What’s up everybody? PHILCAELA here :)
If you’ve been following along on our channel or if you’re new here,
we actually recently went to South Korea, but before that we did a mandatory 14-day
quarantine in order to be able to explore safely.
Now, after doing the 14-day quarantine, we were really ready to explore so we spent a
couple of days in Seoul, but from there we headed south to a city called Gyeongju, and
we wanna take you guys with us as we show our trip to Gyeongju!
So hope you enjoy!
Let’s go!!!
So we’ve spent the last 3 days in Seoul just kind of getting back to normal life after
quarantining for 14 days.
We’ve done a lot of shopping, we’ve done a ton of eating, and basically it feels really
good to be out of quarantine.
But now we’re gonna go explore another part of Korea.
What we’re gonna do now is head to Seoul Station then we’re gonna grab a train down
south to a town called Gyeongju, a lot of cool stuff to visit, so we’re gonna head
there now and bring you guys with us, let’s go!
We just got to Seoul Station with about an hour and a half to kill before our train so,
we’re just gonna hang out, probably eat more food.
Now that we’re inside Seoul Station, there’s a bunch of kiosks behind me where you can
buy tickets using the machine.
We realized after we came here that we could have saved like $10-20 on each ticket if we
had bought them at the kiosk here.
I recommend that you just buy tickets when you get here.
Since we have some time before our train, we decided to stop by for a quick meal, I
got a seolleongtang, Phil got a Jeonju bibimbap and no joke the food literally came out in
30 seconds as soon as we ordered.
They took our order, went over to the back and then brought our food.
Like what?
This does not happen in America, you don’t even get your water this quick in America
so it’s like… mind blown.
I’m eating seolleongtang because this is actually one of my favorite Korean dishes,
it just makes you feel really good after eating it.
Oh man!
My favorite thing about Seoul that I didn’t expect coming here is that there are tons
of food stands, convenience stores, literally anywhere.
Even all by the subway station, we’re by the train tracks and there’s Tiger Sugar
Boba, there’s Beard Papa, there’s Katsu sandwiches, convenience stores and the best
thing is that things aren’t very expensive.
They’re not like airport or train station prices as you would see in the US.
Everything is really affordable!
We are literally taking a
train to Busan right now, so get ready for the zombies if there are any…
Bad joke…
But we’re gonna be stopping actually just a few stops before Busan, in Gyeongju.
After arriving at the Gyeongju train station, we went and found taxis to our hotel now in
the center of the city and it’s getting late so we’re pretty much just gonna grab
some food to eat.
Oh my god…
So good…
A little bit after 10:30AM not quiet 11AM yet, but nothing
is open!
We just want coffee and breakfast, but I guess cafes open very late here, usually they open
around 11AM or 12PM.
While we’re waiting for cafes to open, we stumbled upon this fortune teller store.
We read Micaela’s using a translator and it basically said that she needs to watch
out for indigestion, constipation and that she needs to invest now because she’ll reap
the benefits soon.
This is pretty cool!
We are Cafe Ohai, we actually came here last night for just a quick coffee.
So what’s so great about this place is that there’s a nice rooftop.
It’s 3 levels, so there’s the bottom level with 1 or 2 tables and then you get your center
level and then the rooftop is really nice.
You see all those houses with the pretty architecture.
Phil and I were just strolling around and we stumbled upon this kalbijiim place and
it was highly rated and it looks so good!
In the US, this is definitely around $80 for both of us, but here if it’s less than $30
for both of us, that’s a really good deal.
Oh hot!
Mmm!
So good oh it’s spicy!
After that delicious kalbijjim place that we had stumbled upon, Sook, we walked maybe
5 minutes southeast and behind me is one of the most popular things for tourists to visit
in Gyeongju.
This is the Cheomseongdae Observatory, you have these beautiful hills along this area
with lots of tombs and then you also have this observatory this kind of stone/rock structure.
One more thing that we noticed is that there’s the coolest Starbucks in the world right over
there with that really traditional Korean hanok architecture it’s just cool to see
them in that kind of a building over there.
Anyway we’re gonna continue walking down now through this area with lots of cafes and
restaurants and more things for tourists to see.
So today has been lots of just walking and wandering and finding new gems and as we were
walking toward the cultural village, we stumbled upon this cute coffee and donut shop and decided
to stop in.
It’s super cute and we didn’t want donuts because we just ate, so we just got 2 iced
Americanos and just chilling and just enjoying the outdoors.
So continuing our walk 5 minutes south from Cupnut now, we’ve arrived at the cultural
village.
It’s a little bit quiet right now but there are tons of cafes and restaurants and museums
from the looks of it.
Because of the beautiful architecture and the trees that they have around here, it’s
a really, really great place to just wander and lots of great photo ops, too.
We’re currently at Ekoto Cafe, this is actually our 3rd coffee stop of the day because why
not, right?
But overall I love the cafe culture here, the coffee’s really good.
And this is just a really cute town to hang around, just walk around, eat the food, and
just chill honestly!
It’s very relaxing!
Got 2 fresh hotteok, this is really popular in this region in South Korea so gotta try
it when we’re here and I actually really like this it’s super good and it’s really
fresh so it’s super hot right now.
And it’s cold outside so it’s perfect!
After cafe hopping all day, we went back to our hotel for a little bit just to kind of
relax now we’re heading back out to get some dinner for the night.
Given the short amount of time that Micaela and I have in Gyeongju, we prioritized visiting
as many cafes and restaurants as possible.
Again, there are so many things you can do in Gyeongju but because of the weather and
time of the year you don’t have as much of that beautiful green fields and grass and
all those views that you’d have in summer, so again, we prioritized a lot of indoor types
of activities.
When you visit Gyeongju, there are still tons of historical and cultural things to be seen
here, so just because we didn’t spend as much time checking those things out, doesn’t
mean you can’t!
The restaurant we’re eating at right now is a place called “Dong Ri,” hope I’m
not saying that too wrong, but this place is a homestyle cooking, traditional Korean
food restaurant, so honestly, out of everything we’ve eaten so far in Korea, this has been
by far the most complete kind of meal we’ve had so far.
We had a really good central dish, a main dish, of this bulgogi, which was a little
bit different from what we’re used to but super delicious, super smokey, great flavor
and then a ton of sides and then to pair it with the makgeolli.
The food came in a minute or two as soon as we ordered, insane!
So we have lots of sides, like japchae, kimchi, spinach, everything!
Super delicious dinner!
Really glad that we came here and before we go, I wanted to share one funny thing that
just happened.
I never went to Chinese school, I’m not Chinese, and I don’t know how to read hanja.
So this was the first time in my life that I actually did not know how to read the bathroom
signs.
Luckily I was able to use Google Translate and I figured out which one was for men, which
one was for women, and didn’t make a fool of myself.
So, that was interesting!
Good morning!
So we’re getting ready to leave Gyeongju today, we’re gonna check out probably in
the next 30 minutes or so, just gotta finish packing.
We’re gonna take a 3PM train down to Busan so for the rest of the day, we’re probably
gonna visit a coffee shop, get some lunch, and just walk around.
And one of the last things we want to cover here in Gyeongju is one of the local delicacies,
this is Gyeongju bread.
It’s a little pastry like this that’s filled with the red bean paste.
I think it’s delicious.
There are so many bakeries all over town where you can get these, so make sure to try them
if you like red bean flavor.
Mmm!
Packed with red bean in there, all red bean!
Mmm!
We’re at Fete Coffee and this is our last coffee shop before we get lunch and then head
down to Busan.
I always get an iced Americano, and Phil got this La Fete drink.
It’s really cute, it looks like it’s marshmallow, but I think it’s like a dollop of cream
with some sugar or chocolate around it.
So cute!
We are eating lunch now at Ddobagi, we got a bulgogi pancake, we also got a beef stew!
They did such a good job it’s like crispy and a little chewy in the middle and then
the beef is really thinly sliced, oh my gosh!
Mmm!
After a delicious final lunch here in Gyeongju, we’re gonna head back to our hotel now to
collect our things, this area that Micaela and I have been hanging out at like this whole
trip has a name.
This street is called Hwangnidangil, butchering it, but basically it’s just a long street
with all kinds of coffee shops and restaurants, some stores.
So it’s definitely a very central area for you to plan around if you’re coming to Gyeongju.
So we just made it to the train station, we’re gonna leave Gyeongju and we had an incredible
time here!
When I was doing research it looked like a lot of people were here in the summertime,
and everywhere was incredibly packed so we just came on the off-season so definitely
things were more closed and weren’t as opened.
But I think if you definitely come at different time, this city is popping!
So much to do!
And honestly the architecture is so cute.
It’s different from Seoul, it’s more of that Korean traditional hanok villages and
all that.
If you’re looking for a city to visit in Korea that is not a big city like Seoul or
Busan, we would definitely recommend Gyeongju, we had a great time here.
We’re gonna catch our Train to Busan now, hope the zombies don’t get us.
If you know, you know!
And whether you just enjoyed following along or you’re planning on having a trip here,
we hope this video was helpful and entertaining and we’ll catch you guys in the next one.
Bye!
See ya :)