{"id":36489,"date":"2024-12-21T19:39:20","date_gmt":"2024-12-21T11:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=36489"},"modified":"2026-03-10T17:29:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T09:29:02","slug":"day-15-seoul-myeongdong-and-shinsegae-department-store-main-store","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2024\/12\/21\/day-15-seoul-myeongdong-and-shinsegae-department-store-main-store\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 15 @ Seoul – Myeongdong and Shinsegae Department Store Main Store"},"content":{"rendered":"

We finished our ice skating activity at the Seoul Plaza past 11AM, and it was about time to figure out lunch and also for the kids to find a place to sit down and rest their legs after all the falling and trying to get up again. Our itinerary for the rest of the day was centered at Namsan, including going up the N Seoul Tower for sunset. So we made our way to Myeongdong, since Namsan was within walking distance of Myeongdong Station. We ended up dropping the Seoul Tower activity though on account of re-checking the costs of getting up to the tower via cable car and the cost of admission into the tower’s observatory deck itself. We concluded that spending more than SGD100 for all of us to go up wasn’t good value for money. Moreover, we’d already observed four sunsets this trip already: two in Busan, one in Suncheon, and one in Ansan.<\/p>\n

Myeongdong<\/strong> was busy this Saturday noon, like our visit last Sunday. We’d yet to try out Korean BBQ this trip, so we ducked into a random BBQ restaurant in the shopping street that was offering unlimited BBQ helpings for 19,800 KRW per person. That restaurant was Hong Bar, and while it’s not in any way near the best-rated Korean BBQ restaurant in the city, it was reasonably priced. The restaurant wasn’t crowded, and we had a laid-back and stress-free lunch, especially in comparison to the time limit set by many Singaporean restaurants in this type of buffet. We ate well, and still had space thereafter to hit a Mega Coffee cafe nearby for beverages while we considered our options for the rest of the afternoon. We’re already gradually winding down the itinerary activities for this vacation, so after deciding to drop going up Seoul Tower, we opted to restore an activity that we earlier dropped from our itinerary: visiting the Shinsegae Department Store<\/strong> and taking a look at the Christmas decorations there.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Hong Bar’s advert board along Myeongdong shopping street that caught our attention.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
The restaurant is located on the third floor. That there weren’t many lunch diners eventually worried us a little, but the food was actually pretty good.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
The list of options at Hong Bar. We opted for the unlimited BBQ for 19,800 KRW per person.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Location of Hong Bar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Wandering around the shopping street after lunch.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
People Mountain People Sea.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Colorful shop billboards everywhere.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Shinsegae is easily reached from Myeongdong, and the huge digital LED wall was impressive: particularly when it was displaying ‘pseudo’-3D content. The 12-floor store carries a large number of luxury goods, but what really caught my attention was the pop-up store for Squid Game Season 2. There was a trio \u2014 the gentleman in the black suit with a briefcase offering passersby Squid Game cards (just like in the first episode of the TV show), with two accompanying game guards \u2014 at the store and also roaming around the premises.<\/p>\n

The Christmas show at the LED wall outside the mall began promptly at 5PM, and a large crowd had already gathered at the opposite side of the road well before the show began. The around 5\u20136 minute show was impressive, though we thought it didn’t really make good use of the 3D effect that the other advertisements<\/span> did. In any case, the weather was getting real chilly, so as soon as the show ended, we made our way to the Hoehyeon subway station to head back home.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Shinsegae LED wall was playing a loop of advertisements, including for the upcoming Squid Game Season 2.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Trying out for… Season 3…?!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Squid Game Season 2!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
The Christmas video at the wall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That’s a wrap for Day 15. Tomorrow will be our last full day in Seoul, and we’re still figuring out what to do. More to come soon!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We finished our ice skating activity at the Seoul Plaza past 11AM, and it was about time to figure out lunch and also for the kids to find a place to sit down and rest their legs after all the<\/p>\n

Read More Day 15 @ Seoul – Myeongdong and Shinsegae Department Store Main Store<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[684],"class_list":["post-36489","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-15-20241221_153744.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36489","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=36489"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38144,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36489\/revisions\/38144"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}