[Winter Korea Trip 2010/2011] Day 11: Dongdaemun Market & City Hall Ice-Skating

Taking an overnight flight direct from Singapore to Korea, Clara (C) finally arrived at our "home" at about 9 in the morning! Joining us for the last segment of the trip, she would be the 3rd member of our group! Welcome!

Having settled down her baggage in our "home", it was time to set off and begin the day's activities! Apparently, there was quite a snow storm that lasted throughout the night, blanketing the city with a significantly thick layer of whiteness on every exposed surface! Poof! Poof! Poof! Fluffy snow everywhere =)

Just outside Hyehwa Subway Station

Our Neighborhood

Had I mentioned previously that our neighborhood seemed to never cease surprising us each day with great food sold at different restaurants located at every nook, cranny & turn? Well, we saw yet another restaurant's advertisement board while walking along the pavement leading to the subway station and noticed that its signature dish looked really delicious. Since we had not eaten, we decided to kick-start our day with what looked like it was going to be a gastronomical experience.

Apparently, the name of the restaurant is similar to the name of its signature dish - Kong Bul. It comprises mainly of thin pork slices and beansprouts that are cooked on a huge frying pan right in the centre of the customer's table. At 5,000 won (~S$5.90) per person, it is definitely something worth trying! The 'big-headed' beansprouts, unlike the usual tiny ones that we are accustomed to eating, had a really big crunch factor and were exceptionally addictive. Even the crispy overcooked ones left too long on the frying pan tasted great and weren't spared from our stomachs!

 Looks good even before its cooked!

Smells heavenly!

With lunch done, it was time to head for our first destination of the day! The itinerary outline for the day was to explore and shop around at Dongdaemun first before heading over to City Hall's famous outdoor ice-skating rink to, well, of course ice-skate!

Dongdaemun is a major shopping district in downtown Seoul and is located just one stop away from Hyehwa Station (nearest station from our "home"). It is famous for its 4 shopping towers (Doosan Tower, Migliore, Freya Town and Hello apM) amongst shopaholics and tourists alike, each boasting a multitude of small retail stores within which are somewhat similar to those you can find at Singapore's Bugis Street.

Dongdaemun Gate

As soon as we exited from the Dongdaemun History and Culture Park Subway Station, we got to see the infamous Dongdaemun Gate itself. The gate served as the main eastern gate of the Seoul Fortress during the Joseon Dynasty era and is the most significant landmark in the area. Being built more than a century ago, it is definitely a treasured ancient structure!

Just barely after our adventure had begun, we all felt a strong urge to use the restroom desperately perhaps because of all the excessive water we had drunk earlier during our lunch. Forced to make a quick toilet pit-stop, we headed to a random nearby building which turned out to be Dongdaemun Shopping Complex which is a wholesale mall specializing in textiles.

The inside of the building was cramped with stalls and their bulky goods that made it pretty tricky to navigate around given the corridor width of about a person's waist. But with its huge variety of textiles ranging from sewing kits to bed sheets, it is like an ahjumma's paradise!

With our 'emergency' relieved, it was time to head over to the mainstream shopping area which hopefully, would be better suited for our age group. We managed to maximize our time usage such that by evening, we had already entirely explored the inside-outs of 2 of the 4 famous towers at Dongdaemun - Doosan Tower (Doota) and Migliore.

From what I have observed from my time at Dongdaemun, the layout of the buildings are pretty much similar to one another. Retail stores are clustered according to what was sold and housed together on a certain level of the building. A good thing about such a system is that shoppers will be able to view a huge variety of a certain product across many shops on the same level. The cons, however, are that competition is extremely high and you can find yourself being pulled into stalls literally by shop owners very often.

The art of bargaining will definitely play a huge role in your shopping experience here. The prices of things sold at Dongdaemun are usually marked-up because shop owners will expect the usual haggling from customers. The best way to bargain sometimes would be to simply to walk away after showing signs of interest to the shop owner although it might not always be effective.

Migliore - Shoes level

Migliore - Female wear level

Migliore - Baby wear level

The streets of Dongdaemun are also worth exploring too with lots of shops and make-shift stalls along almost every walkway. Street food are also plentiful with hotdog stalls being the most popular in the area, selling comfort snacks such as french fries, hot dogs and breaded hotdogs. 

A hotdog stall

The kids eating the fish snacks are just so CUTE!

Having already spent most of the day shopping and eating, we headed "home" to drop off our shopping bags and have our dinner before heading off to City Hall. We decided on dining at Cozy & Grill once again partly to satisfy our meaty cravings and also with reason to introduce the restaurant to C. Yummy!

We ordered the same 갈비살 (beef) and 삽겸살 (pork) as we did during our previous visit to the restaurant. You just have to try their kick-ass 삽겸살 (pork) once to get hooked onto it. And because it was so darn good, we ordered 6 portions this time round. Muhahaha~!


For more information on the restaurant, do refer back to the write-up on Day 9.

삽겸살 (pork)

갈비살 (beef)

After having our delightful dinner, we took the subway down to City Hall Station for our next planned activity for the day, or night rather - Ice Skating. 


Located just in-front of City Hall and a 5-minute walk from the nearest subway station, the Seoul Plaza Outdoor Ice-Skating Rink is a popular must-go place even among the locals. Covering an area of 1,500 square meters, it operates only when the winter season arrives (duh!), lasting usually from December till late February. Its opening hours are from 10am to 10pm during weekdays and till 11pm during weekends and public holidays.



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With just 1,000 won, visitors are entitled for a single ice-skating session which usually lasts an hour and includes the rental of all ice-skating equipment. In-between the sessions are 30-minute no-skate intervals perhaps for maintenance purposes.

  Seoul Plaza Outdoor Ice-Skating Rink

Back to our story, we arrived at the rink just in time for the 8:30pm session. We made our way to the ticketing booth to purchase our tickets before collecting our skate equipment and heading for the locker room. Lockers are available at the cost of 500 won to store what ever belongings you wouldn't want to bring out to the rink, such as your shoes and perhaps your shopping bags.

Ski equipment rental booth

Locker room

With our belongings safe in the lockers and our skates on our feet, it was time to hit the ice floor! Be cautious though. The ice sheet flooring isn't as smooth and flat as indoor ones, or at least the ones I know of. Perhaps it was because of the large number of visitors, the surface of the ice was rather bumpy, ridge-y and rough.

Nevertheless, we got to experience what it was like to skate in the outdoors amongst the locals from all over the city, also capturing their many "Kodak" moments with my camera. From oppas trying to teach their girlfriends how to skate.....

to happy falls...

to high school best friends....

to groups of friends....

to pretty girls >.< opps.....

more couples perhaps?....

and pro-kids that make you feel lousy...

it is definitely interesting even if you were to stand by the side to watch the people interact and have fun! Of course we had our fair share of fun in the rink too, skating around and happy-falling occasionally!

Our time was soon up and we had to leave the rink along with the other skaters. We returned the equipment after collecting our belongings and left the place. With nowhere else planned to go, we decided to just simply stroll around the city and admire the beautiful street Christmas decorations.

After walking around aimlessly for quite awhile, we ended up at start of Cheonggyecheon stream where the big Christmas tree was.  

As if it wasn't cold enough, we got ourselves each an ice-cream after spotting a Baskin-Robbins outlet nearby =P. Because the ambient temperature was well-below zero, the ice-cream practically couldn't melt and we had lots to time to cam-whore with it without the fear of ending up with a pool of cream at the end of it all. In fact, the ambient temperature was so cold, the ice-cream felt like lukewarm beverage sliding down our throats. Cool huh?

We carried on our walk down the same path and only realized that we were heading towards the direction of Gyeongbokgung Palace when we spotted King Sejong's and Admiral Yi Sun-sin's statues from afar. Having yet to take pictures with the statues, we decided to approach them.

 Admiral Yi Sun-sin

King Sejong

Our journey ended at the end of the road just outside Gyeongbokgung palace. Feeling rather exhausted, we all agreed to take a taxi back instead of taking the usual subway. Having enjoyed a great day of fun shopping and playing around, it was time to retire to our "home" to prepare for our next day for we will be traveling out of Seoul once again for a day trip to the mountains. Can't guess where we would be heading to? Stay tuned for the next part =) Good night! ZZZz...

 Gyeongbokgung Palace in the night