{"id":36485,"date":"2024-12-20T22:28:45","date_gmt":"2024-12-20T14:28:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=36485"},"modified":"2026-03-10T17:31:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T09:31:03","slug":"day-14-seoul-starfield-coex-library-and-mall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2024\/12\/20\/day-14-seoul-starfield-coex-library-and-mall\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 14 @ Seoul – Starfield COEX Library and Mall"},"content":{"rendered":"

We had a free day today after we cancelled our day trip to visit the Wondae-ri Birch Forest as the itinerary activity was changed to Mt. Sorak in lieu of adverse weather. We kept our free day’s activities light and easy. As the daughter quipped, we’d been hustling every day in South Korea for almost two weeks now, so being able to sleep in and wake up much later than normal was a welcome change.<\/p>\n

We lined up three places to check out today: the Starfield COEX Mall and Library<\/strong>, Dongdaemun Design Plaza, and also ice skating at the Seoul Park Skating Rink. First up was the Starfield COEX, which was some distance away from Seoul Station and involved a change of train lines to get there. But since we were leaving in the mid-morning only, the trains were noticeably less congested with morning commuters, and we made it to the place at 10:15AM, first stopping by the Gangnam Style Sculpture, then visiting the Starfield Library, and finally the COEX Mall where we also grabbed lunch at Saboten – one of our two favorite Tonkatsu restaurants anywhere.<\/p>\n

Pictures!<\/p>\n

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Like making a pilgrimage to a holy site. LOL.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We’ve been seeing a lot of advertising for the upcoming Season 2 of The Squid Game, to be released on 26 Dec.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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I’ve seen the Starfield Library in photos, but seeing it in person this morning: I literally went ‘WOW’.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The Christmas decorations in the library are stunning.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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All three of us – the missus, daughter and I – all took photos of the library.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We all had the same question though: how does anyone get those books on those high shelves…?!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Though the library’s opening hour is 10:30AM, the place was pretty crowded by the time we got there a few minutes past opening time. Very few persons were actually there to make use of the library’s facilities or catalog though: I think 95% of the visitors were there to gawk at how stunning the place looked!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Starfield COEX Mall is the largest underground shopping mall in Asia, and it shows. There are hundreds of restaurants, cafes and shops. We were spoiled for choice, and our choices came down to Indian here, Japanese at several Tonkatsu restaurants, or Turkish.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We went with the safe choice: Saboten. Pricing for the Rose Katsu sets were about the same as what we’d pay in Japan [i.e. and also definitely cheaper than Singapore].<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Super-duper burgers!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Er….! But one Facebook friend quipped: these apparel are made in heaven haha.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Entrance to Starfield Library. You can either go in through here, or through the basement connection from COEX Mall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We spent a few hours in the COEX at the library, lunch, and just generally exploring the mall before heading next to the Dongdaemun Design Plaza. Continued in the next post!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We had a free day today after we cancelled our day trip to visit the Wondae-ri Birch Forest as the itinerary activity was changed to Mt. Sorak in lieu of adverse weather. We kept our free day’s activities light and<\/p>\n

Read More Day 14 @ Seoul – Starfield COEX Library and Mall<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[684],"class_list":["post-36485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traveling","tag-south-korea-2024","wpcat-17-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/blog-2024-korea-day-14-20241220_102954.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36485"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38147,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36485\/revisions\/38147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}