Seoul Korea (Day 6 - June 2012)

Today's breakfast (I forgot the name of the place) was unpalatable in comparison to everything we've had so far. The soy bean drink was bland and tasteless.. the pao was hard and too salty.. and that which I was thought was fried noodles turned out to be bamboo shoots!

We visited the Korean Taekuk Ginseng Gallery and learned the virtues of Korean ginseng. Apparently, the planting and harvesting were tightly controlled by the government. A person could only harvest 2-3 crops in his life-time because it took 6 years for the ginseng to mature adequately to be of medicinal value.. after which the land had to rest for 11 long years.. and then planted with fruits.. (e.g. strawberries) for the subsequent 3 years. In the old days, the men would hike up the mountains in search of wild ginseng and would bring along a set of white clean robes and red thread. They would change into the clean clothes after praying to the mountain spirits for luck and protection.. and if they found any ginseng cluster.. they would tie a red thread on the leaves. A story was told of a woman who accidentally found some tasty 'vegetable' up in the mountain.. she ate 3 roots before discovering each one was worth about $4000! We ended up buying ginseng capsules which was more convenient than the powder form.. let's see how effective it really is?

Next stop was the Amethyst Factory.. where Lu Sean bought a sweet-looking necklace with a flower-heart pendant.. my favourite purple! It was super crowded at the Cosmetic Showroom.. the most impressive product was the Lady&Skin Botox serum.. you only have to apply on the skin instead of injecting it.. obviously with much less side-effects. We also learned that it was bye-bye BB cream (Blemish Balm) and hello CC cream (Complete Cover).. 

Lunch was absolutely delicious.. which totally made up for the horrible breakfast. We had ginseng herbal chicken stuffed with glutinous rice.. the ginseng wine which we poured into the soup made it so fragrant! Then, it was shopping paradise at Dongdaemun.. we bargained using the magic word 'jebal' (please) at the Migliore and apM stores.. and they  complemented us with 'yeppeun' (pretty).

After dinner of dumpling soup, we took an evening stroll along the streets near Gangnam Station and had coffee at Hollys Coffee.. which was made popular by the K-drama The Rooftop Prince. Unfortunately, we didn't bump into any celebrities and had to be satisfied just ogling at the life-size posters and cut-outs.. Jang Geun Suk.. Lee Min Ho.. Kim Hyung Jun.. Yoona.. Lee Min Jung.. etc.