On Sunday Amy and I went to Seoul Forest (서울숲) - which is in the eastern part of Seoul. The new Bundang line actually has a subway stop for Seoul Forest (but the 2014 map I have from the Korea Tourism Office doesn't show it).
Advice: Use the Metroid app everyone! It's your best friend when exploring Seoul ^_^
Anyway, the forest was... well... not as wild as you might think. It was more like a botanical gardens, but with less signage about the names of the trees and flowers etc. There were lots of families and lots of couples riding couple bicycles and wearing couple tees (couple culture in Korea is also for another post), and we also saw a photographer and a couple taking their wedding photos there. In Korea, you take a lot of photos BEFORE the wedding (without the wedding party). This set-up often comes as a package where the photographer provides the photos and the use of several wedding dresses and tuxedos - so you might have three or four really good wedding photos for your parents/in-laws/your album, but the bride might be wearing a different dress in each one, and that dress might be different to the dress she wears on the wedding day. These photos are also sometimes used as your wedding invitations.
We took a track out of the Forest that led up to the Han River. It was a gorgeous day so we just kept walking along the river towards Seoul (being careful not to get smashed in to by cyclists who are allocated 90% of the path) and ended up at Oksu station. Amy noted that we were on the same line as Jellyfish Entertainment, and I hadn't been there since this time last year so... why not visit? We got off at Apgujeong and then walked straight past the matchmaking agency, the McDonalds, through a few backstreets, and then, voila!
Unfortunately the Rock Ur Body ute seems to no longer be part of the Jellyfish entourage, but there was a new addition - a vending machine! Here's me trying to buy a can of rice soda... but sadly my chon won was rejected.
Amy said that last time she was at the building (with her middle-schoolers in tow) a man came out of the building and told the girls to move along. Perhaps VIXX had some obsessed fans just hang out there for a while and so they've upped the vigilance. However, being there on a late Sunday afternoon, there was no one there to tell us to get lost.
After staring at the building for just long enough, we walked back towards the station - stopping at a playground on the way to get a stone out of my shoe (ahem, no, we did not go on the slides).
After Jellyfish we still has some energy and daylight left, so we decided to look for the Codes Combine shop Amy swore she'd seen in Apgujeong Rodeo, so (after about half an hour of trying unsuccessfully to figure out the bus system) we walked in that general direction. And there it was.
Unfortunately, my brilliant idea of buying the men's boxers and wearing them as pajamas didn't eventuate because they only make boxer briefs -_-. Here's a photo of Minseok anyway.
And because it's still relatively warm here (27 is warm for Australians) and because I never turn down the opportunity to have dessert for dinner, we stopped at Caffe Pascucci for Mango Bingsu.
We also found the new Johnny Walker flagship store! Apparently they are
still finishing some parts of the building, and the rooftop bar is only
open to members at the moment. New goal: be a member of Johnny Walker
Korea. The photos of the shop and of the forest are on Amy's camera, so whenever I get the photos from her, I'll add them to this post.
Yep, good times ^_^
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