경주 ♡ temple run

It's been literally months since I uploaded the first part of my day in Gyeongju and seeing that today, a year prior, I was already in Korea makes it even more obvious that it is about damn time to continue this series.

Today I want to talk about our adventureous trip to Hwangnyongsa and Bunhwangsa, as well as our night trip to Cheomseongdae and other sites around Gyeongju. This post will be really picture heavy, but as always, I will try to include some information about the sites I visited, as well.
And since I can't recall the last time when I visited so many historical sites on one day, I came up with that rather corny headline - I hope you don't mind...

After visiting Cheonmachong in Tumuli Park (you can read up on that here) we took a cab to Hwangnyongsa. Unfortunately I expected what I had seen on photos - like that one - before and couldn't find the pagoda - naturally since it's not there anymore.

경주 ♡ dipping into Korean history

After I put up my Korean notebook haul and the special post about my visit to the SM popup store in Myeongdong, it's finally time to continue on and talk about my day in Gyeongju.

I actually just recently realized why I like to do my travelogs that detailed and late... they help me revive the memories and in some cases help to sooth my wanderlust. Sometimes it makes it worse but usually it freshens up my daily life that tends to be really hectic and uneventful (at least most of it isn't really blog-worthy).

special ♡ SM pop up store & K-POP gets

People who have followed the updates about my trip to Korea probably remember that I uploaded a ton of pictures in a post about Myeongdong last November already.

Today, other than the previous non-chronological haul posts, I'll talk about a specific topic and share the small amount of impressions I've gathered while being in Korea.

Ironically, I bought more stuff related to Korean pop music and my favorite bands of that genre when I was in Japan than I did last summer when I was actually at the source.

부산 ♡ Haedong Yonggungsa

After falling sick, like I usually do during semester break, I'm still struggling to recover from the feverish state I spent yesterday in. But since I feel a bit better today already, I resumed the work on my term paper and didn't want to cancel today's update.

I hope that I can work on scheduling a couple of the upcoming updates soon, so that I don't need to stress about content anymore - I just didn't have the time to work let alone think about this the last two weeks that have been rather busy. Whatsoever, it's time to start into this new part of last summer's adventures in Korea. 

You can find an overview for my time in Busan here.

After visiting Haeunda Beach in the evening of our arival in Busan, my boyfriend, his mother and I got up early the next morning to visit one of the popular temples around Busan.

Before our departure from Seoul I did some research on places I wanted to visit and this Buddhist temple turned out to be my top favorite destination.

부산 ♡ Haeundae Beach

It's still cold outside and even though my lecture period is over, work for my term paper goes on and on while my motivation this week has gone on its own vacation without me.

Seeing that the last couple of days didn't feel really great for me and other issues decided to beat a path to my door, too - I just started to miss Korea a bit more than before and since it's been almost a month since I last posted anything regarding my last trip, it was definitely about time to carry on. 

So here we are with today's update (that should have been up yesterday), where I share some more details about our first afternoon/night in Busan last summer.

I talked about the general Busan-trip and a small overview here. You should go and re-check it since I will hyperlink the posting to day #2 there as well.

부산 ♡ in the far southeast

After our first two weeks in Seoul we decided to pack up some things and take a trip somewhere else. Seoul is a great place with many things and places to discover and explore but it was really important for me to see as much from Korea as possible.

A part of my boyfriend's family lives close to Busan, which made it extra convenient for us in terms of lodging. His mother accompanied us as well and - oh lord - they were all so incredibly warm and nice to me and I honestly can't say how much I enjoyed our short journey of exploration.

Since I have a ton of photos from the two or three days we spent in the far southeast of Korea, this here will be the vanguard only. 

롯데월드 2 ♡ Studio Ghibli Merchandise Store

After our adventures with the 1600 Pandas exhibition around the Lotte World Tower Mall (or Lotte World 2, how it's written in the headline), that you can check out here -
we went around the area a little longer to gather more impressions and I found another small treasure I want to talk about this time - the Studio Ghibli merchandise shop.
I forgot its actual location but the Krispy Kreme Doughnuts store is opposite of it so if you find that, you're all good.

1600 Pandas ♡ 롯데월드 2

I think it was on one of the last days of July when the boyfriend told me about the touring exhibition/project and since it was already time for them to move on to the next destination I was overly excited when we got into motion the next afternoon and went over to Lotte World II - pretty much on Jamsil Station (which was only three or four stops from our station) to meet one of my favorite animals - a whole bunch of them, made of papier-mâché, and with a whole bunch I mean 1600 (in words one thousand six hundred) of them.

Seoul: 신촌 ♡

The first irony that appears to me when I look back at my experiences in 신촌 - Sinchon, is the gap between the time I spent there and the number of photos I took from the area.

I've honestly been to Sinchon so many times during my stay, no matter if it was for meeting my friends from Germany, going for noraebang (which is the Korean equivalent of karaoke) or staying awake till 7am to celebrate a triple birthday (you probably saw the photo of our ice cream cake on my instagram timeline).

Another irony is that it took me almost 1h to actually go to Sinchon but I still found myself there so many times and it's definitely one of my favorite areas that I've seen during my stay.

So today, though adored with only a couple of photos, I want to share some small snippets and facts about the area around Sinchon station with you.

명동 ♡ window shopping expeditions

< this post is picture heavy >

Next to the cultural, historical and traditional sites that I visited throughout my vacation, wandering through crowds of people and experiencing the rythym, the pace of the city myself was one of my favorite things to do and though I'm usually moderate with my spendings I really loved to go around and shop with my eyes. How could there be a better place to do that than Myeongdong, one of Seoul's main shopping districts?
Who caught sight of the headline (and is literate in hangul) might have already guessed it; none other is today's posting about!

Seoul: 광화문광장 & 세종로 ♡

Proceeding your first steps through Seoul as a tourist you won't get away without visiting the area around Gwanghwamun Station (광화문역) - the Gwanghwamun Plaza (광화문광장) , the mainroad Sejongno (세종로) and Gwanghwamun (광화문) itself, the gate that leads to the Gyeongbokgung Palace (경복궁), royal palace of the Joseon dynasty.

I visited the Plaza and walked down Sejongno the first time with my two friends who studied abroad during the time I was in Seoul. 

Seoul: 남산공원 ♡ N Seoul Tower

After the afternoon we spent with my dear friends at 이대, that I talked about here, 

the boyfriend and I went back to our hostel to rest a bit since we were still jet-lagged. 

Later that night we pulled ourselves together to visit 남산공원 - the Namsan Park and N Seoul Tower 

for our 300 Days anniversary date.

이대 ♡ visiting ewha womans university

I started into vacation straight out of the busy hustle of university life only two days after my last exam for the summer semester but this allowed me to enjoy a couple of days with one of my dearest friends who spent 6 months in Seoul to study abroad.

As one of our first meetings said friend, felix, invited the boyfriend and me over to the university he had studied at to show us around the campus.

시작이 반이다 ♡ traveling to South Korea

I'm starting this introductory post for the upcoming postings about Korea with a Korean proverb in the title:
시작이 반이다 "shijaki banida" - Starting is half the task.

After finally making up my mind, I think it is about time, that I gather my ideas and thoughts and talk about my trip to South Korea and the time I spent on the other side of the planet.

Traveling is life just as life is traveling vice versa. - Jean Paul

八月 ♡ a month in a nutshell

It's weird how fast time flies by when you are busy... it's already time for the next nutshell ♪

I spent most of August in Korea which results in this resume being full with small impressions from my trip. I still haven't make up my mind about how I want to do my updates about the five weeks I spent on the other side of the world yet, so I think it's a small treat my readers are well worth, after I let you wait for so long, when I showed no sign of life on my blog whatsoever.

旅心は里心になった。♡ yen to see distant places

旅心は里心になった。

"wanderlust became homesickness." is the title of today's update. 

The last about my trip to Japan, back in spring 2014. I can't believe how long it took me to actually share everything I experienced and I still think there are a lot of things, I could not include or simply wasn't able to express with words.

   

お土産 ♡ what I bought in Japan

Assuming from my own - pretty nosy - nature, I thought it would be fun to share what I spent all the money on, during my trip. Since I stayed a month in total, I'm sure a certain amount of cash was used to feed and carry myself around. There are only two or three days I recall, when I didn't board a train during my 4 weeks stay.

However, I got the chance to buy a lot of stuff - though I couldn't help my thrifty nature and didn't spend nearly as much as I feared I would - and especially the 100￥ shops, namely Daiso were to my liking. I still don't understand why we can't have something like that where I live.

Literally everything there was more pleasing to the eye than what I've seen for easily twice as much in my home country.

The quality might not be the best and I have to admit that some of the stationery I bought are decrepit by now (after one year of constant use), but other things from the same store still work completely fine.

東京と大阪 ♡ city view

As one of the last posts about my trip to Japan, I tried to gather all the photos that were still missing to grand them another post, that will be filled with impressions I collected when I roamed the cities of Osaka and Tokyo.

スカイ・ライン ♡ all the lights

During one of our last days of our stay, back in Tokyo we took the oportunity to visit the Tokyo Tower. Sadly the weather wasn't that good and so we went without going up the tower, being quite sure the view through foggy air and grey clouds wouldn't be worth the while. The time we spend in the base of the tower and the cute food, however was worth it and the next time, I will go on a good-weather day and enjoy the view from the top of the tower even more.

浅草 ♡ the aftermath

When I looked through my remaining photos I found a bunch that definitely deserved an own post.

The day deserves some words anyway, though it's not chronological anymore, since it was before our trip to Tokyo Disney Land (part one | part two).