Day 10

We tried another place for breakfast this morning. We have been using AI loads for this holiday and I have to say it’s made things so much easier for everything. I have a subscription from work for Copilot (Microsoft AI chatbot) and Sinéad uses Chat GPT and we ask it to help plan our day and advise on what the best places to eat/drink are!

Another hit as this breakfast was a ‘build your own set’ breakfast and was great! After we took the metro (45 mins or so) to the suburb of Gangam (most famous for the song Gangam Style by Psy). It was much better weather today and sunny and warm. Gangam is very different to Seoul, a lot less busy and bustling but a lot of wealth with a ton of big banks and financial buildings. It’s more modern than Seoul and home to Asias biggest shopping mall. We walked from Gangam Station to the mall as it was a lovely day and stopped off for coffee on route and managed to check out a Catholic Church.

The walk was around an hour and we were welcomed by a blast of cold aircon from the largely underground shopping mall. It had everything you could possibly want and I picked up some T-shirts for work at Uniqlo and Sinéad got some more skincare stuff and trousers. There was also a big library in there and I got a shot of the massive bookshelves. We had lunch in the food court and then walked across the road there to a Buddhist temple . It was really nice and peaceful there and we did a small hike up the hill to the monastery.

On our way back down we passed by chance a small tea festival. It reminded me like something from a video game like animal crossing. They were very friendly and the stalls asked us if we’d long to try their different flavoured teas which were nice! We also passed a guy with cats on his back who had a YouTube channel!

Sinéad then wanted a photo in front of the famous Gangam style hands statue. As we walked down by the mall we noticed a gathering of people and noise by a red bull dance event. This music was good and a lot of people street dancing. We asked and apparently main event started at 7pm and this was the Korean final (winner preforms in the world finals in LA). The format was dance of between 2 contestants (16 in total) and the winners voted the crown with red or blue cards. As it was only 6 we decided to go to a rooftop bar for some views and a beer each.

The hotel (Hyatt) was very fancy and we were a bit underdressed so after 1 drink we went back down and watched some of the dance offs as the sunset. I caught some of it on video and should be above.

After about an hour we headed back by metro from Gangam to Hong Dae (our area). We stoped by a Mexican for dinner and I had some tasty burritos 🌯! After food we arrive back at the hotel to shower and get ready again. Sinéad had wanted to try the nightlife and go to one of the clubs and I reluctantly agreed! To be fair Hong Dae which is the student part is famous for its night life and the main streets were buzzing.

We tried one club at 11pm which was dead so after one drink we ventured down the Main Street until we found a place that looked busy and good. It was an RnB place and packed. You get a drink with or entry so not bad. We left after an hour as we were both knackered. We got pulled into another bar from a rep trying to get us in! When I was ordering drinks at the bar I noticed one of those digital clocks you tap to start. I saw a few guys trying to stop it on 5 seconds dead and after a few goes I managed it wangled a free drink.En savoir plus