Sep 18, 20223 min read

week 4 ! chuseok holiday, gyeongbokgung palace, shopping, cafe hopping

Since we had a 4 day weekend for the Chuseok Holiday, we had a jam packed schedule filled with lots of fun! For our first day, we went to the COEX Mall and the Goto Mall again for shopping and pictures. I had the same sushi that I had last time that I went and it was just as amazing. I didn't expect to buy even more clothes at Goto Mall, but I just couldn't resist the cute and cheap items that they had there. What's worse was that after all that shopping, we headed home just to find a pop-up discount cosmetic shop that was nearby our campus! Of course, we went in and I spent a ton of money on makeup and skincare. The brands that they were selling were all from well-known Korean cosmetic stores such as Etude House, TonyMoly, and Innisfree for only a third of what the original price was. It was a successful day of shopping, but I had to limit myself from then on.

i love sushi... i miss genkis :( so many products for so cheap ! my haul

On day two, we went to the Gyeongbokgung Palace! The entire experience from choosing the hanbok, to getting our hair done, taking an endless amount of pictures, and walking around the palace was all very enjoyable and I had such a good time there! It did get really hot especially wearing those thick hanbok dresses, but since we came early, there were less people to crowd our photos and we got a lot of amazing shots. I guess we were pretty tired from all of that because after getting lunch nearby the palace, we went back home to rest for the rest of the day. Walking around those dresses was exhausting even though we all looked so cute, so we deserved to chill for the rest of the day.

i felt like a pretty pink princess hehe

On day three, we pretty much continued resting up until late afternoon when we went to the N Seoul Tower! This was my second time coming here, but this time I bought a dalgona lollipop and I took pictures of the sunset at the top of the tower. We were craving some American food after a long run of us eating Korean, so we stumbled upon this burger restaurant with American style burgers. It was delicious, and it reminded me of home.

sunset view of n seoul tower ! so many cute dalgona designs great food with great people

On day four, we decided to go café hopping in Hongdae! I took my friend group to the cafes that I've went before, though a lot of places we couldn't enter due to the large amount of people there since it was still the holidays for Korea. Nonetheless, we discovered a lot of cute shops and other cafes that were just as fun! A few of my friends hadn't been to Hongdae, so I had a great time showing them around there. We had KBBQ in the morning, bingsu in the afternoon, and Italian food at night. The KBBQ was amazing as usual, the bingsu was refreshing, but the pasta and spaghetti was a little bit too sweet for our tastes. Later in the night, we concluded our day by visiting the Harry Potter cafe! The cafe had 5 floors, all themed areas from the franchise. I wish I read or watched at least one Harry Potter book or movie, because this was a very neatly decorated place. I still admired the interior and the cakes that we had were just the right amount of sweetness. That was a good way to end our four day weekend, and but sadly we had to go back to our regular school week.

kbbq lunch great bingsu italian food

tiramisu and carrot cake ! the decor is so cool! i wish i'd seen harry potter lol

For the next few days, we continued eating dinner together and helping each other out with school related issues. We had a bit of trouble figuring out how to pay for certain fees at the school and other basic needs like getting an ID, but that was soon resolved as the days went by. I visited the CAU Logo Shop, which had high-quality CAU merchandise displayed. I tried the cafeteria food in the 310 building and it was fairly good. The cafeteria in our dorms will be open the day after, so I'm looking forward to eat conveniently there. And as usual, we continued eating good food and getting photos taken at photobooths, plus some norebang.