At the appointed time, we come out at 6pm at the hotel lobby. Ryneth, Wilson’s family, Ong family and Imelda, our Philippine liaison to Korea, come down the lobby to explore a piece of Seoul on our own. First, since the day being Easter Sunday, we go to Myeongdong Cathedral which is just across the street. It is a one way street. There’s a guy on chair singing with a donate box in hand. Apparently, begging is not allowed, so the guy must entertain to get "paid." We proceed to the cathedral. It is under renovation with a very very big tarp with the image of the church on it. The entrance is at the side. We enter, and find it is a tad crowded. As expected, most of the men wore suits, and the women are in black jacket and skirt, white shirt, and with white transparent veil. James and I would be willing to stay around to see how the mass goes, but because the mass is spoken in Korean, everybody in the group decided to go out.
So, we start exploring around Myeongdong. Myeongdong is the most expensive high-class place in Seoul. Think Glorietta, Greenbelt, SM MoA, Megamall and you get the idea. But instead of malls, you have streets, alleys, open air shops, street vendors. It’s a mix of department stores; first class shops for clothes and electronics; "bargain" stores; street vendors selling cheap (cheap is relative) stuffs, pirated movies (very expensive pirated stuff I must say, a movie costs like 5,000 Won); classier restaurants; fastfood; streetfood stalls; tentbars (pajongmacha 파종마차).
Lots of people walking around, especially couples doing lovey-dovey. Their affection is more outwardly expressive here compared to people in ‘Pinas. We enter one of the shops selling clothes. Business seems brisk as customers rummage around wrinkled clothes. I guess they are bargains. Some in our group both stuffs. We held off buying anything. And proving that even ripping off names in Korea is not sacred, we saw a clothes shop with a name that rhymes with Tommy Hilfiger. Even the logo pretty much matches. It’s located in the back alleys.
Food is varied in Myeongdong. Besides, traditional Korean foods, there’s more Western fare and fastfood like Burger King and Krispy Kreme. These restos are packed! There’s supposed to be a McDonald’s in Korea, but we never spotted one during our stay. Even the streetfoods are nothing to sneeze at. Unlike street foods in ‘Pinas where the servings are small, more like light snacks of indulgence, street food in Korea run from that and to the more filling. Let’s see… street foods we spotted: roasted chestnuts, crabsticks, crabs, plain sausage, sausage with potato sticks in batter, sausage wrapped in kim (dried seaweed wrapper), various sausage permutation, roasted squid, tteokbukgi (elongated rice cakes in gochujang with what ever else you wish to mix), chicken skewers (they looked more like the pork barbecue skewers in ‘Pinas). Those are just on the top of my head. The back alleys have the more established food stalls on one side, and tent bars on the other. Tent bars or pajongmacha are basically tented restos. The tents are transparent, and people dining inside can be kept relatively warm. People will eat anywhere they choose, even in pajongmachas.
Walking further we see SOGO (?) department store across the street. It is crossable by taking an underpass. The underpass also has different small businesses inside. Department stores of course have the more pricey stuff. but most of those stuffs are clothes and watches. Since we’re not really interested with the stuffs the others are looking, James and I ventured a bit on our own. The jeans must cost P 3,800 when converted to local currency. Ouch. The interesting stuf I saw are shirts of Tetsuwan Atom aka Astroboy. Now that I think of it, I think I shoulda bought at least one of the shirts. We held off buying anyway. Wilson bought a leather-type jacket which is on a special sale. Thankfully, the saleslady they were talking to can speak some passable English.
We proceed back all the way to Seoul Royal Hotel. We looked at Krispy Kreme again. Everybody thought, hey, we haven’t tasted that, let’s buy a dozen and have 1 donut each. Krispy Kreme is two-storeys high. A fairly long queue we stood in line, too. While waiting we looked at what’s on offer. We even calculated the best buy and even concluded the special offer is cheaper than the price sold in ‘Pinas. The only Krispy Kreme donut worth a dam is the original glazed donut, and that’s what we ate. Andrew, the head of the Ong family, bought a pack of sliced roast dried squid. I normally hate dried or canned seafood. Heck, I find tuyo, so god-awfully pukingly bad. But the squid was surprisingly good. The same goes for that small dried fish I sampled somewhere, I can’t recall (I think it was Incheon).
After the night snack, we detoured to 7-Eleven which is also across the hotel and bought our necessities. We return to the hotel, just in time to find Irene also back from wherever she went, which is actually from the Cathedral. She had a nap after everyone checked in and attended the last mass. Ryneth’s bf who happens to be on a different tour group, decides to go out again. As for everyone else, we retired back to our room and prepare for our final day in Korea.
