Korea IV: Seoul to home
The day's plan was typical tourist shopping. Before that, we were looking for breakfast and stumbled across this peculiar restaurant going by the name of Rayyan Halal Food. The undecorated storefront doesn't say much.
We only found out later, but it serves mainly Central Asian food. Going in, there's no menu. Ordering is a mix of pointing at the wall and trying to pronounce the name of the dish. I got myself laghman jarenyi, having never tasted it before and not knowing what to expect.
It's very savoury and flavour-packed. It tastes tomato-ey, but not tasting of tomato itself. The noodles are thick and starchy, almost like udon but starchier. The beef is tender and the dish itself was nicely salted, though it did get a bit oily at the end. All in all, more than satisfactory.
Next, I wanted to visit an outdoor gear store. We headed down to near Jongno 5-ga station exit 6, where there was many of such stores in tiny alleys. Parking was hard to find, and we lucked out with a nearby public lot opposite it.
We needed to find a toilet though, so we dropped by a mall. It was open and accessible, but its atmosphere made us hesitate.
Turns out it only opens at night. To reach the place, we passed through more alleys. It seems like it's a place more popular with the locals, where there was many street stalls. There was the occasional restaurant, also filled with locals.
The multiple outdoor gear stores here sold a variety of things, all at reasonable prices. I want to give special credit to Snowline Technical Outdoor Gear, which I unfortunately didn't get pictures of. It's a small cramped store, perhaps even a little bit messy. They carry all sorts of backpacks, climbing equipment and others. The difference is that they're cheap and some goods they carry are rare. I'm not sure how the friendly uncle even profits anything. I got myself two Grivel carabiners in the old colourway that hasn't been made in years. I also got myself a Rab hiking backpack that costed 60% of what I would've paid in Singapore. To be fair, hiking gear back home is expensive. Regardless, it's still insanely cheap when speaking relatively.
After that purchase, we headed down to see the area around Myeongdeong Shopping Street. Parking was really hard to find, and we ended up going to this small basement carpark, right beside Lotte Main Department Store, beside a Starbucks.
How was it possible that there was this carpark that was near to this busy shopping district, yet having multiple parking lots? It's because later when we exited, we paid around 30 thousand won to exit.
The shopping street itself was really busy. I much preferred the quieter and cozier alleys earlier that morning. The strong smoky smell of food everywhere, bright stalls all over and slow moving crowds were not to my taste.
I would have to admit that there were a couple of interesting stalls. One of them was a roasted chestnut store. There's also roasted chestnut back home, but the way they do it here is more innovative. They have a drum do the roasting instead of doing it by hand. It also peels the shells, so you don't need to deal with peeling it yourself.
To wrap up the day, we headed down to what looks to be a Singaporean restaurant, named Lepak Laa. Originally I had qualms, travelling to Korea to eat home food. Luckily, they also served the local dishes here. I got myself a rameon of some kind, which I've forgotten the exact name. I'm pleased to say I enjoyed it.
The next day
The flight back was in the evening. We played it safe and took the day leisurely and slowly headed to the airport. We dropped by Yeongjong Bridge service area as our last stop.
And that's the end of this trip.
