Hi, welcome to Sugar N Pie Korea travel blog. In this blog, we gonna share our most wonderful 13-days journey in South Korea, travelling from the south to north. This day was our fifth day in Seoul. Hope this Seoul itinerary could help you to finetune your trip.
Seoul Itinerary
Day 5 : Chasing the stars
Line Friends Store- K-star Road - Starfield COEX Mall
(Starfield Library - Coex Aquarium - SM Town Coex Artium)
Stop 1: Line Friends Store
Our first station was Line Friends Store & Cafe in Sinsadong. It is known as the first and largest LINE flagship store in the world. We were taken Seoul subway from Hoehyeon Station to Sinsa Station. Getting out from Exit 8, we walked straight until seeing Garosu-street on our left. Line Friends Store is located at the center of Garosu-street.
The outlet comprised of 4 floors, featuring huge merchandise section with cafe. We were greeted by the gigantic LINE icon once stepped into the store. The Brown doll was 3.2 meters high and in pumpkin costume to celebrate the upcoming Halloween. Soooo adorable!
Ground floor was the main merchandise level, selling plethora of stationery, handbag, plush doll, electronic etc. Every item was so cuteee and especially irresistible to young lady! Look at the Brown clutch bag I bought! []~(￣▽￣)~*
Moving to the first floor, we were overloaded with cuteness. This floor was used to sell clothing items such as shirts, backpack, hair band etc. for both children and adult, but detailed decorated. We were like entering the sweet home of LINE characters. Actually, we’re not a die-hard fans of LINE but the place was just too cute to be missed. Every detail inside was reliving the inner kid in us. On the second floor, there had limited edition audio accessories in which LINE Friends corporation with Bang & Olufsen.
Another highlight was the themed café at lower ground floor. Other than decorated with LINE characters, many coffee and cute desserts eg. Brown ice cream, Cony cookie, Sally Macaron etc, were served here and only exclusive to this Garosu-gil store.
Stop 2 : Hallyu K-Star Road
Walking out from Line Friend Store & Cafe, we took bus no.145 from the bus stop opposite of Garosu-gil Road. Got off at Hanyang Apartment - Apgujeong Rodeo Station, Hallyu K-Star Road was right in front us.
The road displays colorful art dolls symbolizing K-pop stars who featured in the center of the Hallyu culture including BTS, Super Junior, EXO, TVXQ, SNSD, Black Pink, BigBang, Psy etc, along the road. Each blue colour bird logo installed on the lamppost has a QR code. Scanning those QR code would bring people to know about these K-pop celebrities, eg. the restaurants and fashion stops they liked the most.
Apgujeong-dong and Cheongdam-dong also concentrated with the offices of the most famous entertainment corporations in Korea, eg. SM, CUBE and JYP Entertainment, which makes it become the must-visit spot for k-pop fans.
Stop 3: Starfield COEX Mall
Near the end of K-Star Road, we moved to our next destination, Starfield COEX Mall by taking bus no.345. The mall is huge, we would lost direction inside if didn’t grab a floor guide map before entry. Starfield COEX mall has everything more than a usual shopping mall. Other than amazing restaurant and cool clothing brand stores, the mall also feature with library, five-star hotel, clubs, casino, movie theater, museum, record stores and aquarium etc. With the wide range of facilities it offered, we totally had no time for boredom.
Starfield COEX Library got to be one of our favorite space in the mall. It is situated at the heart of Starfield COEX mall. The stylish giant bookshelves and warm natural lighting create a spacious and pleasing environment for reader to study. Each of the bookshelves is packed with wide selection of books and magazines. Other than that, e-book system is also readily available to support the reading through electronic devices. It is open to public, so anyone can just pick a book, find a seat and immerse themselves into the book. Me and YT, both are not a huge library fans. But both of us were wondering whether we could get motivated and score better in exam paper if our school’s library is as cozy as this.
Another facility in COEX Starfield Mall which fascinated us was COEX Aquarium.
The aquarium was situated at the basement of Starfield COEX Mall. It is known as the largest aquarium in Korea. Each of us paid 28,000won for the entrance fee.
The aquarium features incredible diversity of aquatic life around the globe, housing 650 species, approximate 40,000 organisms in total. And it is nicely set up into separated and different themed areas, such as otter in Amazon rain forest, phararie dog in desert area, manatee in Marine Mammal Village, Moon Jellyfish in Garden of Jellyfish.
We could see how diverse aquatic animals eg. turtle, shark, stingray etc coexist in the ocean through the glass tunnel. We also had the chance to see the harmony interaction between these cute sea creatures with the feeder in Mermaid Performance.
The aquarium also offers lot of fun interactive stations, which suitable for families with kids, such as making those old basin, old fridge into creative aquarium in ‘Fish in Wonderland’ session. At ‘Marine Touch Lab’, we were allowed to touch those little sea creatures eg. starfish, clams and fishes, and got our natural hand spa from 'Doctor Fish'.
As a fans of EXO, SMTOWN Coex Artium is one of the bucket list that I must ticked off. (☆▽☆)/ It is situated beside of COEX Starfield Mall.
Previously the six floors building housed the entertainment complex run by SM Entertainment, which focused on the artists who are signed with this company. Now it has been modified into a small theme park, which centered around all the artists in SM Entertainment, such as EXO, NCT, Aespa, SHINee, Super Junior, SNSD, TVXQ, Red Velvet etc. It is featured with SMTOWN Musuem, SMTOWN Café & Market, SMTOWN Theatre and SMTOWN Gift Shop that caters to the fans of SM Entertainment.
The entrance fee of museum and dessert were a bit overpriced for us. However, that was still a great experience, soaking ourselves in the world of SM Town. This place definite is a must go place for K-pop fans especially to SM artists.
Dinner : Jjimdak
Back to Myeongdong, we got Jjimdak (Korean Braised Chicken) as our dinner. The restaurant, Andong Jjimdak was strongly recommended by YD’s friend and he didn't let us down. The Jjimdak served was savoury with a very subtle spicy kick. Absolutely delicious! After having a greatly satisfied meal, we back to guesthouse for rest.
This was all our activities
on Day-10 in Korea.
See you next day,
bye.
ヾ(≧▽≦*)o