I slept more last night than I did the night before. This time, I didn’t wake up until 330am. Yay! 6hr of sleep instead of 4hr. I definitely feel more rested also.

After another quick morning workout, Vince and I walked 5min to Tera Gimbap to get some gimbap for breakfast. I originally wanted to try the ham and cheese gimbap but they messed up one of my orders and gave me the original instead. It was still good though. All of the gimbap has egg, mayo, carrot and daikon. The mayo reminded me of Taiwanese vegetarian sushi rolls my mom used to make me in high school. Helped avoid the dryness.

Bulgogi gimbap. The bulgogi wasn’t saucy. Instead, it tasted more like dry meat like pork floss.

Crab meat tera gimbap. I thought it was going to be real crab but who was I kidding. It was imitation crab. Still good though!

Original gimbap. Vince originally wanted to try this so it worked out in the end.

Then we walked 3min to MEGA COFFEE to get our morning coffee doses to-go. Since it is a Monday morning, more places are open earlier to probably accommodate working people.

We got the Tiramisu latte and the Condensed milk latte. The condensed milk latte was very good!! It was sweetened from the condensed milk and you can taste it a little. The tiramisu is typical but still good.

Afterwards, we took the subway station to visit the Changdeokgung Palace and Jongmyo Shrine.

When we arrived to Changdeokgun Palace, we saw a sign that said it was closed due to holiday. Then we walked to Jongmyo Shrine, which only allow tour guides on weekdays and if you wanted to just walk around inside, it has to be on holidays and certain days. The next tour time was an hour later so we decided to check out Gyeongbokgung Palace, which is very close by too. We saw a lot of tourists renting hanboks and dressing up. They were taking selfies and pictures everywhere around the palace.

During our walk towards the second palace, we accidentally stumbled upon Insadong Street, which had alot of shopping and food vendors. There was even a food mall along the strip.

We saw some cute pastries at Bricksand Insadong and got some desserts. They turned out to be like madeleines but mixed with various nuts or chocolates.

We got 3 to share and try:

Dark, Matcha, Basic. The basic was our favorite! It was softer than the matcha. The matcha is a piece of chocolate at the bottom of the madeleine. I haven’t tried the dark chocolate yet. I’m sure I’ll love it because I love dark chocolate!

The dark chocolate looks like the matcha but with dark chocolate instead.

Then we headed back to Hongdae to eat lunch at Jangin Dakgalbi. This was one of those places I wanted to try on the first night but it had such a long line for a Saturday night. However, today is a Monday day time so we figured it’ll be more empty because of work/school. And we gambled correctly!

Not only that, but we also got their lunch special! For 24,000won, we ordered the Chicken Dakgalbi for 2 plus mozzarella cheese and ramen noodle (added topping).

It was served in a large and wide skillet with a river of melted mozzarella down the middle being flanked by saucy chicken and cabbage. Dakgalbi is spicy stir fried chicken cut into little pieces and marinated with gochujang sauce. It was so saucy, so cheesy and so delicious. Very Instagram worthy and very yummy! It was so good. It looked more than it actually was because it wasn’t that much in depth.

Then, i randomly saw Heuk Hwa Dang and wanted to try it. I figured it was Taiwanese boba?

I got the Black milk tea with boba. The milk tea was good and standard. The boba was soft and chewy and sweet. I give it a thumbs up! I can’t wait to try the actual thing in Taiwan!!!!

We stopped by Astronomers Coffee again so that Vince can get an afternoon gym coffee and buy some coffee beans. The barista gave us a free cup of iced drip coffee (either because they didn’t have the drip Vince wanted or because we bought a few bags of whole beans). Either way, we love the place!

Then, we climbed for an hour at a climbing gym right across the street from our hotel called Boulder Friends Climbing. It was interesting because the entry is down 3 floors in a dark stairway. It led to a door at the bottom in pitch black with no lights!!

The gym itself was very small and the setting was different. The style is just different. We did get some super cute gym shirts!!

For dinner, Vince and I were trying to find a restaurant that served both stone bibimbap and soon dubu tofu soup to satisfy Vince and my cravings (respectfully). But most have either just one or the other!! In the end we ended up at Kangkang-sullai which is an upstairs restaurant and on the fancier side. They had soups to accommodate my needs too.

Hot stone rare beef bibimbap. This was Vince’s and it also came with a big stone bowl of soybean paste stew. It was a lot of food! Vince loved his bibimbap! It was rare beef but because the stone was so hot, it cooked the beef very fast!

The soybean tofu soup was just a big stone bowl. There was so much volume. It included a lot of tofu and mushrooms and onion. Flavor was strong.

Beef short rib soup. This came with white rice that had little yellow things in it, maybe seeds or corn seeds of some sort? I liked it!! It also came with dipping sauce. The broth was so clear and light yet comforting.

Our meal also came with banchan sides that included squid with gochujang sauce, green beans, daikon and Japchae!!! The Japchae was very delicious and they were generous with the sesame oil, which I loved!! What also surprised me was the added mushrooms to the Japchae. Yummy!

They also gave us a sweet rice cracker snack and a cup of red juice to finish our meal at the end. The crackers were really good, light and airy. The juice tasted like fruit punch.

FINALLY, we ate our cream pastries from the night before when we passed by Fuhaha. Their display of cream bread cross sections looked so cute and smooth that Vince and I wanted to try some.

We got the sweet salt bread and the matcha red bean. The sweet salt cream was very airy and light with the elegant contrast of mild salt versus sweet.

The matcha red bean had similar texture but not as creamy or light. The matcha was very strong to the point of matcha bitter. The red bean was sweet.

I would get these desserts again. There’s just too much good food here!