a difference because I woke up at 5AM today! Okay, that or just the multiple days of being in APAC were finally shifting my body clock. Either way, good night of sleep! Having woken up early, we decided to venture out for some Korean snack souvenir shopping. 

First we hit up this little mochi place right outside of our apartment -- I think because we were hungry - but hey, new food experience! 

I liked the beige "cheese" flavored one the most. I think Y and H appreciated the dried fruit/nut top one more.

We checked out random shops while we waited for the grocery store to open (yes, we were rope-dropping the e-mart 😂) - these grapes looked amazing...but they were also something crazily expensive (like $30 for the bag). I guess like Japan, fresh fruits like strawberries and grapes are expensive! (Update - V informs me that normal grapes are not this expensive, these ones were extra special - shine muscat - much sweeter and juicier than normal ones, this the high price!)

This is also when we hit up a pharmacy to pick up some Melatoning for Y (NOT to be confused with melatonin -- every time I asked for it, they'd first bring out the sleeping pills and then I'd have to point at my cheeks and emphasize the "niNG" syllable more and then they'd get it). Maybe I'll do a follow-up post in a month or so and report on how well it worked.  

Our top item at the grocery store were these milk cookies. We all bought multiple packs. My favorite was the cheese flavor - SO good. Basically like a cheese puff, but lighter and tastier (and I think healthier)!

We were headed back to the Myeongdong area today, but to a slightly different location -- instead of the street shopping, we were in search of the infamous salt bread.  A friend had informed me that there were multiple branches, but for the first-time visitor, the aesthetic of the one in the Jongno area would be best. So...here comes one of our tourist failures of the trip....

Look at how excited we are to find the place! (Yes we are wearing matching shirts today):

Me in the shop -- so proud of our purchase:

Close-up of the famous salt bread:

Close-up of the other fruit cream croissant we picked up:

And the little cafe was in this cute little preserved village area (sort of like the hutong experience in Beijing) with a ton of little shops and cafes. 

Amazing experience, yeah? So...turns out we just stopped at the first picturesque place the taxi dropped us off at, not realizing that the ACTUAL famous salt bread place was actually a few turns behind the block. The long line of people queuing tipped me off:

The real shop sold nothing but salt bread. It only comes in a little package of four - so most people were buying one or two packages.

So...we bought a second round of salt bread -- actually it worked out okay because this way we could compare the original with the knockoff.  We all agreed that hands down, the original is NOTICEABLY better. So much more butter - crispy on the bottom, soft all around, pillowy goodness. Even I - generally being a bread pooh-pooh-er, thought it was pretty darn good. Google maps link so you all make sure to go to the right place!

After two rounds of salt bread/croissants...we apparently didn't have enough gluten yet, so we rounded the corner and stood in line at MilToast:

This place is dine-in only and known for their steamed bread:

It was quite a long wait, but luckily with three of us we could swap out standing in line and shopping in the nearby stalls. I picked up some bookmarks for the twins while we were waiting. The atmosphere of the actual cafe inside was actually really cute and peaceful - it wasn't crowded at all because they really controlled volume which you don't appreciate as you're standing in line but once you're seated it made for a much more pleasant eating experience. We were able to actually rest and chat and take a breath from what has otherwise been a pretty go-go-go trip. Here's the famous steamed bread (we got a plain and a corn):

We also ordered a black sesame mochi covered version:

Overall thoughts? The steamed bread was good but not amazing (though it also suffered from being literally like the sixth piece of bread we were eating this morning) -- but the atmosphere was really nice -- so honestly this area (Ikseondong) ended up being one of the group's favorite places of the entire trip. We highly recommend it -- the whole vibe was just really cute and different from everywhere else in Seoul. 

After eating SO much bread, we were all interested in getting some steps in to help digest all those carbs. Naver maps reported that it would only be 30 minutes or so to Davich in Myeongdong (where Y had to pick up the glasses she ordered a few days ago), so off we went through the neighborhood streets!

We passed by a few parks that were actually pretty cool - I think this one is Tapgol Park - there was a big monument inside celebrating the fact that this was the site of the first reading of the proclamation of Korean independence.

Also modeled some street side sunglasses:

More shots of cool pagodas and statues.

We passed by a chestnut stand -- pretty cool as I didn't realize this is what chestnuts look like when they are picked from trees!

I thought Seoul was so much less crowded compared to Tokyo.

This is a shot of the Cheonggyecheon river walk:

The Myeongdong cathedral:

And we eventually found ourselves posing with the BTS bear...

Back again on the Myeongdong shopping street.

We didn't stay that long this time because we knew we had to get to Namdaemun before it closed at 6pm. We were in search of the famous hotteok pancakes -- first we tried the "sweet seed" version (very similar to the five-nut filling for Chinese mooncakes):

Before nabbing the larger vegetable/noodle filled version from the famous stall just outside the entrance to Namdaemun market:

This might be my favorite single food item of the trip so far - crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside, and the filling was tasty without being too heavy.

Somehow we still had room for more eating...we considered the Kalguksu noodle alley first:

But it was a little too overwhelming for me -- also the menus were too heavy on noodles -- I didn't think I could handle more gluten today...

Eventually we settled on Korean bbq at Namdaemoon Daega:

I really really enjoyed the kimchi at this place. They also had a decent bibimbop and the soup that came with the set wasn't bad either. 

The meat wasn't as impressive as Samwon Garden but I actually enjoyed the banchan here even more -- and after so much bread, it was nice getting some fresh vegetables in our stomachs. 

We couldn't leave the area without hitting the stalls one more time so we went off towards the Hoehyeon underground shopping mall -- and good thing we did because literally as the shops were all closing, we came upon this store and decided these jeans (with elastic waists - crucial after a day of so much eating) were special enough that we had to all buy our own pair:

The woman shop-owner also sent us off with these very tasty candies - they might not be Korean, but they were like softer hi-chews mixed with some soft fruit fillings:

Now it truly was the end of the night. We headed back to the apartment ready for bed - sadly tomorrow will be our departure day!