Travel: South Korea - Day 4 (Myeongdong Street, Myeongdong Cathedral & Studio Ghibli Exhibit)

Ready for our today's adventure. Our itinerary is:

Myengdong Street

Hanbok Experience 

Myeongdong Cathedral

Studio Ghibli Exhibit

~ Myeong-dong ~
Myeong-dong Station, Subway Line 4 

"A mecca for shoppers"
One of the most expensive shopping areas in the world. Yes! you read it right! maybe because this place are selling those mid-range to high end branded items from both local and international brand.

Myeong-dong is not just famous with branded items but also with cosmetics. As most of Korean cosmetic brands have outlets here. 

Just in case you don't know where you are heading or you just get lost, look for this Mobile Tourist Officer who are very helpful to guide you on your direction. Just look for the people wearing red jacket with an ‘ⓘ’ (information) logo. These people are multi-lingual that added convenience to the tourist.

 It was a bit early when we arrived in Myeong-dong thats why the streets are not crowded yet.

Only in the afternoon when the place was starting to be crowded as the more people are coming and street vendors are starting to set up their stalls

oh they also have Bee Cheng Hiang here. 
I wonder if the taste is same as in Singapore

This is how crowded the place is.

Hanbok Experience

Visiting South Korea will not be complete without experiencing dressing up their Hanbok Traditional Dress. One of the famous place to try Hanbok for free is at the Seoul Global Culture & Tourism Center in Myeongdong

~Seoul Global Culture & Tourism Center~

27, Myeongdong 8-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul 

서울특별시 중구 명동8길 27 (명동2가)

Direction:
Euljiro-ga Station (Subway Line 2), Exit 5
Go straight on Euljiro-ga Street, and turn right onto Myeongdong 9-gil Street.
Turn right on the Myeongdong 9ga-gil Street
Turn left onto Myeongdong 7-gil Street
Go straight for 300m to arrive at M Plaza on the left

Myeongdong Station (Subway Line 4) Exit 4
Go straight for 150m to arrived at M Plaza on the right

We visited the place on our 4th day in Seoul but unfortunately it was Sunday and they're closed on weekends.

Good thing about their tourism officer is that they can speak English, Mandarin and Japanese.

The center has a free wi-fi and lounge for your convenience.

 Since we were not able to try the free Hanbok Exprience we end up getting some brochures for our next destination.

This souvenir items leads us to our next destination. Because when we asked the officer 
where to buy/get all this Seoul Souvenir,they pointed us to another tourism centre. 
The Myeong-dong Tourist Information Center.

~Myeong-Dong Tourist Information Center~
66, Eulji-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul

Direction: 
Myeongdong Station (Subway Line 4) Exit 4
From M Plaza, go straight until you reach the end of the road and you will see a blue building, its located at the 1st Floor of  KEB building

Euljiro1-ga Station (Subway Line 2), Exit 5.

The building is just opposite this Paris Baguette and 7 Eleven store

This place have more leaflets/brochures compare to Seoul Global Culture & Tourism Center. Make sure you check all those brochures as you might be able to see some good discount coupons within that area. For us, we were able to get an Everland discount coupon. Check out my South Korea - Day 6 blog for our Everland adventure.

We actually not aware that they also have a free Hanbok Experience here, we just came here to buy some souvenirs and postcard. Until we notice some noise coming from the small room and when we ask the officer, she told us that we can try their Hanbok for 10 minutes (but actually you can try it even for more than 10 minutes as long as there nothing much people waiting outside, we spend more than 20 minutes inside as we really enjoy trying all their Hanbok). All we have to do is to register and wait for your turn. Luckily there's nothing much tourist that time so we were second on the list.

You can actually just stay inside the centre while waiting for your turn. You wont feel bored as they have free wi-fi and some brochures to read on while waiting. They also provided some desktop computer for the tourist to use and most importantly you can charge your celphone and all your gadgets while waiting.

Now our turn!

After more than 20 minutes inside below are the output.

Korean map post box 

lunch

krw 24,000 for 2 person

So after visiting the 2 tourist center, we proceeded to Myeongdong Cathedral. 

Our initial plan was to attend English mass at 9:00am but since we were very tired on yesterday's Nami Island Adventure we weren't able to wake up early.

~Myeongdong Cathedral~

74, Myeongdong-gil, Jung-gu, Seoul 

서울특별시 중구 명동길 74 (명동2가)

Direction:

Myeong-dong Subway Station (Seoul Subway Line 4), Exit 8
Walk along Toegyero-gil st. for about 300m and turn right at the intersection.
Walk along Myeongdong-gil st. for 100m to the Catholic Center
Walk up along the center.

Euljiro Ipgu Subway Station (Seoul Subway Line No. 2), Exit 5
Turn right and walk along Myeongdong3-gil st. for 400m
Turn left and walk along Myeongdong-gil st. for 400m to the Catholic Center
Walk up along the center.

Myeongdong Cathedral is the first brick chruch in Korea built in Gothic Style

*The interior of the church arched side aisles and stained glass windows

~Studio Ghibli Exhibit~

6/F I' Park Mall (in between the bookstore and the living area)

55, Hangang-daero 23-gil Yongsan-gu, Seoul

Yongsan Station (Subway Line 1)

The exhibit will be running until 1st March 2015. You may visit their official website here, but the website is only in Korean only.

Admission Fee
Adult - KRW 15,000
Children - KRW 12,000

We visited the exhibit on Sunday afternoon. 

Upon purchasing a ticket, they will hand you a round white sticker which you can doodle and paste in the wall while waiting for your number to be called. Apparently, there's no queue when we visted the place.

Theres are total of 6 movies presented in the exhibit

Upon entering the exhibit, the first movie that greeted us was the Howl's Moving Castle.

 This is actually moving

Princess Mononoke

Pom Poko

This is the first Hayao Miyaki's movie that we had watch and we really love it!

Wondrin' whats inside that tree trunk?

Its totoro!!

Porco Rosso

Spirited Away

This movie was inspire in Jiufen downtown in Taipei

At the end of the gallery was the souvenir shop selling all the Studio Ghibli's collectibles and souvenir items.

That's the end of our Day 4 Adventure!!