South Korea: My Summer SK-Pade

written on April 29th, 2015 by Marijim Dy

South Korea, the origin of massive K-pop music and culture, has just the right balance of modernization and tradition. My family and I visited this beautiful country recently and I fell in love with the place right away.

The cool weather was a welcome respite from the seemingly unbeatable heat in the Philippines. Incheon Airport was cozy and very clean on the inside. It currently ranks as the second best airport of 2015, after Singapore’s Changi Airport.

On the first day, we walked all the way to the Ihwa Mural Village in Ihwa-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul. It is a local project where around 60 artists painted the walls and installed artworks for the community. You can tour the village and snap Instagram-worthy photos of random art. Just make sure that you don’t make too much noise since there are a lot of people living in the area.

There are three palaces in Seoul: Gyeongbokgung Palace, Changdeokgung Palace Garden and Deoksugung Palace. We went to Changdeokgung first for a tour around Huwon, also known as Secret Garden.

To wrap up the evening, we watched Cookin’ Nanta at Daehangno TOM Theater 1. It is a non-verbal comedy show about three cooks tasked to finish preparing for a wedding banquet. The musical incorporates the traditional Korean samul nori music and also involves acrobatics, magic tricks, pantomime, and audience participation. It was truly an all-new experience. I have always loved musicals and the whole production was amazing.

The next day, we went to Gyeongbokgung Palace. There were some Cherry Blossom trees in bloom but it would have been nice to see more. They’re so pretty.

 

Afterwards, we went to Namsan Cable Car which runs from Namsan Mountain up to the Namsan Tower. There were a lot of tourists, both local and foreign, who lined up for the ride.

On our last day, we went to Yoido Full Gospel Church, which is the largest Pentecostal Christian congregation in South Korea. They have these radio-like things that have different translations per channel. They cater to English, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish and French speakers among others.

Then we went to Gangnam because my dad really wanted to go. This is all Psy’s fault. We landed in COEX Mall, which is apparently the world’s largest underground shopping mall. Lotteria is a big fast-food chain in SK and I loved their Bulgogi Rice Burger! We also shopped to our heart’s content for pasalubong at Lotte Mart since it was less expensive.