Mangosteen is a tropical fruit found in South East Asia.It is only in season for 6 to 10 weeks of the year. You can usually find really nice ripe ones from July to September.
When I was in Hong Kong in August, it was very hard to find at the supermarket or on the streets. My grandpa knew I was looking very hard for these for a few weeks. One morning, he left early to go to the market and brings back a whole bowl full of mangosteen. They looked very fresh and I was in awe.
We cracked open the leathery tough skin to find the delicious white fruit inside. It kinda tastes like a grape or lychee. At least one of the pieces inside have a seed, so better not eat it. Nothing bad will happen to you, but it’s always weird eating seeds by accident.
It is very hard to get a hold of mangosteen in Vancouver or North America because it doesn’t ship very well. It will definitely be very hard to find any mangosteen that look this fresh and plump. Plus, very expensive.
My sister found a few mangosteen from T&T, but they look horrible and was very tiny. Nothing comparable to anything you can find in Asia. If you ever have a chance to go to the Asian countries, remember to try some of this delicious fruit.
Have you ever had mangosteen before? How did it taste?
Foodology Disclaimer: VANEATS.ca approached me to try out their “Cray-vings” dining package and write a review about it. I got a complementary dining package for myself and I brought along CandiedZen to keep the review as unbiased as I could.
Cray Kitchen + Bar on Main street near Broadway serves Louisiana Style Crawfish and seafood. If you’ve ever heard of Crab Pot in Seattle, it’s like that but with plastic bags and lots of aromatic sauce. I came here with CandiedZen to check this place out.
Vaneats.ca currently has a dining package called “Cray-vings”, which you can get the following for only $18.50 for a limited time.
1/2 lb of Crawfish, shipped live from Louisana
1/2 lb of Shrimp, shipped from Thailand/Ecuador
Cod Nuggets, deep fried and crispy (3 pieces)
Deep Fried Oysters, spiced in a Louisana cajun fry batter (2 pieces)
Cajun Fries, cajun spice peppered
The interior was nice and has a good amount of seating. It’s good for large groups too, unfortunately, they don’t take reservations on Fridays and Saturdays.
The menu
When you order the Cajun Seafood Boil, your table will be lined with a large parchment paper and come with a bucket with bibs, paper towels, and gloves. Eating this type of seafood is messy and you don’t want to get any of your clothes dirty.
The first basket of goodies that arrive are 3 piece of cod nuggets, 2 deep-fried oyster, and a bed of cajun fries.
The Cod Nuggets are very very delicious! The outer batter is crispy and thin, so you can taste the amazing light and moist texture of the cod. I would highly recommend this!
Deep Fried Oyster were very large and plump. When I bit into them, it was very moist and flavourful! Even a bit of juice started running down my fingers. Highly recommend these as well!
Cajun Fries were crispy on the outside and seasoned with cajun spice. I thought it was ok, nothing too impressive.
You also get 3 dips to go along with your item – Tartar sauce, ketchup and spicy mayo.
As we waited for the 1/2 lb shrimp and 1/2 lb crayfish to arrive, we prepared ourselves by reading instruction and putting on our bibs. We didn’t bother with putting on gloves since we wanted to get down and dirty with our meal.
Our Cajun Seafood Boil came with choices of seasoning and spicy level. We chose the Mild Cray Mix ( Juicy Cajun +Garlic Butter +Lemon Pepper). It arrives on your table in a plastic bag.
The Crawfish were very tiny and it was just like a mini lobster. All of their Crawfish is shipped from Louisiana. You can acquire meat from this creature from its tail and claws. This wasn’t our favorite item since it takes a bit of effort to get a little bit of meat. Another problem, the meat had very little flavour from the sauce, so you need to dunk it into the sauce to add more favour to it.
Most of the crawfish is our bag was fresh, but there was one that was completely black on the inside. I’m not sure what happened here, but we decided not to eat it and discard it. If you come across one that looks like that…its probably best not to eat it.
The shrimps are from Ecuador and very massive. It’s almost the size of a spot prawn. It had a lovely sweet flavour to it. I would highly recommend the shrimp!
Our table definitely got messy. After eating everything that was part of the package, we were still hungry and craving more items, so we ordred more.
I saw that they had Sapporo on tap, so I got a pint of it to enjoy more of the meal! It’s one of my favorite beers. It was about $7 or $8 for a pint.
1lb of Clams ($11.99)in a mild garlic butter sauce. The clams tasted great in the sauce, but I felt the clams were a tad bit small. We ate these pretty fast since the bag is mostly the shells.
1 lb of Shrimp ($10.99) in a medium Cray mix sauce. I did enjoy the sauce more when you increase the spiciness of it. It definitely adds a lot more flavour.
Overall, the concept of getting messy with your food is very fun! I would definitely come here again, but I would not order the crawfish. I would order the cod nuggets, deep-fried oysters and the shrimp. Parking was a bit difficult since it was on a major street, so I parked a few blocks down in a residential area. Service was ok, but we felt it was a bit awkward at times.
You won’t get full by just having the amount of items included in the dining pass. you probably want to add an extra appetizer or a few extra pounds of seafood like what we did. Nonetheless, if you haven’t experienced getting down and dirty with your meal, I think the dining pass is a good opportunity to do that and try new types of food. You can get the dining pass at Vaneats.ca for $18.50.
Words of Wisdom:
Best to make reservations just in case it gets busy
Shrimps are massive and so are the deep fried oysters and cod nuggets
We were looking inside Silvercord in Tsim Sha Tsui for Ho Choi Seafood Restuarant, but in its place is Grand Hall restaurant. It serves the same exact food, except they did major renovations and changed their name. This was confirmed by our waitress and is still operated by the Ho Choi Group. They own various restaurants all across Hong Kong.
We went around 11:30 and it was quite empty until around 1pm. It got really busy around 1pm. We ordered a bunch of different dim sum dishes for a group of 9. There were so many dishes that it was hard to keep track of whats what.
Rice Rolls, Deep Fried Wontons, and Beef Stuffed in Rice rolls.
These all tasted pretty good especially with the sauces they are accompanied with. There were so many sauces on our table that it was hard to remember which sauce goes with what dish. As long as you dunk the rice rolls into a dark sauce, you’ll be alright.
Minced Meat Balls was very moist and contained a variety of items inside the meatball. Very delicious!
Minced Chicken on Steamed Rice tasted ok, but was a bit dry and could have used some more sauce.
This was another rice dish, but I don’t remember what this is.
Spring Rolls look like long bread sticks! It was so weird seeing them in this form!
Steamed Pork Dumplings (Xiao Long Bao) comes in 4 pieces. The skin was very thin, so no matter how carefully you picked it up, it would always break.
Big Dumpling in Soup tasted very good. The broth was delicious and the seafood stuffed inside was yummy.
Double Steamed Milk was so delicious and melted in your mouth like custard. So good!
Overall, the meal was pretty solid. Some items were a hit and miss, but it was a good venue for a large family gathering.
Words of Wisdom:
Great for large parties
Decent Prices
Gets busy around 1pm
Lots of tables
Recently renovated and clean
We Rate Grand Hall:
Address:
3 / F, Silvercord, 30 Canton Road, Tsim Sha
The Sandbar Restaurant has a happy hour special for mussels called “mussel mania” in their Teredo Lounge. It includes mussels, fries, and a pint of Granville Island Beer for $12. It used to be $10, but prices have risen. You can get this on the weekday from 3-6pm. It’s a good deal considering Sandbar is a bit expensive for dinner.
KoreanGirl, CanuckGirl and I came here to grab a quick bite.
It wasn’t very busy inside, nor was the Teredo Lounge very busy either.
Complementary Bread arrived at the table, but they didn’t give us utensils to spread the butter onto our bread. We had to ask them to give us side plates and cutlery.
Service was very poor from the start of the meal and didn’t improve. We found this was very interesting because the restaurant had lots of staff, but most of them were standing around.
Granville Island Pale Ale is my favorite beer since it’s light and sweet.
The mussels come in 3 sauces of your choice – Thai Curry, Vindaloo, and Tomato Provencal. When the mussels arrive, you think you are getting a bucket of mussels, but the bucket is just for the shells.
Vindaloo Mussels was ordered by me and I did enjoy the sauce. It wasn’t too spicy and coated each mussel nicely. The size of the mussels were fair and there were no complaints.
Tomato Provencal had pieces of chorizo inside. CanuckGirl enjoyed them because of the meat and the mussels.
Thai Curry Mussels was enjoyed by KoreanGirl. She was kinda disappointed by the size once she realized the bucket didn’t contain as my mussels. Looks can be deceiving.
Overall, it was a good-sized snack before dinner. We girls did have a good meal despite the lack in service.
Words of Wisdom:
Poor service
Weekdays 3-6pm Mussel Mania for $12
We Rate Sandbar Seafood Restaurant:
Address:
1535 Johnston St, Creekhouse #102
Vancouver, BC
After coming back from the Ten Thousand Buddhist Monestary in Sha Tin, we went to a Home Square mall and it contained an IKEA. This location is the largest in Hong Kong with 8,400 sq meters. I really wanted to see how the store layout and food compared to how it is in Vancouver.
It also won one “Best Restaurant Awards in 2012” for a Fast Food Restaurant on OpenRice.com.
All of the items in the IKEA bistro are similar to what you can find in North America. The item that I noticed that they have is popcorn. I haven’t seen this in the IKEAs in Vancouver.
There is also the Swedish Food Market where you can find frozen Swedish Meat Balls, fish, jam, juice, etc.
At the IKEA Restaurant, they have a few of the usual items like Swedish meatballs, vegetarian medallions, shrimp cocktail, and apple pie.
Their kids meal is a bit different too. Spaghetti, corn and sausages.
We were still full from a large lunch, so my sister and I got bottled drinks.
Grapefruit Juice was good and similar to the usual bottle juices.
Organic Soy Milk isn’t sweetened, so it tastes pretty bad if you are not used to drinking unsweetened soy milk. It is healthy for you, but I found it so hard to drink.
Another thing I found that was super different was the washing machine in the kitchens! It’s usual in Hong Kong. With the limited space, that’s where it goes instead of the dish washer.
Address:
L6, HomeSquare
138 Sha Tin Rural Committee Road, Sha Tin
We were walking along the street markets and we all got very thirsty because the weather was about 35 degrees. There were even warnings about how hot it was outside.
On the corner of Wing Kut Street, there is a man who sells juice. The juice is made fresh right in front of you, so there are no preservatives or an other ingredients. Pure 100% juice!
He offers a wide variety of juices and you can even request your own combination. You may even want to try juices that aren’t available in North America. A small drink is $7 HKD, large is $12 HKD and extra Large is $17 HKD. Very cheap and affordable.
There were lots of people ordering especially business men that were passing by. He wait wasn’t too long as he works really fast to make the juice.
Depending on the item you order, it can be made from a juice extractor…
or if its a orange..it will be from a juicer.
You can also purchase fruit as well if you don’t want juice.
Pineapple Pear Lemon (Large-$12) and it was so good. It was a surprising combination of flavours. Unfortunately, since he doesn’t use ice, the drink isn’t cold enough. Nonetheless, the flavours were great.
You can continue doing a bit of more shopping after you get your drink! There are other places all around Hong Kong that sell juice on the street. I don’t think this particular stand is famous or anything, but it has a convenient location in the business district in Hong Kong.
Lin Heung Tea House was established in 1926 and is one of the oldest tea houses in Hong Kong. With over 8 decades of serving locals and tourists, dim sum is served with the most traditional recipes that results in an endless flow of diners. This place is packed all the time! Not many places in Hong Kong still serve traditional dim sum. You may want to come very early in the morning or late in the afternoon ( 6am and 3:30pm).
They serve dim sum during the day and main dishes during the night.
Don’t be afraid to get cozy with strangers. You may be forced to share tables, but it’s a natural occurrence in Hong Kong. It really helps if you come with someone who can speak Cantonese! It will help a lot when ordering and finding your table.
Service is quite horrendous as the servers are very rude and not very helpful. People are here for the food and not the service.
You will need to wash your utensils even if they look its clean. Just dunk it in tea! They don’t give you napkins either, so make sure you bring a pack of tissues with you.
The tea doesn’t come in a tea-pot, but they have these traditional type of tea pots. You steep the tea in the larger cup and pour it into your tea cup when it’s done steeping.
It’s really difficult to pour if you’re never tried it before.
When you need to get your tea refilled with hot water, the server brings a huge kettle and pours with crazy accuracy. Every time they come by to pour hot water, I am always so scared just in case they scald us with hot water.
Steamed Beef Balls comes in 3 pieces and are delicious!
Pork tripe is a bit scary since it’s an organ. It’s a bit tough and chewy
Beef Tripe and intestines were very chewy, but the sauce that it was in was delicious.
Steamed Sausage Bun is yummy and a great item for kids.
Braised Chicken feet is a typical dish found in Dim Sum. Some love it, some find it super scary. You kinda have to get use to it. I personally like it since you essentially just eat the skin off the bones.
Steamed Fish Head is very succulent and has a delicious flavour when you suck the meat off the bones.
This dish has chicken, mushroom, and fish maw in a yummy flavourful sauce.
Braised Liver looks really nasty, but the liver does have a chalky flavour and texture to it. If you haven’t had liver before, you may not like it.
Chicken Feet wrapped in bean curd wrap was something I haven’t seen done before. the bean curd did taste good.
Fish Cake wrapped in Cabbage was one of my favorite dishes.
Steamed Chinese Sponge Cake (Ma Lai Go) is very very tall compared to most places. It’s usually made out of flour, eggs, butter, lard and brown sugar and then steamed. It tasted very good!
Words of Wisdom:
Wake up early to order the Big Chicken Bun (“Dai Bao”)
Gong Cha first launched in Taiwan in 2006 and soon opened locations in Hong Kong, Singapore, Macau, China, Malaysia, and Philippines. There are a lot of locations all over Hong Kong and attracts locals and tourists. They are best known for their signature milk tea with a dollop of cream on top.
The location in East Tsim Sha Tsui was very busy and had lots of tourists ordering drinks. The menu had some english and the cashiers knew a little bit of english too. It’s not great english, but at least it will make your ordering experience go smoothly.
On top of each drink are instructions on how to consume it:
Open the lid and drink, letting the tea pass through the foamy layer.
Insert the straw and enjoy the flavour of the tea.
Use the straw to stir and enjoy the combined flavour of the tea and milk.
Milk Tea ($10) has the tea on the bottom with the dollop of cream on top. It was delicious and different than usual bubble teas. The cream does change the taste a lot and not everyone will love it. My sister liked the drink at first, but eventually started hating the cream on top.
Gong Cha Milk Green Tea ($12) needed a good mixing in order to incorporate the layers together. I tried mixing it together very well, but it was a bit hard to do that. The cream itself was salty.
Afterwards, my sister and I headed to Kowloon Park to walk around and enjoy the fountains and trees.
Overall, Gong Cha was ok, but not the best bubble tea I’ve ever had. We were not a fan of the cream on top.
Every Summer, my friends and I would go berry picking somewhere within driving distance of Vancouver. Last year we went to Driediger Farms , but this year I chose Krause Berry Farms a few blocks down. It is about 40 mins drive from the city.
Krause Berry Farms is family operated and offers visitors to participate in “U-Pick”, where you can go into the fields to pick blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries. All you do is pay the weight of what you picked. It’s a great activity with friends or family.
If you are feeling lazy, you can purchase berries from their market.
Besides picking berries and purchasing produce, they also have a small playground, a petting farm, and carriage rides.
We headed into the blueberry patches and saw rows upon rows of bountiful blueberries. You have to pay attention to what you pick because there are berries that aren’t ripe yet.
If it’s a sunny day, remember to bring a hat or wear sunscreen. My friend brought me a small red straw hat to wear. It was really random, but at least I was shielded by the sun.
I got really excited when I see really big plump blueberries like these. We probably spent about an hour or so in the fields. Some people may take longer depending on how much care they put into picking the berries.
At times, you can hear people screaming in the blueberry patches. It’s because they are startled by the spiders and insects. It’s nature, so what can you expect? You will come across bugs in the fields but they won’t hurt you…at least I don’t think they will. The insects just look ugly.
There are also really big flying bugs too. Don’t let this detour you from picking blueberries. It’s part of the whole experience!
We picked about a whole bucket. If you do fill the whole bucket, it’s about 6 lbs and will cost around $10. Not bad of a price!
The Porch is the area where you can grab some food after picking your berries. They have a selection of different pies, donuts, pizza, roasted corn, drinks, ice cream and other yummy treats.
It’s usually a nice sunny day, so it’s really awesome to eat out on the patio. There are lots of seats and not too cold during blueberry picking season.
Raspberry Smoothie ($3.50) was really good and made out of the raspberries picked fresh from their fields.
Blueberry Smoothie ($3.50) was yummy as well. The downside about drinking this smoothie is that some of the blueberries might be stuck in your teeth. When you finish this drink, remember to check your teeth.
10″ Baked Corn Pizza ($14.95) is divided up into 4 slices. Ordering the whole pizza is great for a group of people. It contains a lot of corn, tomato sauce, cheese, green onions, peppers, and artichokes.
Slice of Corn Pizza ($3.99) you can alternatively order a slice instead of the whole pizza.
The pizza is packed full of corn and is very yummy. I just didn’t like the crust of the pizza. It didn’t seem very fresh.
Farm Fries ($3.95) were golden brown to perfection, but lacked in taste. It needed a bit more salt and needed to be a bit more crispy.
Roasted Corn wasn’t on the menu, but you can still order it. It is rubbed with a bit of butter and tastes yummy!
Slice of berry custard pie ($4.50) was loaded with tons of berries, but I wasn’t in love with the pie. I loved the look, but I found the combination of the custard and the glaze to be a bit too sweet.
Scoop of Raspberry Ice Cream ($2.50) was delicious in the hot weather.
Inside the market is a lot of produce, products and a bakery.
If you are too lazy to pick berries, you can purchase then from the counter. It’s a bit more expensive, but it’s still delicious and fresh.
Everyone fall in love with the custard berry pie. It’s $15.99 and you can be staring at this forever!
Overall, picking the berries and having lunch at Krause Berry Farms is pretty awesome. Some of the food from The Porch is a bit hit and miss, but you can’t go wrong with a refreshing smoothie. I really enjoyed the U-Pick portion of this adventure. I always pick a whole bucket so I can freeze them for later months to make milk shakes.
Words of Wisdom:
Check website for up to date prices and what berries are in season
I spent 5 days in Seoul, South Korea but I did not have enough time to visit all the places that I came across. Below are a few places that I thought were really cool and wanted to share with you.
Have you been to any of these places before? or is it now on your list of places to visit?
CNN opened their first CNN Cafe in Seoul. They are slowly expanding throughout the country. The concept of the cafe is to give people a space to work and enjoy coffee. They have free wi-fi, computers and printing services. Imagine doing all your work and staying up to date on breaking news around the world.
They also have locations at the local universities too. This is a student’s/ entrepreneur’s dream come true! Wouldn’t it be so awesome to have this in Vancouver?
Daiso is a large franchise of cheap household items at very affordable prices. It has even been dubbed the “Walmart of Asia” or the “Asian Dollar Store”. With over 2,500 stores in Japan, and 522 in the rest of the world they will continue to expand further into North America.
The prices in Daiso Korea range from 500 to 5,000 won. The one pictured here is a smaller store, but they have another location in Sinchon that is 3 floors.
Dunkin’ Donuts is huge in Korea. It’s not as big in Vancouver, but Koreans love this place to chill and have coffee. There are a lot of locations scattered all over Seoul.
They have very different flavours from the Dunkin’ Donuts in North America. For example – tofu donuts, green tea donuts and sweet potato donuts.
Ding Dong Cafe is a Traveler’s Cafe. When I passed by this place, I thought it was a scam to get tourist into the cafe. It turns out ding dong cafe is a restaurant that has a tourist theme. The interior is decorated with pictures from around the world and maps.
It was named one of the top 5 cafes in Hongdae by CNNgo and apparently has some good brunch.
TaiwaneseGirl spots something called McBites on Instagram and lures KoreanGirl and I on an adventure to Seattle for McDonalds McBites and outlet shopping. It was a spontaneous decision, but I really wanted to see what these mysterious McBites were all about. They are like popcorn chicken from KFC, but McDonalds Style. they recently introduced Spicy McBites.
It’s available in the United States, but not in Canada.
We all decided to get the spicy McBite meals. The interior of McDonalds was crazy air-conditioned, so we sat outside.
The drinks are a bit different than the ones in Canada. They have Powerade and Hi C.
The meal cost $5.42 after tax for a regular size of McBites, fries and drink.
The Spicy Chicken McBites comes in the regular box, they don’t have any specialized packaging for the spicy version.
The McBites are a bit smaller than McNuggets, but there is enough in the box to get full.
The packaging in surprisingly ingenious! There is a slot to put in your dipping sauce.
It’s chicken meat inside and the coating of the McBites was similar to the coating of the chicken strips. It wasn’t very spicy and was a bit bland. You definitely need some sauce to go along with these. I was a bit disappointed by these and KFC definitely has better popcorn chicken.
It was finally time to leave Seoul after 5 good days of enjoying this beautiful place. Time to head back to Hong Kong and eat more. hahaha. It only takes 3 hours to get to Hong Kong and Cathay Pacific offers you one meal and some beverage service. My flight was around 5pm.
I don’t know the model of this plane, but the plane did look a bit old and was definitely different from the plane that I arrived in Korea on.
They provided us a pack of peanuts and a beverage of our choice. I saved the pack of peanuts for my little sister since I know she loves plane snacks.
The meal was also crappier compared to the other meal I had with Cathay Pacific. I was waiting for the ice cream to arrive, but it never did. We got our choice on entree, fruit, bread and another beverage.
I got the chicken with rice. It was ok, but not my favorite airplane meal. There really wasn’t anything special about this particular meal.
I guess with airplane food, you can’t expect what you’ll get. How was your experience with Cathay Pacific in terms of food?
My travel agent in Hong Kong did a horrible job at finding me a decent place to stay in Korea. The hotel that they wanted to book me in looked really rundown and was way overpriced for what it looked like. I decided to find my own accommodations and Trip Advisor suggested Tria Hotel for a nice budget hotel in the Gangnam area. It was under 100,000 won per night.
Since I was traveling on my own, I needed to find a nice and safe hotel that was affordable.
If you are wondering, I didn’t see anything related to the Gangnam Style song by PSY. I actually didn’t hear about this song till weeks after I came back home. (It’s a pretty good song FYI)
A lot of people complained about how the streets are filled with “sexy” hotels in the area. They aren’t wrong, there are a few around, but no one really bothers you during the day or night. There are lots of restaurants in the area, so it’s convenient if you want a snack or a meal.
Since I did book very last-minute, there was only a double bed room available.
The bathroom is very weird in my opinion. The wall and doors are frosted so you can kinda see into the bathroom. I was so glad I wasn’t travelling with anyone because this would be awkward seeing someones silhouette in the washroom.
They provide you with a TV and computer, but I didn’t use them since I brought my own laptop. There is wifi access in the room and there is no password to it. Just connect to the network with your room number.
They provide you with complementary combs, hair product, shower caps, hair ties, and mosquito repellant.
They also have toothbrush, toothpaste, a razor, and shaving cream. If you forget anything, they have you covered.
They also have shampoo, conditioner, and body wash.
They have a kettle for you to boil hot water for tea and coffee.
There was also a fridge in the closet. When I opened it, there were 2 bottle of water, a can of orange juice and a can of coffee. It was complementary!
I took all the coffee, juice, tea, and bottle of water. I hid them all in my suitcase so the cleaning ladies would replenish my fridge. It was complementary, so might as well take it all right?
If you need anything else like additional drinks or meals, they have a menu that you can order from their cafe. Do keep in mind, you do get complementary breakfasts every morning in their cafe. Unfortunately, I never went for the breakfasts since I wanted to go out for food.
On the last day, they have breakfast delivered up to the room. They will call you once you are back and they ask you for a time you want the food to be delivered. It was a sandwich and a coffee.
The coffee was drip coffee and you can add your own sugar and cream.
The sandwich is really big and it has a lot of vegetables, egg, chicken, and cheese. It was a decent sandwich. I think it tasted better because it was breakfast in bed. It was a lovely touch!
Travel Tips
Buy a T-Pass from the convenience store once you get out of the arrival gates. Having it will save a lot of time and effort of figuring out how to pay for transit. Just load it up and tap it everytime you get on the buses or subway. I would suggest taking the 6703KAL Limo Bus from Incheon Airport since it takes over an hour to arrive at the hotel.
It costs 14,000 won and it saves the trouble of overpaying for a taxi or switching subway lines. You can also take a nice long nap! The bus is air conditioned and the seats are confortable.
Get off at Renaissance Hotel and walk a few blocks. It’s not very far.
After getting off the plane, if you need a cell phone. The Incheon Airport has a few companies offering rental cellphones. I chose S-Roaming since it was one of the cheaper option. Plus, you get 50% off when you reserve a day before. You can rent smartphones or regular phones. I chose the smartphone since I wanted data to look at maps and use travel apps. It was a fair price and comes in VERY handy.
Final Thoughts
Tria Hotel was a nice hotel to stay at especially when having a last minute booking. The staff was very helpful and could help me store my luggages since my planes came at strange times. There are other cheaper options around town, but compared to other hotels, this is a good option. It’s nice looking, clean, and has a lot of amenities.
The location is far from most tourist locations, but the subway is very convenient and the green line does go to most tourist places, so not a lot of transferring.
Address:
677-11 Yeoksam 1(il)-dong,
Gangnam-gu, Seoul,
South Korea
I had a day to check out Myeong-Dong and Namdaemun Market to get some shopping done and eat some yummy street food. After going to these 2 places, I just kept coming back to buy more stuff.
Namdaemun is a traditional market close to the Great South Gate. I wanted to see the gate but unfortunately it was under restoration so I wasn’t able to get a look at it. Nonetheless, Namdaemun market was still awesome since it’s the oldest and largest market in Korea. It dates back all the way to 1414, so it definitely has a lot of history.
You can only access the area of the area by walking as the street isn’t built to accommodate cars. It’s open rain or shine and will still attract a crowd of people. There are lots to see and lots to buy. I was able to haggle for some traditional Korean folk masks.
There are lots of streets in Namdaemun Market, so be sure to have a map because I got lost and ended up somewhere else.
Besides shopping, they are known for the abundance of street food. They have some very creative items like sausages wrapped in fried fish paste.
You can even find Sikhye, a rice beverage for 1,000 won, which is equivalent to $1 CDN.
There is also freshly made dumplings too. This particular stand was very famous because a lot of notable celebrities have visited, plus it’s been showcased on several TV shows.
I also saw some outdoor BBQ stands. You can pick whatever items you want to put into your pot.
A few blocks away is Myeong-Dong, a popular shopping district with affordable retail stores like adidas, Forever 21, Uniqlo, and several cosmetic stores. The area dates back all the way to the Joseon Dynasty as a residential area, but overtime, it became a major commercial and financial district.
I was told by a few friend to do all my shopping here. There were not wrong at all! I bought a lot of cheap face masks, a ton of earrings, clothes, and a few souvenirs.
They also have street food too. The one place I tried was a stand selling twirly fried potatoes. In Vancouver, we have something similar, but we call it hurricane potatoes because of the shape.
The potato is deep-fried and sprinkled with cheese. I actually didn’t like the amount of flavouring they put into it. It was too cheesy for my liking.
It was a very very long snack. It was so long that I could only take a vertical picture of it. I was kinda afraid I would accidentally stab someone in the face with this, so I stood on the side of the street eating this.
There were lots of other types of street food around, but I wasn’t feeling in the mood for a lot of food.
If you are looking for good cheap shopping and street food, definitely check out these 2 areas in Seoul – Namdaemun Market and Myeong-dong!
