COEX Mall & Jen’s fam dinner - Day 14 📚

Our final full day in Seoul was a busy one, and somewhat bittersweet! Today, Jen and Yebin both had their hair appointments, so they had plans of their own. Farheen, Maya and I knew we wanted to visit the famous COEX library within the COEX mall. Maya and I thought we’d grab a quick breakfast at Paris Baguette before heading over to the mall, but when we looked, there weren’t many good food options so we didn’t end up going. I was slightly disappointed since Paris Baguette recently opened a new location in Toronto but it was a little expensive here. I thought it’d be better in South Korea, where it originated but it wasn’t 🥲 Yebin also joined us, so us 3 went to a random cafe near our hotel. It ended up also being on Yebin’s list of foodie places to visit, it was called 79 Founyard! The cafe was so cute and aesthetic! 😍 Us three got drinks - Maya and I got a latte and Yebin got a slush. Maya also got a hotdog since she was hungry! Farheen met us at the cafe and she also ordered herself a drink and a croffle! It was all really good!
Once we were done at the cafe, we took the transit down to Gangnam to the COEX mall! We arrived and since I still hadn’t eaten yet, Maya suggested we go try the Korean McDonald’s, while we were waiting for Jen! Maya and I shared a Bulgogi burger meal with Injolemi fries and a yuzu tangerine slushy. The whole meal (like Japan) was less than 10,000 won (>$10CAD)! We tried it all but weren’t impressed 🥲 The Japanese terriaki burger was better. But it was still a good experience! Jen met up with us at McDonald’s and we saw her new wave perm! It was so pretty! 😍
We made our way into the mall and headed right to the library first (since Yebin’s appointment was soon)! It was so pretty and felt like we transported into a kdrama! It was quite busy though, probably because it was a Saturday as well. But we took a lot of cute photos and looked around! They also had an Arabica % coffee shop! ☕️
Yebin had to leave to her hair appointment so the 4 of us started to look around the mall!
Farheen found a super cute perfume shop and bought one, as I know she wanted to get one before she left Asia. 💕 I finally decided to try Gong Cha (my first bubble tea🧋 the whole trip) and it was pretty good! I wish I got less sweet though, it was 50% and still quite sweet for me 😅. Maya and I found an Olive Young and since Maya hadn’t shopped there since we arrived in Seoul, I stayed to look around too. Farheen and Jen left to look for some cute clothes.
Maya and I also walked into Sephora and immediately spotted the Laneige Foundation Cushion, which isn’t available in Canada. We both were looking for one, and bought it there 😂 At this time Jen and Farheen left the mall to visit a different one, so Maya and I explored the mall a bit more ourselves. We walked near a super cute indie korean clothing store, I wish I could’ve bought more clothes as they were all super cute. 🥰 I bought a cute sweater vest there and was so happy I found it! We also walked into a Daiso and both of us bought lots of souvenirs from there haha! 😆
We walked into another Artbox and I bought a super cute shot glass, similar to Maya’s 💖
That evening, Jen’s grandma kindly invited us out to a dinner meal with her and Jen’s cousins. This was so nice of them so we all made sure to dress up nicely, as it was also at a very nice restaurant! As we were about to leave, Maya and I found another Uniqlo and just looked around quickly! 😂
We took the transit towards the restaurant to meet up with the other girls and Jen’s family. It was a buffet restaurant in a nice hotel! We arrived and met Jen’s grandma, who was so kind and very well dressed! 😁 Jen’s cousins were also very nice too! Both of them were around our age, one was our age and one was a few years younger! The buffet food was so fancy and absolutely delicious! Lots of seafood and many food options! 😋 I also learned that their kiwi is a known delicacy there and I wish I got more 🥲 it was probably the most sweetest kiwi I’ve ever had!
Overall it was a great dinner and we were so thankful to Jen’s grandma! ❤️
After the dinner, Jen and Yebin had to go to their friend’s place to pick up some items they had ordered to her house. Maya, Farheen and I decided had some time to kill so we were planning to go to Han River to see the night view. Unfortunately it was pretty late, and Han River was quite far, so we just took the transit to Star Road in Gangnam. ⭐️ I wish we had arrived earlier in the day since it was such a nice street! It was full of expensive brand name stores and their shop designs were so interesting!
We walked down a random street and saw so many cool bar/restaurants, but they definitely looked expensive! 😅 Funny enough, we also saw a bunch of guys with black caps and masks (it’s kind of a known thing that celebrities or trainees wear this to hide their identities). Not sure if they were actually famous but we were just guessing! 😂
Jen and Yebin were on their way home the same time we were leaving. We ended up meeting at the hotel. Since it was our last day in South Korea with all of us together, we decided to look for a karaoke bar. Sadly it was super late in the night so a lot of the karaoke bars were closed. We found one that was open all night and we decided to check it out. It was upstairs and when we entered, we already felt a bit of a sketchy vibe. 😬 There were a lot of people smoking inside and they seemed like they were partying. Yebin asked if they had a room for karaoke and the lady showed us to our room. Sadly it also smelled like smoke 🫤 But we were already there, and they said it was about 20,000 won for the hour, so we just sucked it up and decided to accept the second hand smoke air 🥲 The room was nice and we found all the songs we wanted (it was essentially YouTube). We had such a fun time we forgot how long we were supposed to stay! We left at about ~1:30am (we got there at like 12am). The lady was about to charge us an extra 6,000 won for the extra 30 mins but Yebin told her she never told us this, then she let us go! 😂
We were absolutely exhausted by this point so we headed back to our hotel for the last night in Seoul 😴.Read more