Seoul Day 2: Naksan Park (Mountain)

On the second day, woke up to a nice breakfast of Bak Kut Teh (as mentioned in the previous post) and then headed out for Dongdaemun Design Plaza and afterwards, Naksan Park. Naksan Park is a place where many couples go because of the beautiful night scenery that shows Seoul's skyline. Coupled with beautiful lightings and dimly-litted walkways, it's a great place for couples to just walk, enjoy the night air, skyline and just to be in each other's presence.

In order to get up to Naksan Park, there was a really nice village with beautiful wall mural paintings called the Ihwa Mural Village. It is a huge area of steps, houses, and quaint, pretty paintings upon the walls all around the village. It's become so famous that it's now a tourist attraction amidst the daily lives of the people living there. There is even a map-like signage at the beginning that shows you where all the different murals are so that you can find them to take photos with.

This place is walkable from Dongdaemun Design Plaza, or the Dongdaemun History & Culture Park train station. Just prepare some comfortable shoes because you're going to walk quite a bit to get there!

Look at this beauty, I wish I could've taken a better photo but there were people swarming

The steps weren't many, but they were steep. On top of that, there was a lot of turns and the light rays from the sunset were gleaming on us. After a while, we had to take a break, recharge and then plough on!

Saw pancake and makgeolli on the way up!

The angel wings mural painting was one of the more popular ones and it had a queue to take photos. Couples, families and friends alike, there weren't just foreigners there. Indeed, it was a fun experience and on top of that, free! So if you're looking to take nice photos with cute paintings, this is the place to go.

I see you

We got a little hungry waiting for the sunset and for night to fall before taking nice photos on Naksan Park itself, so went back to the shop we saw initially for some pancake and makgeolli. This is what the locals usually have together as a set. I'm not much of a drinker, but it's actually quite a nice combination. The salty pancake flavor, finished off with a sweet, albeit alcoholic beverage.

After which, we walked around to chance for nice spots to take photos at with the impending sunset and night skyline. We tried jumping on the ledge for nice photos but after a while we got asked to come down by the park officials. Apparently, people have fallen down before (though it isn't such a big fall) so I guess it's dangerous to some extent.

Managed to catch the sunset!

After what seemed like an eternity of bumming around, walking back and forth and using our phones to check up on social media, night has fallen! We sourced around for nicer backdrops so that we can take some nice photos for good memory. It's quite a nice place to walk, actually, because the air was cool and the location was quiet and serene. All you hear along the way are the whispers and chatters of couples and tourists, also looking for places to take photos.

The amount of bokeh I abused is incorrigible. But I really love bokeh and I think they add a very specific magical touch to the photo, so I really love prime lenses and the fact that they make lights so blurry. ^_^

After we went down, we continued walking and saw a lot of people eating this snack: It was a mold of breaded fish pancake with ice-cream and a wafer stick. Since there were a lot of people eating it, we figured it was pretty famous and wanted to go try it. When we found it, it was a snaking queue of at least 20 people. It was so long that the queue started blocking the entrances of other restaurants.

However, after queuing for around 10 minutes we figured that it was a waste of time because the woman who was making it was incredibly slow. So if you're in the neighborhood and want to get it, hope for a short queue (because it really does seem delicious)

I just came back from Jeju yesterday, having missed 2 classes, I am really behind schedule and I can't find my resolve to start studying hard again. Considering the fact that TOPIK is within 11 days, I really need to get my move on. Coupled with the fact that my parents are coming in 8 days! (woohoo) I cannot be studying while they are here, so I will only have roughly 7-8 days to study for TOPIK, and then I can go and meet my parents whom I miss so dearly!

Till next time~

So many blog posts pending... so little time.