Day 7 & 8 – Seoul, South Korea

And so the first chapter of our travels comes to an end.

We arrived back in Seoul, at our hostel, from Jeju at 5pm. By 6pm we had ventured out to a Korean Bathhouse called Siloam Sauna. Here we parted ways into the men’s and women’s bathrooms, got down to our birthday suits and then experienced various hot and cold spa’s and saunas. I think this was the highlight of the entire trip for both of us.

Ben mostly spent his time in the spa’s and indulged in a body scrub and massage, whole I spent half my time doing that and then other half on the fourth floor, clothed again, in the fomentation rooms. In the women’s area, there were more then 5 different types of spas and on the shared 4th floor, there were about 10 different fomentation rooms to try. My favourites were the red clay ball room, where you lay your body down in a pool of red clay balls heated at about 30 degree heat.

After two hours in here, we were both well and truly relaxed. We met Leila, my friend living in Seoul, back at the hostel at 9pm and then ventured down the street for dinner.

By 11pm, after 3 different flavoured dishes of lamb skewers, some lamb chops and a shaved chocolate milk ice dessert, we were well fed and off to bed.

Day 7

The next morning we walked a few blocks to the palace where we got to witness the changing of the guards. This is a fairly big ceremony with plenty of men dressed in colourful guard uniforms with flags and feathers.

After a wander around the palace, we went to Leila’s favourite tea house called Tea Therapy. Here we were able to use a special map to derive what kind of tea we should drink. I ordered a cold “balloon flower root and pea tea, Ben ordered a hot “cold free” tea which consisted of peppermint and secret Korean herbs.

As it was a hot day and we were all tired of sight seeing, we decided to relax back at the hostel after lunch with a Soju in hand.

That evening, we ventured to the University area for some cocktails, dinner and to witness the many young wannabe K-POP performers and their fans.

Day 8

And that brings us to the end of this trip. This morning we woke up and were sipping on tea at 8am. At the airport by 10am and on board our next flight to London at 1pm.

Next chapter: 3 days in Amsterdam.

Until then, check out this video which is a summary of our experience in South Korea.