Myeongdong Monday

Today I had a real lunch break for the first time! My private lesson started an hour later.

So I sat at Cheonggyecheon with my food and started my homework. Several (older) Koreans came over curiously to see what I was doing.

A woman really questioned me about how long I had been studying and so on, and she quite brazenly pointed her camera in my face without asking. I was so surprised by her behavior that I didn't protest or anything.

Together with my teacher, I thought about what would be the best thing to do today, which was already quite late. And so I ended up walking to Myeongdong to see the cathedral there.

Fun fact: Myeongdong Cathedral is the headquarters of the Archdiocese of Seoul. Around 11% of the population here are Catholic, making Korea the "third most Catholic" country in Asia after the Philippines and East Timor. (If anyone knows a better way to put it, please write it in the comments, I'm having a blast here. 😅)

Directly opposite the cathedral there is a café (Molto) with a roof terrace from where you have a great view. There I ate noodles with mushroom sauce (very tasty), drank iced tea and enjoyed the view of the cathedral and Namsan Tower.

Myeongdong is one of THE tourist hotspots and so I have always avoided it. There is a lot of street food and shopping there, but everything is hopelessly overpriced. The street food was almost twice as expensive as in other parts of the city, and even the jewelry in the two shops I popped into was more expensive than, for example, at the bus terminal in Gangnam. No, no, it doesn't have to be that way!

The photos can't adequately convey how incredibly crowded it was. Really crazy. But they also had grilled sweet potatoes 🍠, which I've never seen anywhere else. I'll definitely pick one up on the way home!

Speaking of the way home: I got some Jjajangmyeon from a restaurant. Unfortunately, I have to say that I didn't like them at all. The sauce tasted kind of weird, which ruined my appetite... But who knows, maybe the hungry Nina of the future will be happy about it.

So, now we are up to date again!

Since I've pretty much completed the most important things on my "to do" list, the daily program is now freestyle. I'm hoping for a lot of good Korean food in my future, that's for sure. 😅

Until then, take care,

Bye cocoa.