Before I start, I want you to be mentally prepared because this is the last post for the ThirstyInMelb series. I'm sorry guys, this has been a wonderful journey with you but all good things must come to an end. So anyway! We decided that saving the Great Ocean Tour for our last day was a good way to end our trip; to just sit in a bus and ride along the beaches in Victoria. After all the walking we did, exploring Melbourne town, shopping in the markets, I guess we deserved to relax at the end of our trip. So we booked our trip on this website and I guess it was pretty good. Firstly, were like 20 minutes late because we were lost but they actually waited for us! But of course, we had to call them beforehand to let them know we were gonna be late... Lunch was also provided but clearly it wasn't halal so we cooked our own lunch the night before and packed it for the trip. We were drifting in and out of consciousness throughout the tour, like from one location to the other it takes at least 30 minutes and we had to wake up really early for this so we basically just slept in the bus A LOT, not listening to the guide, which I feel bad because he was pretty nice but yeah, can't help it... I tried to take note of the locations of each stop but honestly, the main star of the tour is probably the lighthouse and the 12 Apostles! So that's all, I'm gonna let the pictures do the talking because Mother Nature is breathtaking~~
We had to leave the house at 6am I think? And the sky was so pretty and it was pretty cold but so pretty!!!!
The start of the Great Ocean Tour at the Eastern View (I think that's what it's called)
~Wongarra~
Apollo Bay I
Apollo Bay II *cue Apollo by Last Dinosaurs*
Maits Rest I
Maits Rest II
Cape Otway Lightstation
Cape Otway Lightstation II
Cape Otway Lightstation III
Cape Otway Lightstation IV
Spot the koala
12 Apostles I
12 Apostles II
12 Apostles III
12 Apostles IV
12 Apostles V
12 Apostles VI
Loch Ard Gorge I
Loch Ard Gorge II
Loch Ard Gorge III
Loch Ard Gorge IV
Write down in the comment section below if you disagree that Mother Nature is amazing, I kid. For reals though, my pictures don't do justice of how breath taking the Great Ocean Road was and to end of the day with such a sunset?? Iconic. Gonna leave you guys with a happy thought! And by happy thought I mean Liyana's vlog, so please give it some love and watch our vlog from the trip, thank you for reading guys!
I owe everyone an apology. Yes, I realise the last time I blogged was almost half a year ago holy freaking balls I didn't realise it was THAT long okay yup, I'm really sorry!
But hey! I'm back to finally finish up my Seoul blog post which has been on the top of my To Do Later List.
So hey, it's almost been a year since we came back from Seoul so the details are kinda sketchy. I had to consult my mom and Nadiah for like an hour, debating what we did on each day and all but I think this is right hahaha!
Continuing from the previous post, let's go to our 4th day!
We started the day with Nami Island, heading there by train and somewhere along the way, taking the bus and ferry. The transport on this day was honestly a blur like I literally followed Nadiah around, I didn't know where we were, just that we arrived on Nami Island safely. I'm really sorry, I really wanted this blog post to be informative but if you'd like to know more details on this, don't hesitate to just comment below and I'll ask Nadiah!
This ain't a cherry blossom btw. We stayed in Seoul during May but the cherry blossom period is typically in April.
There's a halal restaurant on Nami Island called Asian Family Restaurant Dongmoon that sells traditional Korean dishes like Jjajangmyeon (Black Bean Noodles), Beef Bulgogi (Grilled beef) and Chicken Bibimbap (Mixed Rice). Alas! Nadiah had other plans for us and wanted to try the Dosirak, which is like the Korean version of a bento set I guess? The food at this restaurant weren't verified halal but they didn't sell any meat, only seafood so eat at your own comfort. So we headed to Yeonga Lunch Box which is just around the corner from the halal restaurant. This place gets pretty crowded and it's small. Here's a tip; bring the lunch box outside where there are more benches, it's more windy and you don't have to sit on small stools. However, don't forget to return the lunch boxes!
We ordered the Cheese Dosirak and the Tuna Dosirak together with a plate of Seafood Pajeon. This really nice Korean family who was sharing a table with us taught us how to eat the dosirak hahaha so the restaurant gives you gloves which apparently you're supposed to use to shake the boxes! The rice is cooked in the metal lunch boxes so it's really really hot, which explains the gloves. By shaking the box, it mixes the rice and the red pepper paste.
So halfway through our meal, we realised that most of the Koreans were eating with seaweeds and we were like "Um, can we have some too???" I mean seaweed is the bombdotcom???? So Nadiah asked the same nice family where and how to get the seaweed and the mom was so freaking nice???? She asked us for like ₩1000 and made her son buy it for us? So nice??? Also, even on Day 4, we weren't used to the free flow of drinking water.... Hahaha
From the train station, there's this specific bus (I'm honestly sorry, all the transport details are so vague) that you have to board and it brings you to the Nami Island ferry terminal and Le Petit France, which we had planned to visit too. This is where things got annoying. There were too many buses that brings you to Nami Island so we were like uhhhhhhh and decided to take the first bus that could bring us there. So after Nami Island, we had to take the bus to Le Petit France too but the bus takes FOREVER so we decided to cab to Le Petit France which wasn't that expensive. If we had took the bus I was talking about earlier, we could have paid just ₩10,000 (I think) to bring us to 2 places and back to the train station. But we didn't. So after Le Petit France, we had to pay the same amount just to bring us back to the train station so that sucked but oh well haha
There isn't much in Le Petit France tbh I mean other than the nice view and houses it wasn't worth paying for.
Also, this is the train station that you have to alight to get to Nami Island. Just look at the view from the platform compared to Singapore's??? MOTHER NATURE IS WONDERFUL GUYS #saveEarth!!!
When we got back to Seoul, we decided to have kebab for dinner at Itaewon since it was pretty easy to get there. There's halal kebabs everywhere in Itaewon so no worries!
Day 5 now!
We started the day late because my mom went for a message in the morning. It was in our apartment building and my mom enjoyed it so much hahaha Nadiah and I just kinda ate leftovers for breakfast while my mom was downstairs.
The first place we decided to visit that day was Edae! So Edae is this street that leads you to Ewha Womans University. Along Edae, you'll see street vendors selling snacks, bags, clothes accessories I mean basically it's a great place to shop. The street isn't long but they have more than enough shops. If you're ever in Edae, walk around Ewha Womans University as well! It's like really pretty and I wanted to get some Ewha merchandise but their campus shop was closed (we went during the public holiday so yup almost everywhere was crowded meh).
After Edae, we went on to Namdaemun Market! I swear that day was like a shopping day. Namdaemun market is more for traditional Korean products like kitchenware, fake and kinda overpriced branded bags, food, clothes and houseware. Namdaemun is divided into different parts, each area for a specific type of product they sell. The whole market area is pretty big so we kinda just walked where our feet took us, not going to specific places to find specific products. We were just too lazy for that hahaha but hey I still got what I came to Korea for (metal chopsticks btw lol I'm so lame).
Oh, most vendors in Namdaemun close up pretty early so try not to be there too late. If I'm not mistaken, it's because Namdaemun is more for wholesalers so they open up pretty early for locals. By around 6pm, most shops were already gone (they're street vendor so they were literally gone).
We ended the day with dinner at Gangnam oo fancy fancy~
We ate at the only halal Korean BBQ restaurant and unfortunately, it's located in Gangnam which is like across the Han River. We actually got lost here and my mom was starting to shiver and I was hungry (we actually had some pretty good kebab at Namdaemun but hey, that's not enough). We found the restaurant after walking for like 10 minutes when the restaurant was acually only like 5 minutes away from the subway station exit. It's in the back alley, not the main streets of Gangnam. Oh, and Yang Good only sells grilled mutton and soups.
I swear the meat is so juicy and sweet and we had to order third helpings. The meat is just marinated with salt and pepper but holy balls it tastes so good????
Onwards to Day 6!
We went to Lotte World! And I realised, most of my friends who've been to Korea tend to go to Everland. I'm too hipster for y'all~ Hahah jk I think the main reason why we went to Lotte World is because it's in Seoul itself which made things easier. I didn't take much photos while I was here but you can have a look at Lotte World in Nadiah's vlogs here.
We made the mistake of visiting Lotte World during Youth Day so it was frrrrreaking packed. Like the minimum waiting time for a ride was 20 minutes. Ain't nobody got time for that bruh! We didn;t manage to take the more popular rides because the waiting time for that was like an hour.......
We made our own Gimbap in the morning and packed it to Lotte World because we knew there wasn't gonna be any halal food there. How did me make Gimbap you say? Well we bought pre-packed cooked rice and seaweed from this supermarket kinda near our apartment. Used the roasted chicken we bought a few days ago, crabmeat, carrots and eggs from the supermarket as well.
Anyway! After Lotte World, which we spent almost the whole day at, we stopped by Dongdaemun which was pretty dead. Dongdaemun is usually compared to Namdaemun, I mean they're both shopping districts but for different purposes I guess. Dongdaemun is more for the younger folks so it gets more exciting as the night wears on and well, we reached Dongdaemun at like 6pm? Hahaha still too early... Dongdaemun gets exciting from 7pm till like 4am? Yeah, literally shop till you drop.
Finally somewhere with photos again! Haha so after Dongdaemun, we made our way to Namsan Tower to see the view at night. Tip: If you bought a T-Money Pass to travel around Seoul, show the card when purchasing tickets for the N-Seoul Tower and get a discount (although I'm not too sure if the promotion is still valid).
To get there, you can take either the cable car or the bus. I read on Tripadvisor that the cable car is always, ALWAYS crowded and it'll probably be worse since it was a public holiday so we opted for the bus. And then you'll have to walk uphill for like 5 minutes?
The top deck, which you have to pay for is kinda like ION Sky but of course higher. It was at night and pretty cloudy so ehhh but still pretty. They had a gift shop too that sells postcards (my shizz) and they even mail them for you! But I just bought postcards for myself hahaha
MOVING ON we shall now go to Day 7!
Our days started getting more chill I guess haha we went out later as the days went by because omg Seoul drains the soul out of you! So much walking T^T
National Museum of Korea was how we started the day. While we planned for our Seoul trip, we kinda tried to go to locations 2 Days 1 Night went because duh, we're fans (my mom included) hahaha and they were here! And some national treasure in a park we found on the 2nd day. YAYYYYYYASERZ!!!!!!! Good enough for us haha
From the subway station exit to the museum itself is pretty straightforward. Like literally, just walk straight hahaha
So we managed to catch an English tour of the museum and it was pretty interesting. It's free too and it's around 45 minutes? The guide is really nice, she's an ahjumma btw and her son/daughter is studying in Singapore. She told us she likes Singapore because it's warm......................
I didn't take much pictures except selfies with the artefacts the 2D1N cast talked about hahahaha
After the tour, we walked around for a bit, made full use of the wifi (despite having our own portable wifi), lost my T-Money Pass which I only realised at the train station, walked back to find it while Nadiah made a call to her mom and we went off to a vegan Korean restaurant that Eat Your Kimchi vlogged about called Loving Hut. This was again located at Gangnam but it was at a really nice area. A more local, less touristy and very chill version of Myeongdong. The food there is actually pretty good I mean Koreans really know how to cook their tofu haha but I would have to say their Black Bean Noodles were meh..... And their Kimchi soup was really spicy haha
By the time we got there, it was getting chilly and my mom gets the shivers pretty early so we walked around for like 5 minutes and went to Lotte Mart! I don't think we bought much things but I'm a sucker for supermarkets so I went crazy with the snack and tidbits........ And they provide boxes instead of plastic bags which you have to pack yourself which we happily did!
The next day we left for home. Poop.
But hey, please, before you leave, I hope you guys watch my Seoul vlog!
And don't forget to comment below aites.
Any other information you might need to help make your Seoul visit easier, just comment! Go je! Even if you're reading this is 2020 hahaha
Finally I'm done with my Seoul blog! I promise I'll be posting more! Byeeeeeee
We had to leave the house at 6am I think? And the sky was so pretty and it was pretty cold but so pretty!!!!
Write down in the comment section below if you disagree that Mother Nature is amazing, I kid. For reals though, my pictures don't do justice of how breath taking the Great Ocean Road was and to end of the day with such a sunset?? Iconic.
