Beautiful Spring in South Korea - Gwanghwamun Square & Lotte Mart (Day 1, 04 Apr 2013)

After done window shopping at Insadong Ssamziegil, the sky was getting darker. Then, we proceeded to take the metro to Gwanghwamun 光化门. Maybe that time was peak hour after work, the metro train was super crowded. I was so shy to stand beside a tall and handsome Korean guy (he looks like Korean celebrity) real close (about few centimetres) :P. I was being forced to squeeze into the metro train :S Though I didn't manage to hold anything while the train was moving, but I feel the metro train was running very steady and smooth. I think the locals are very hard working and they finished their work very late, because the metro still quite crowded after 8 pm. And most of them wear very smart to work, especially most of the guys wear suits and tie to work.

Finally, we reached Gwanghwamun Square 光化门广场 around 8 pm. Due to my friend saw that the Gwanghwamun Square 光化门广场 didn't have any light effects, pond and pop-jet fountains, so she wondered whether we were at the correct location. So we decided to ask around the locals that passed by. Lucky us, we found a pair of kind couples to ask for direction. Although they were not really understand English, they were really kind enough to use their smart phone's Google map and shown us the direction. I feel the local Koreans are really helpful and kind to the tourists :)

After our discussion, we decided to leave the place without exploring more at this Gwanghwamun Square 光化门广场. This is because we didn't see any light effects and other special things for us to take pictures. And that night was quite cold with strong wind.

Gwanghwamun Square 光化门广场 - Shooting this picture quite some distance away

Gwanghwamun Square 光化门广场 - More statues in the middle of the road

Gwanghwamun Square 光化门广场 - Found a pair of couples to ask for direction here

Gwanghwamun Square 光化门广场

So without spending much time at Gwanghwamun Square 光化门广场, we walked back to the metro station and headed to Lotte Mart hypermarket that located at Seoul Station. We went there to survey the price of the skincare products we wanted to buy. There are really a lot of different brands of the Korean skincare products there. So we can viewed them all at the same time. In addition, we also bought some snacks and other groceries there. I managed to help my sister to buy Korean ginseng granule tea there :)

After shopping for around 1 hour plus there, we went back to our guest house at Myeongdong 明洞 by taxi. My friend said that since our guest house is quite near to Seoul station, the taxi fare is cheap. But, we took the taxi at the wrong stand, therefore the taxi driver had to make a big turn. He was very kind to tell us that next time we should take the taxi from another side (in front of Seoul station, instead of in front of the Lotte Mart). Although I don't really understand Korean language, but I roughly understood what he meant :P

By the time we reached our guest house was around 10 pm. Our dinner was the Korean instant noodle which we bought from Lotte Mart. Since we had late lunch at ToSokChon Ginseng Chicken Restaurant 土俗村人参鸡, so we just had light dinner at our guest house :) My friend was searching for a special cheese flavour of the Korean instant noodle, but too bad we didn't manage to find it in Lotte Mart.

This ended our Day 1 trip in Seoul...

While waiting for the next metro train, I managed to capture the advertisement board picture at the metro station. The frequency of the metro train service is about 2 minutes. Quite fast! When the train is approaching, you will hear some music is playing

Passed by Lotte Outlet which sells a lot branded stuff

Lotte Mart which located near the Seoul Station. Seoul Station is the old railway station designed in an eclectic style

Seoul Station - the back view